Dricus Du Plessis vs Khamzat Chimaev – UFC 319: Live score and round-by-round updates as South African aims to defend middleweight title

Locked in and ready to go, Du Plessis is in the building and enters the arena with his wife Imari Visser. Plenty of fighters have run scared from Chimaev but not the champion – who has faced the best of the best and come out with his hand raised. Can he do it against a wrestling phenomenon? It would go some way to enhancing his growing legacy if he gets the job done tonight.

Oleksiejcczuk just finished his fight in less time than it takes me to write his surname. Superb performance from the Polish star, who makes it back-to-back wins having lost three on the bounce before that. Nice momentum picking up for the ‘Fighting Nerds’ team member.

MVP is back in action tonight on the main card in a huge fight against Jared Cannonier. Daily Mail Sport spoke to the brilliant British striker about his clash and all things UFC 319…

Superb win for Loopy Godinez over three rounds and she marches on, saying: ‘I knew it would be a super hard fight – today I woke up and thought “let’s live a little bit tonight”. Honestly, UFC knows I never call anyone out, I am here and will be ready for whoever they give me next.’

Chimaev has been almost a picture of perfection – some scary moments against Kamaru Usman aside – since he entered the UFC and in most of his fights made the opponent look almost amateurish.

Du Plessis hasn’t quite had the same kind of aura but just finds a way to consistently break down the best fighters in the world even if it doesn’t look clean and tidy. One of these men will lose for the first time in their UFC careers tonight.

The UFC is back in Chicago for the eighth time and first since 2019 at UFC 238. The first event in the Windy City was hosted in 2012 when Rashad Evans beat Phil Davies and Robert Whittaker’s famous rematch with Joel Romero was probably the organisation’s best remembered event from the city.

Right at the end of the first round of the first pre-lim, the heavy favourite Chase Hooper is rocked by a massive right hand and can’t recover in time to hear the bell. Big win for Hernandez to subdue a crowd that was heavily behind his opponent.

Chase Hooper vs Alexander Hernandez

Jessica Andrade vs Loopy Godinez

Gerald Meerschaert vs Michał Oleksiejczuk

Baisangur Susurkaev vs Eric Nolan

Tim Elliott vs Kai Asakura

Jared Cannonier vs Michael Page

Geoff Neal vs Carlos Prates

Lerone Murphy vs Aaron Pico

Dricus du Plessis vs Khamzat Chimaev

The pre-lims in Chicago are up next but there have been a handful of early fights for those keen enough to rock up to United Center from the very first bell, results here:

Joseph Morales def. Alibi Idiris via submission – R2

Karine Silva def. Dione Barbosa via decision

Drakkar Klose def. Edson Barboza via decision – R3

Good morning, afternoon, evening whatever time it is where you are – I hope it is far more sociable than the usual 1am knockings here! At least there’s some brilliant fights to dig into tonight, capped off by the big one with the UFC’s ultimate boogie man Khamzat Chimaev testing himself against the best of the best Dricus du Plessis.

Keep it here for all the build-up, pre-lims and up to the minute live info on a night that should have buckets of drama in store.