UFC 319: du Plessis vs. Chimaev Picks
When: Saturday, August 16, 2025
Where: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
TV: PPV
UFC 319 features a big main event, with UFC Middleweight Champion Dricus du Plessis defending his title against top challenger Khamzat Chimaev. For du Plessis, this will be the third defense of his title, which he won last year from Israel Adesanya. The 31-year-old champion will have a difficult assignment on his hands with the unbeaten Chimaev, also 31 years old. It’s a pairing that lends itself to a variety of different approaches. Let’s break it down!
Fight Analysis:
Dricus du Plessis, 23-2 (9 KOs, 11 Submissions), (+168) vs. Khamzat Chimaev, 14-0 (6 KOs, 6 Submissions), (-198)
UFC 185-pound champion Dricus du Plessis defends his title against Khamzat Chimaev in the UFC 319 main event on August 16. The South African champion has not tasted defeat in 7 years, slowly adding name after name to his ledger as he has taken over the middleweight division. And since becoming a top-end fighter, he has shown he is versatile, able to win a long, protracted battle, while also being equally adept at ending a fight with strikes or a submission.
Some of the same can be said about Chimaev, a supreme wrestler who has as many knockouts as he does submissions. These fighters are more representative of the modern MMA fighter—able to do everything. Still, wrestling and ground work is Chimaev’s specialty, and no one has been able to beat him.
For me, the separation starts to show itself when examining each fighter’s trajectory to this spot. The rise of du Plessis played itself out in a more typical way, as the young fighter started small, built himself up, got into the UFC, and moved up the ladder in a steady and timely manner. Chimaev, meanwhile, has been moving very slowly, with a rough bout with COVID sidetracking him, a slew of cancelled fights, weight-making issues, and his movement as a rising star in this sport slowed to a crawl.
In a sense, both men are the same age and will be in the same octagon come August 16, so maybe the disparity in how each man’s career has unfolded is not such a big deal. But while Chimaev has fought just 5 times since 2020, du Plessis has been getting to work, racking up big wins in big fights, and will now be four fights into his championship run. He knows what it’s like to perform in these spots, while this will be a new experience for Chimaev.
Chimaev had a lot of issues with weight, which slowed his career somewhat, too. At middleweight, he’s presumably more comfortable, but now he’s taking on bigger men. Chimaev will have a few inches of height on du Plessis, but the South African champion is a more robust-looking man, which you would think would go a long way on the ground. But despite not looking all that impressive to the naked eye, Chimaev is one of those purebred wrestlers from that part of the world who can’t be taken lightly. And once he grabs hold of you, it’s not fun.
Still, this is where building his experience in a more meaningful way over the last several years would have gone a long way for Chimaev. Only three times in his UFC career has he had one of his fights get out of the first round. He has only seen the third round twice in the UFC, taking on a guy in du Plessis who has shown he can thrive in the fourth and fifth rounds. Chimaev is certainly dangerous, but what happens if things don’t go his way against a championship-caliber fighter like du Plessis?
It’s hard to take shots at du Plessis—he can wrestle, has good Jiu Jitsu, hits hard, and is a big, solid guy. But there is something special about Chimaev. His wrestling is so pure and his strength so immense, fortified by a really high fight-IQ that brings it all together. At some point, the element of skill will raise its head, and when it does, Chimaev’s wrestling and grappling ability will win the day.
With du Plessis, things can look easier than they are in reality. He has a certain awkwardness, an innate ability to give weird looks to his opponents, who sometimes struggle to make sense of it. The trickery, the off-putting angles, the understated slickness, they all have a way of making du Plessis a tougher out than in appears on paper. One could say each man represents the other’s toughest-ever test in the UFC up to this point.
I think du Plessis has a lot to overcome in this fight and perhaps too much. There’s that first round, a time when fighters are typically feeling things out a bit. Not Chimaev. He uses this time to see if his opponent can hang with him, immediately shooting in and trying to drag down his opponents, who then get served up with a heavy dose of ground-and-pound, along with threatening submission attempts.
No pick here can be seen as a slam dunk. Even if you like Chimaev, one has to acknowledge the inherent difficulty in beating du Plessis and all the things that can go wrong for Chimaev. If guys like Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman can give Chimaev a hard time, du Plessis can certainly do the same, if not worse. I just can’t help but envision a fight where du Plessis will be spending a lot of time reacting to what Chimaev is doing and thus losing his way in this fight at some point as the skills of Chimaev slowly rise to the top. I’m taking Khamzat Chimaev.
My Pick to Win: I’m betting on Khamzat Chimaev at -198 betting odds. At wrestling and grappling, Chimaev might be the best to ever do it in this weight class. And when looking at two high-level fighters at this classification, having that standout ability could be enough to make the difference and catch the eyes of the judges.
