After more than a year of a personal feud stemmed in Africanness, Dricus Du Plessis and Israel Adesanya will finally get their hands on each other to settle their differences – and decide a UFC championship. This middleweight title bout scheduled for five rounds is taking place Saturday, Aug. 17 (Sunday locally) at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia.
Du Plessis (21-2 MMA, 7-0 UFC) is going for his first title defense at 185 pounds after claiming the belt in January, when he defeated then-champ Sean Strickland by split decision at UFC 297. Du Plessis brings with him a nine-fight winning streak overall that dates back to September 2019, which includes seven UFC wins.
Adesanya (24-3 MMA, 13-3 UFC), a former two-time champ, is coming off the longest layoff of his career (self-imposed) after dropping the title to Strickland by unanimous decision 11 months ago at UFC 293. Adesanya is 4-3 in his past seven fights dating back to March 2021, which includes losing his belt for the first time to Alex Pereira by TKO before reclaiming it with a knockout of Pereira and then losing it to Strickland.
Originally, Du Plessis, who’s South African, and then-champ Adesanya, who is of Nigerian descent but lives in New Zealand, were slated to meet last year at UFC 293, but Du Plessis couldn’t make a turnaround in only eight weeks after beating Robert Whittaker in July 2023. It was Du Plessis’ comment from early last year about wanting to be the first “real African champion” that rubbed Adesanya the wrong way and set their heated rivalry into motion.
Here are the walkout times for the UFC 305 main event between Du Plessis and Adesanya.
When does the UFC 305 fight card start? The UFC 305 lineup consists of 12 fights. Early prelims start at 6:30 p.m. ET, prelims at 8 p.m. ET, and the pay-per-view main card at 10 p.m. ET. Dricus Du Plessis vs. Israel Adesanya walkout time As the main event, Edwards and Aspinall are expected to walk out to the cage at approximately 12:30 a.m. ET. The fight will stream on ESPN+ pay-per-view.For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 305.
