The UFC is back in Chicago for the first time since 2019 for a pay-per-view card (10 p.m. on ESPN+ PPV; prelims at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN+) headlined by a middleweight championship bout between champion Dricus Du Plessis (23-2) and ESPN’s No. 2 middleweight Khamzat Chimaev (14-0). For just the third time in UFC history, both fighters enter the match on a streak of at least eight wins, with Du Plessis winning nine straight and Chimaev eight. A win for Du Plessis would give him his fourth successful title defense, tied for fourth most by a UFC middleweight. If Chimaev were to win, he would be the third undefeated middleweight champion.
Before DDP and Chimaev enter the cage, fans were delighted by back-to-back first-round spinning back elbow knockouts by undefeated featherweight Lerone Murphy and Carlos Prates against Aaron Pico and Geoff Neal, respectively. It is the first time in UFC history there have been two spinning back elbow victories on the same card.
ESPN’s Brett Okamoto, Andreas Hale and Jeff Wagenheim are on hand to provide results and analysis from those and eight other fights on the UFC 319 card.