Its another edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at UFC 312 taking place in Sydney, Australia.
DDP breaks Strickland’s nose, dominates in victory
Dricus Du Plessis used his striking skills to control the rematch with Sean Strickland. The challenger could not get any consistent offense against DDP as his jab was sporadic and ineffective. DDP broke Strickland’s nose which bothered the former middleweight champion. The South African emphatically ended the feud between the two.
Although DDP has eyes to move up in class (like most champs for some reason) to challenge for the Light Heavyweight title, I do not think its a great idea. Rather, Khamzat Chimaev or Nassourdine Imavov who just defeated another former champ should be next. As for Strickland, he loves to fight and can find himself in some sort of war on social media to bring to the Octagon. Notably, it appears that Strickland may be leaving longtime coach Eric Nicksick after criticism of his motivation for fighting.
Zhang hands Suarez first loss of career
How was Tatiana Suarez the favorite in this fight? Regardless, Weili Zhang successfully defended her UFC women’s strawweight against Suarez. Zhang neutralized Suarez’s wrestling and became the first woman in the promotion to take her down. It was Zhang’s grappling skills that overpowered the previously unbeaten Suarez.
UFC 312 was a sell out with 18,233 for a gate of $7,687,317 at the Qudos Bank Arena as announced by Dana White at the post-fight press conference. He indicated the sell out broke the venue’s record which was set by the UFC.
The bonuses went to Quillan Salkild, Tallison Teixeira and Rong Zhu and Kody Steele for Fight of the Night. Salkild and Teixiera made their promotional debuts on the card and it took them less than a round to earn their $50K bonus. Zhu and Steele put on a show in the early prelims with Zhu prevailing. Both received $50K.
| Fighter | Payout | Fighter | Payout |
| Dricus du Plessis (8) | $42,000 | Sean Strickland (22) | $32,000 |
| Zhang Weili (11) | $42,000 | Tatiana Suarez (8) | $32,000 |
| Justin Tafa (9) | $6,000 | Tallison Teixiera * (1) | $4,000 |
| Jimmy Crute* (9) | $6,000 | Rodolfo Bellato ** (2) | $4,000 |
| Jake Mathews (20) | $16,000 | Francisco Prado (4) | $4,500 |
| Jack Jenkins * (4) | $4,500 | Gabriel Santos (3) | $4,000 |
| Tom Nolan * (3) | $4,000 | Viacheslav Borshchev * (7) | $6,000 |
| Wang Cong (2) | $4,000 | Bruna Brasil * (4) | $4,500 |
| Colby Thicknesse (1) | $4,000 | Aleksandre Topuria (1) | $4,000 |
| Rong Zhu # (4) | $4,500 | Kody Steele * (1) | $4,000 |
| Jonathan Micallef * (1) | $4,000 | Kevin Jousset (3) | $4,000 |
| Quillan Salkilld * (1) | $4,000 | Anshul Jubli # (2) | $4,000 |
| *Dana White Contender Series | |||
| ** Fought twice on DWCS | |||
| # Road to UFC alum |
UFC 312 PPV Prelims drew 881,000 viewers on Saturday night on ESPN2. The telecast fared better than the UFC 311 PPV Prelims in January which were relegated to FX due to conflcicts with College Basketball. UFC 311 only drew
Sponsorships
The Octagon sponsors this time around included Aviator, VeBetter, Bud Light, Prime, Crypto.com, Ladbrokes, the Warner Bros. dark-sci-fi comedy Mickey 17, Crown, streaming service Kick, Sydney tourism board, Budweiser, JD Sports, Ampol Food Dary, True Classic, and Monster in the center of the Octagon
Also on the broadcast Jose Cuervo which sponsored several segments during the broadcast. The tale of the tape was sponsored by VeBetter.com by vechain.
The UFC embedded episodes were sponsored by Crypto.com.
Odds and ends
Favorites were 7-4 on the cared. Notably, Wang Zheili was an underdog, which I found hard to believe.
There were 6 fighters making their Octagon debut. The fighters were 4-2 with Salkild, Teixeira, Micallef, and Topuria getting wins and Salkild and Teixeira earning bonuses. Although on the losing side, Kody Steele received a bonus for his FOTN performance.
Interesting to note that the UFC promoted the front cover of an Australian newspaper pleading that someone “KNOCK THIS GUY OUT.”
While the UFC seemed to like the bad publicity of Strickland, Dana White called the Australian press “p*ssies”. It shows the hypocritical nature of the UFC media and specifically White who says he defends free speech but is also scared of a scintilla of criticism.
The fight between Kelvin Gasteulum and Israel Adesanya at UFC 236 in April 2019 was chosen to go to the UFC’s Hall of Fame fight wing. Adesanya was in attendance at the event. The two will be honored this summer at UFC International Fight Week.
Conclusion
While the PPV buy rates are inconsequential at this point, it is still an interesting to gage to determine how this fight would have drawn. And making an educated guess, this event featured two title fights, but with both of the fights not bringing any huge star power, DDP-Strickland seemed like a hot feud prior to their first fight, but this time around it seemed very ordinary. I would suggest this event drew between 200K-225K.
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