Ahead of the colossal UFC 305 card on August 17, the athletes set to compete in the main event and co- main event took to the stage for the UFC 305: On-Sale Press Conference.
Middleweight Champion Dricus Du Plessis, number 2 ranked Middleweight Israel Adesayna, number four ranked Flyweight Kai Kara-France and the number nine ranked Steve Erceg were all present ahead of their contests in a little over one month’s time.
Serving as the card’s main event, Du Plessis vs. Adesayna is a bout that fight fans have been crying out for, for some time. After Du Plessis beat Robert Whittaker at UFC 290, Adesayna entered the cage and their first, extremely intense, face to face took place.
After the face off, Du Plessis went on to then fight and beat Sean Strickland at UFC 297, claiming the Middleweight title in the process.
Adesayna will make the walk after an 11 month break from the Octagon, when he lost his title to Sean Strickland at UFC 293. ‘The Last Stylebender’ returns looking to claim the belt held for so long and re-establish himself as one of the best to still be competing at 185lbs.
The co-main event sees an interesting New Zealand vs. Australia Flyweight bout play out.
After an extremely active three years when he first signed with the UFC, Kai Kara-France’s career has slowed down monumentally. After securing three wins over the course of 12 months between 2021 and 2022, Kara-France found himself in an interim title bout against Brandon Moreno.
Moreno proved to be too much for him and handed the New Zealand native his first loss in two years, at UFC 277. Since then ‘Don’t Blink’ has only fought once, in a close split decision loss to Amir Albazi in June of 2023. The 30 year old will be keen to get back to competing and look to make another push towards UFC gold.
A lot of fans were surprised to see when it was announced that Erceg would be the man to take on Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 301. Fans were left even more shocked as Erceg put on a stellar effort against the champion, pushing him all the way. Although he did not get the decision Erceg put up a valiant effort.
Elsewhere on the card, Tai Tuivasa will return to his homeland in desperate search of a win when he takes on Jairzinho Rozenstruik in a Heavyweight showdown. After building a five fight win streak between 2020 and 2022, ‘Bam Bam’ has suffered a staggering downfall and now currently finds himself on a four fight skid with losses to Ciryl Gane, Sergei Pavlovich, Alexander Volkov and Marcin Tybura. Rozenstruik enters the contest on the back of a win against Shamil Gaziev.
Junior Tafa will be back in action when he faces Valter Walker. The Australian athlete-heavy card will also see Casey O’Neill, Josh Culibao, Jack Jenkins and Tom Nolan feature.
You can watch the full press conference below:
