UFC 305 – du Plessis and Adesanya face off to cement their middleweight king status

Yahoo Sports MMA contributor Ben Fowlkes is looking ahead to this weekend’s middleweight title fight, which will cement the new name at the top of the sport’s middleweight division.

See more

Video transcript

Ben, folks here at Yahoo Sports, we have UFC 305 taking place in Perth, Australia.

This weekend it airs on Saturday night here in the United States.

What I’m waiting for is the inflection point for UFC middleweight.

Here in the main fight you have D Dras Duplessis, the champion who comes here trying to defend his belt.

Now, one of two things will happen if Duplessis wins: he will have defeated Robert Whitaker Sean Strickland, Israel Asana.

Basically everyone who matters in the middleweight division right now.

If this happens, you need to respect it.

He’s the man.

He is no longer an interim champion.

At this point, you have to say either he’s the best 185-pound fighter in the world, which I know a lot of people aren’t ready to do yet, or Israel Adesanya got the belt back because, at this point, he lost it, yeah, had lost to get it back.

Now would be the time when you would truly make your name etched as one of the greatest UFC champions of all time.

One of the greatest middleweights.

The open air for Anderson Silva’s throne to do this.

This is the stuff of M MA legends.

And if you ask me now, which path do I think it will take.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you and that’s why they fight.

To close