What comes next for Oklahoma City’s main-card winners

Photo: ZUFFA LLC

The UFC’s July 18 stop at Paycom Center produced five main-card winners with sharply different divisional situations. Dricus Du Plessis’s decision over Kamaru Usman resets the middleweight contender picture. Christian Leroy Duncan’s win over Jared Cannonier reshapes it further. Chase Hooper’s submission of Mitch Ramirez keeps the lightweight roster’s activity leader in the mix. Fatima Kline’s shutout of Tabatha Ricci punches her into the top ten at strawweight. And Tommy McMillen’s third-round TKO of Alberto Montes set a UFC record for significant strikes in a three-round bout, marking the arrival of a genuine featherweight prospect. The next round of bookings will settle which of those results the promotion sees as near-term priorities.

Dricus Du Plessis

Du Plessis walked out of Oklahoma City with a unanimous decision over Usman by scores of 50-45, 49-46, and 49-46. Usman told reporters after the fight that an early Du Plessis strike compromised his vision for the majority of the bout. That context will colour how matchmakers read the result, though it will not undo the sweep on the cards.

The middleweight belt currently sits with Sean Strickland, who took it back from Khamzat Chimaev by split decision at UFC 328 on May 9, 2026. Chimaev is the No. 1 contender and has been publicly pushing for an immediate rematch with Strickland. Du Plessis, who lost the title to Chimaev at UFC 319 last August, now holds two career wins over Strickland including a title defence. The résumé argument is clean. The queue in front of him is not.

Cageside Press has suggested the winner of Anthony Hernandez vs. Caio Borralho as the logical next assignment for Du Plessis, on the theory that a fresh contender rather than a retread produces a definitive statement performance. That framing tracks. Beating a contender by finish would be difficult for matchmakers to route around, particularly with the Strickland-Chimaev rematch still unbooked at time of writing.

The alternative version of what comes next runs directly into the title picture. A win over Usman, even a decision, is meaningful enough that the promotion could argue Du Plessis is ready now. That decision belongs to Strickland’s healing timeline and whichever rematch conversation the champion agrees to first.

Christian Leroy Duncan 

Duncan handled a former title challenger over three rounds by scores of 30-27, 30-27, and 29-28. It is his fifth straight win overall and pushes him firmly into ranked middleweight territory. The UFC’s own event recap noted that Duncan has posted consecutive wins over ranked opponents and now sits on a five-fight streak. Cannonier drops to 18-10 and takes his second loss in as many outings against a rising middleweight prospect.

The stylistic question the Cannonier fight answered is straightforward. Duncan is not just a knockout artist. He is a fighter who can bank rounds against a top-ten veteran, control distance, and land clean over three rounds without needing the finish. That is a meaningfully different résumé than the one he walked in with, and it reads accordingly.

The step-up now is genuine. The middleweight top ten offers no shortage of options for a fighter whose stock now sits meaningfully higher than it did a week ago. Cageside floats a step up in opposition without naming a specific opponent. Given the shape of the division, the natural fit is a top-five ranked veteran or a fellow rising contender in a fight that puts Duncan’s ceiling into open air.

Chase Hooper

Hooper submitted Mitch Ramirez by rear-naked choke at 2:15 of round one, snapping a two-fight slide. It is his ninth UFC victory and his seventh finish inside the octagon. The result is meaningful for two reasons. It puts him back in the win column against a fellow Dana White’s Contender Series graduate, and it does so with the specific brand of top-position grappling he built his identity on.

He also missed weight, coming in 1.5 pounds heavy for the lightweight limit and forfeiting a percentage of his purse. That detail will follow him into the next booking cycle, particularly given that the size question loomed over the actual competitive read. Whether it factors into the matchmakers’ next assignment is genuinely open.

The lightweight division rewards activity, and Hooper has built a reputation as a submission threat willing to take short-notice work. Cageside’s read is that Hooper should stay busy against ranked or near-ranked opposition rather than reach for a name that stalls his calendar. That is the standard route at 155 pounds, where log-jams punish inactivity. A booking against a ranked opponent in the fall would sharpen the case for a top-fifteen placement.

Fatima Kline

Kline shut Tabatha Ricci out on all three scorecards, 30-27 across the board. Per UFC’s own event recap, the result punched her ticket to the top ten in the strawweight division. That is the meaningful development from her night. A top-ten placement changes the kinds of fights a matchmaker can offer, and in a division as tightly bunched as 115 pounds, the next booking tends to define the following six months.

Ricci, previously top ten herself, becomes the ranking cap Kline just cleared. The question the matchmakers now face is whether to test whether the placement holds against another ranked contender or reach further up the division for a name-value fight that changes Kline’s ceiling. Cageside suggests a fellow ranked opponent. The safer read backs that.

Tommy McMillen

McMillen finished Alberto Montes by TKO at 3:28 of the third round with punches and knees. The output was the story. 502 strikes thrown, 252 significant strikes landed, both figures that set a new UFC record for a three-round bout, breaking Nate Diaz’s mark that had stood for over a decade. Two knockdowns on the tape. A $100,000 Performance of the Night bonus, his second in two UFC appearances.

He is 11-0 as a professional and 2-0 in the UFC. He is Sean O’Malley’s teammate at Circle of Fighters in Peoria, Arizona. Michael Bisping called him the promotion’s next big star on the broadcast. The featherweight division has not produced a prospect at this scale in years, and McMillen’s frame at six feet tall with a 74-inch reach makes him a physical outlier at 145 pounds independent of the résumé.

The matchmaking arc from here is the interesting question. Per Bloody Elbow’s read of the situation, McMillen is likely to receive a slow O’Malley-style build. Two or three more mid-tier featherweights, escalating in ranking, across the next twelve months. The alternative version is faster. A top-fifteen or top-ten name for his third UFC fight would compress the timeline and force the division to answer where he actually sits. Given the record he just set and the marketing profile the promotion is now building around him, either path is defensible.

A specific booking to watch. The featherweight roster is currently thin at the ranked-veteran level of prospect he would benefit from fighting next. Bryce Mitchell, Alex Caceres, or a returning ranked name coming off a loss would be the sort of fight that tests his top-fifteen readiness without over-extending him. Whether the promotion books that fight or opts for another lower-tier finish opportunity is the tell on his internal priority ranking.

The broader picture

Middleweight is now genuinely crowded. Strickland holds the belt. Chimaev has the most active demand. Du Plessis has the cleanest résumé claim. Duncan has fresh momentum. Hernandez and Borralho, when they meet, will feed one more contender into the same queue. The matchmaking desk has options at 185 pounds that it has not had in years, and how the promotion sorts them will shape the fall calendar.

Strawweight adds a new ranked name in Kline. Featherweight adds a genuine prospect in McMillen. Lightweight, as ever, waits for someone to force the issue. Hooper is one of several fighters positioned to do that. Whether the next round of bookings puts him at the front of that queue or in the middle of it will show which of these winners the promotion sees as near-term priorities.

The next update worth watching is the fight announcement cycle in August and September. Matchmakers rarely tip their hand in the week after a card. What they book two months out is the tell.