Dricus Du Plessis did it again, defeating Sean Strickland a second time, but this time he dominated to retain his middleweight championship at UFC 312 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney on Saturday.

Du Plessis is 9-0 in the UFC and hasn't lost a fight since October 2018. But if he wants to become one of the best fighters in the history of the 185-pound division, he has work to do. He'll face a bigger challenge next time if, as expected, Khamzat Chimaev gets the next title shot.

In the co-main event, Zhang Weili dominated Tatiana Suarez to retain her strawweight championship. Zhang looks unbeatable and has pretty much cleaned up the division. Can a move to flyweight to chase a title in a second division be in her near future?

And what started as a great night for local fighters on the card with a 19-second TKO win for Quillan Salkilld, ended with a disappointing performance by the other seven fighters from Oceania on the card.

Brett Okamoto, Andreas Hale and Sam Bruce offer their takeaways from the two title fights and the rest of the Australia card.

Du Plessis is an early candidate for Fighter of the Year

On the surface, this might look like a lazy, obvious takeaway. But there's more to it than that. I understand that just because Du Plessis won convincingly at UFC 312, that doesn't make him a favorite for Fighter of the Year. In fact, this fight on its own really doesn't do much in securing that award. He already had a win over Strickland, and many expected him to get another one.

The reason he could be a strong candidate is how 2025 might fall into place for Du Plessis. By putting this matchup behind him, he sets the table for a potential title defense against Chimaev, in what could be one of the biggest fights of the year. And if Du Plessis wins that, there's a real possibility he could be a top-five pound-for-pound fighter as well as top five in popularity. And then what? Alex Pereira at light heavyweight? It's certainly very, very possible. Du Plessis took the opportunity to issue something of a challenge in Pereira's direction after Saturday's win. And all parties may be down for that fight.

The cherry on top would be to have him fight in South Africa in late 2025. The likelihood of that happening is on the low side. The logistics of pulling off a show in Africa, when the UFC typically has its marquee annual events at the end of the year in New York and Las Vegas, always makes it a long shot. But the UFC and Du Plessis have talked a lot about trying to get there.

Du Plessis could fight three times this year, and the idea of him beating fighters such as Chimaev and Pereira doesn't seem far-fetched. The sport slept on him for a while, but watching him fight smartly and execute in the rematch against Strickland, showcasing how much he's improved over the past year, makes it hard to overlook him. -- Okamoto

It's time for Zhang to move up, attempt to become a two-division champ

Tatiana Suarez was expected to be a difficult challenge for strawweight champion Zhang Weili. Instead, Zhang put together a clinic in a dominant unanimous decision victory to defend her title for a third time during her second run as champion.

And now it's time for Zhang to move up in weight and attempt to join Amanda Nunes as the only women to hold titles in two weight classes. She would be wasting her time otherwise.

Outside of Rose Namajunas, Zhang has owned the opposition at strawweight with wins over Yan Xiaonan, Amanda Lemos, Carla Esparza, Joanna Jedrzejczyk (twice), Jessica Andrade and now Suarez. And without a clear contender in sight, there is no better time for Zhang to make the move to flyweight. Zhang would immediately be slotted to face the winner of the expected title fight between Valentina Shevchenko and Manon Fiorot. Given Zhang's recent dominance, it would be difficult for anyone to pick against her.

Zhang's second run as strawweight champion has been even more impressive than her first, and her dismissal of Suarez has placed her squarely in the conversation as the greatest woman ever to compete at 115 pounds. Suarez entered the fight unbeaten and as a highly decorated wrestler and was expected to use her ability to pin Zhang's shoulders to the canvas. But after Suarez secured a takedown in the opening minute, Zhang successfully defended the next 14 attempts from the challenger. Each time her takedown try was fended off, it drained Suarez.

In the last two rounds, it was clear that Zhang's experience was too much for Suarez to overcome. Before this fight, Suarez had been dominant against the rest of the division, rarely dropping a round and overpowering whoever stood across from her. But against Zhang, Suarez was in over her head. She found out the hard way that Zhang is head and shoulders above the rest of the division.

Zhang departing for flyweight would open up strawweight to a new champion, and she would have the opportunity to become the biggest star in women's MMA. -- Hale

The Australian fans showed up; the fights, not so much

This was not a card featuring the pick of the talent from Australia and New Zealand. It was lacking significant star power from the region. Still, the UFC was able to pull a near-capacity crowd in what was the second of a three-fight deal with the New South Wales government.

What local tourism operators -- and more importantly, the fans -- will be crying out for next time around, however, is a far better lineup of talent inside the Octagon and not sitting in Row 1, as Alexander Volkanovski, Israel Adesanya and Jack Della Maddalena all were. That was partly down to timing, scheduling and the nature of the UFC, with Della Maddalena and Kiwi Carlos Ulberg set to fight in separate bouts in London next month, when wins for each man could secure them title shots at welterweight and light heavyweight, respectively.

The best the Oceania region could offer at UFC 312 was a 19-second KO from "Dana White's Contender Series" graduate Quillan Salkilld, whose thumping right hand floored Anshul Jubli in the first fight of the day. The fans who were still making their way to the arena during that one were denied any other real local highlights thereafter, though another Contender Series graduate, Jonathan Micallef, did emerge victorious from an entertaining fight with Kevin Jousset, and Jake Matthews finally strung back-to-back wins together.

But it was slim pickings for fighters from the region otherwise, as Jack Jenkins was submitted in Round 3 and Jimmy Crute was judged to a controversial majority draw with Rodolfo Bellato.

UFC president Dana White has long been a fan of the Australian market, and there have been far stronger cards, such as in Perth last year and in 2023, and even last time out in Sydney, where Strickland upset Adesanya. But the stars just didn't align for UFC 312, and the locals will demand a higher-caliber card next time out. -- Bruce