It’s Fight Day for UFC 312 from Sydney, Australia! The card features twelve matchups and will be headlined by a pair of title fights as Dricus du Plessis and Sean Strickland meet in a rematch for the UFC Middleweight title and Weili Zhang will attempt to defend her UFC Strawweight title against the undefeated Tatiana Suarez. All 24 fighters successfully made weight for the event yesterday.

Check out Kids BJJ Gis from Elite Sports, Official Sponsors of OddSmokerMMA!

My favorite picks on this card are Tatiana Suarez, Dricus du Plessis, Kody Steele and Quillan Salkilld. After a very lengthy road, Suarez is finally getting her shot at UFC gold and despite having an extremely tough opponent in Weili, I love her chances to get this one done. Suarez is an absolute force with her wrestling and takedowns, and while Weili will likely be the better striker on the feet, I expect Suarez to get this one to the ground early and start looking for submissions. I think Suarez will be able to find one sometime during the first few rounds to become our first new UFC champion of 2025.

Du Plessis and Strickland had an extremely competitive 25-minute fight the first time they met last year for the belt, but I think things will a bit differently this time around. Having the experience of facing Strickland already, I think Du Plessis will be a little more successful getting around the striking defense of Strickland in this one and will be able to catch him with a big shot sometime in the first two rounds for a pretty early ending.

Steele and Salkilld are both making their UFC debuts in their respective matchups, but I think both have been given pretty favorable spots to show up and pick up wins. Steele will be facing Rongzhu, who is 1-3 in two stints with the promotion, and he should be able to get his takedowns going in this one to secure a decision or late stoppage. Salkilld will be facing Anshul Jubli, who is the only fighter I’ve seen mentally broken by a barking opponent. Salkilld is pretty well-rounded and should be able to ride the home-crowd energy to a win in this one.

For the betting card this weekend, I’m keeping things pretty tight and going in a bit heavy on the spots I liked the most on a pretty iffy lineup overall. The bets for today are Tatiana Suarez ML (-105 for 2 units), Suarez by Submission (+325 for .5 units) and du Plessis by KO/TKO (+400 for .5 units). I also have a UFC 312 x NFL Super Bowl parlay and pre-hedge out that includes Steele ML, Suarez by Submission, du Plessis ML and Patrick Mahomes Super Bowl MVP at +1651 for .5 units. The pre-hedge is the same three UFC lines with Jalen Hurts MVP capping off the ticket at +3482 for .25 units.

Overall, this will hopefully be a pretty fun lineup despite appearing a little bit thin on paper for a UFC numbered event. As you might have noticed, I’ve had a pretty slow start to this year getting things posted for a variety of reasons, but barring anything unexpected, things should be getting back to normal with the weekly picks and bets. Apologies to the people that have been checking the site during my absence, but hopefully we’ll have some big things on the way to make up for it. As always, best of luck on the bets and hope everyone enjoys the fights!

Be sure to check out our updated Merch page and our new gear available on MILLIONS, as well as our recently added Collabs page for our fighter shirt designs! Fighters, if you’re looking for walk out shirts or merch designs, reach out via our Contact page for more info because I would love to work with you!

If you enjoy our website, please make sure to follow us on social media and tell other MMA fans about OddSmokerMMA so we can continue to grow! All of your continued love and support is very much appreciated!