> Dricus du Plessis Dominates Kamaru Usman's Middleweight Debut at UFC Oklahoma City

Dricus du Plessis handed Kamaru Usman a lopsided beating over five rounds at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on July 18, 2026, winning by unanimous decision in what amounted to Usman’s second fight at middleweight after years at welterweight.

The Numbers

Two judges scored it 49-46 and the third scored it 50-45, all for du Plessis. The striking gap tells the same story as the cards: du Plessis landed 136 of 273 significant strikes to Usman’s 92 of 234, and out-threw him overall, 139 to 99. Neither fighter landed a takedown — this was a striking fight from bell to bell, and du Plessis won that fight clearly.

Du Plessis moves to 24-3. Usman falls to 21-5, his fourth loss in his last six fights dating back to his run at welterweight.

What It Means

Du Plessis, a former undisputed middleweight champion, used the win to firmly reinsert himself into the 185-pound title picture after physically overwhelming a fighter who spent most of his career a weight class lower and built a Hall of Fame résumé doing it. Du Plessis’s size and power showed up early — Usman was visibly hurt by clubbing strikes in the first two rounds and never found the volume or takedowns that defined his welterweight title reign to change the fight’s direction.

For Usman, this was a second data point on the move to middleweight, and it wasn’t a favorable one. The added size of the division worked against him in a way it hadn’t at 170 pounds, where he was often the bigger, stronger man in the cage.

Related Intel

• Terence Crawford Retires Undefeated at 42-0 After Beating Canelo — another fighter who moved up in weight against a bigger, come-forward opponent, with a very different outcome.
• Colby Covington Upsets Arman Tsarukyan at RAF 11 — the same July 18 weekend’s crossover wrestling headliner.