Fans aren’t exactly thrilled about the quality of the UFC 312 pay-per-view card.
Tapology’s Marcel Dorff posted the bout order on X, and fans didn’t hold back sharing their feelings about the event scheduled for February 8.
Before we look at the reactions, here is a look at the entire card and bout order:
Main Card PPV – ESPN+
(c) Dricus Du Plessis vs. Sean Strickland – UFC Middleweight Championship
(c) Weili Zhang vs. Tatiana Suarez – UFC Women’s Strawweight Championship
Tallison Teixeira vs. Justin Tafa – Heavyweight
Jimmy Crute vs. Rodolfo Bellato – Light Heavyweight
Jake Matthews vs. Francisco Prado – Welterweight
Prelims
Jack Jenkins vs. Gabriel Santos – Featherweight
Cody Haddon vs. Aleksandre Topuria – Bantamweight
Tom Nolan vs. Viacheslav Borshchev – Lightweight
Hyun Sung Park vs. Nyamjargal Tumendemberel – Flyweight
Early Prelims
Quinn Salkilld vs. Anshul Jubli – Lightweight
Kevin Jousset vs. Jonathan Micallef – Welterweight
Cong Wang vs. Bruna Brasil – Flyweight
Kody Steele vs. Rongzhu – Lightweight
Popular MMA account Spinnin Backfist posted a Daniel Cormier meme as the reaction.
Alex Behunin of MMA Mania replied:
“Fun prelims, horrific PPV.”
A fan also commented:
“Underrated bangers. This would be an all-time fight night. No disrespect, but Tafa as a featured fight on a PPV and Jake Matthews on a main card of a PPV in 2025 is insane. Compete this with UFC 311. Anybody saying this is a great PPV card is trying too hard to be a diehard.”
A second fan slammed the card, egregiously calling it “a 1/10 card.” That’s not true, but it was said.
A third fan called it a “favorite for the worst card of the year already.”
Is the card really that bad? On paper, it’s worse from top to bottom than UFC 310, which was impacted by Belal Muhammad’s withdrawal from the main event.
That said, I’ve seen cards like this produce excellent fights. However, pay-per-views aren’t sold on those grounds. Fans will look at the five fights atop the card and make their decision to buy or not.
The hardcore fans, like myself, will buy every month unless I’m in attendance with press. UFC PPVs are as automatic for me as my favorite team playing on Sunday in the NFL. No matter the matchup, I’ll be there.
That’s not what Dana White and the UFC wants, though. They’d prefer to produce high-level shows once a month, but the truth is, it’s not really possible. Between fighter withdrawals and a limited amount of marquee stars, it’s inevitable you’ll see cards like UFC 312.
One of the biggest issues with UFC 312 is the main and co-main event. If they were stronger, fans might look past the exceptionally soft PPV card as a whole.
As outspoken as Sean Strickland is, and as popular as Dricus Du Plessis has started to become, almost no one wanted to see this rematch. The first fight wasn’t great, and Strickland doesn’t have a crowd-pleasing style.
He’s a strong technical striker, but he doesn’t get a ton of finishes and tries to make up for that with outrageousness. Quite honestly, people are kind of ignoring him at this point.
That said, giving him a rematch and an opportunity to regain the title he lost by a narrow split decision to DDP in January 2024 was the right thing for the UFC to do.
Would fans have preferred to see DDP vs. Khamzat Chimaev? You bet, but Strickland deserved the opportunity more. Chimaev should be next.
The co-main event features one of the top overall fighters in Weili, but she hasn’t been active and hasn’t connected much with most American fans. Suarez has been even less active than Weili because of injuries. Yet, like the main event, this matchup feels like a necessary fight more than an exciting one.
Nonetheless, I’ll be covering that fight week as I have the others once it rolls around.
