Despite winning a contender’s bout over Kamaru Usman, Hamzat Chimaev will not be the next opponent for current UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland.
UFC head, Dana White, has officially announced that the American middleweight will make his title defense against South African Dricus Du Plessis, the division’s number two ranked fighter. The bout will headline UFC 297, which takes place on January 20 in Toronto.
Also, the head of the world’s strongest league announced the main events of the next two numbered events.
UFC 298 in February will be headlined by a featherweight title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Elijah Topuria, and the main event of UFC 299 in March will be a featherweight title fight between Sean O’Malley and Marlon Vera.
Exact dates and locations for UFC 298 and UFC 299 will be announced at a later date.
Recall that in July of this year, Dricus Du Plessis finished Robert Whittaker by TKO in the second round, but refused to return to the octagon after two months and lost his title shot to Sean Strickland, who at UFC 293 in Sydney sensationally defeated Israel Adesanya by unanimous decision and took away the Nigerian’s UFC middleweight championship belt.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/33081-v-ufc-ob-yavili-tri-titulnykh-boya-na-nachalo-2024-goda.html?rand=19907
