The people have spoken … and they are not terribly impressed with the lineup at UFC 312.

Is there a good reason to spend the big bucks on Saturday’s pay-per-view from Sydney, Australia? Does Dricus du Plessis finally feel like the man at middleweight, or are we still waiting for a champ with more of an elite aura? And what would it take for the UFC to crack down on a fighter spewing ridiculous hate speech in his spare time?

All that and more in this week’s mailbag column. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA or @benfowlkes.bsky.social.

You’re not crazy. I get where you’re coming from. But at a certain point I think we have to ask, what more do we want from the guy?

Dricus du Plessis has already done what Sean Strickland never successfully did, and that’s defend the title. He’s never lost in the UFC. He’s finished four of his past five opponents (another thing he has over Strickland). Truly, how could he reasonably have done any better than he already has?

I understand that people look at him in the cage and think that he just doesn’t seem like he’s that good. But he’s also beating — and finishing — people who we do think are good. He knocked out Robert Whittaker. He submitted Israel Adesanya. Are we really going to say he’s won eight straight UFC fights, captured and defended the UFC middleweight title, all through sheer luck?

It’s fine to want to see him face new and different tests, but he can only win the fights he’s been given. And in the UFC, he’s won them all.

Yep. Now this.

Look, we all know how it works by now. UFC comes up with dates and locations long before it’s even begun to think about the actual fights. Between site fees and broadcast rights fees, there’s a lot of money for the UFC in just putting on some fights. Especially in a place like Australia, where there’s an energetic fan base that will scoop up tickets without knowing who’s on the card, there really isn’t a ton of financial incentive to make sure the lineup is anything beyond just barely passable.

The added twist is that it’s Super Bowl weekend. There was a time when the UFC really went hard on this weekend. Georges St-Pierre and B.J. Penn fought for the welterweight title all those years ago on Super Bowl weekend. I remember because I was at that one, up all night trying to report on “Greasegate,” then fell asleep during the game the next day because I was so exhausted.

But at some point UFC executives seemed to realize they were better off saving the really good stuff for weekends they had all to themselves. I mean, do people really have a huge appetite for pay-per-view sports this Saturday night? The next day is basically Sports Christmas in America. People are probably more than happy to take that pay-per-view money and spend it on chicken wings instead.

My two reasons to pay for UFC 312 go like this: Zhang Weili and Tatiana Suarez. For me, they’re the main draw.

I think Zhang doesn’t get enough credit as one of the most dominant and thoroughly well-rounded fighters on the roster. As for Suarez, she’s been through so much just to get here. As a fellow sufferer of bad discs in the ol’ vertebrae, I feel for her. But I’m also invested in her personal story and I really want to see how it plays out in her long-awaited first UFC title shot.

As for the rest of the card? Du Plessis vs. Strickland 2 feels like the rematch no one asked for. The other fights on the pay-per-view main card feel like UFC Fight Night: Sydney. There’s just not much else that feels like must-see TV.

First of all, the idea that UFC CEO Dana White just loves free speech too much to take any action is obviously ridiculous. UFC has fired or otherwise punished multiple fighters in the past for saying (or tweeting) the wrong thing. UFC has also basically blacklisted journalists for saying or writing things it doesn’t like, even when those things are simple facts.

UFC has banned fighters from bringing certain national flags to the cage. It’s edited out political comments in post-fight interviews. You can’t even mention Francis Ngannou’s name at a UFC function without the company’s internal censors jumping into action. “Free speech” is just an excuse.

Really, UFC just doesn’t want to do anything that might create a precedent which would require it to act in a certain way in the future. It wants to keep its options open. If you cut this middling fighter for a racial slur or some garden variety Holocaust denial, does that mean you'll have to do the same when a superstar does it next week?

As for what it would take to change that, it would have to be something that threatens to mess with the money. If sponsors started speaking up or pulling away. If broadcast partners exerted some pressure. Then the UFC would take notice and might even take action. The idea that the UFC is guided by some principle in this regard is laughable to anyone who’s been paying attention these many years. It’s guided purely by money. Same as it ever was.

Before we pile on Sergei Pavlovich, let’s remind ourselves that he was carrying a two-fight losing streak into that fight. We all know three in a row is where things get dire. Jairzinho Rozenstruik got his walking papers for losing that one and he’d won two straight before that. Pavlovich needed a win by any means necessary. He did what he had to do to get it. I’m not going to hate on the big fella for that.

You’re not wrong, but it’s also not exactly unprecedented. I’m old enough to remember when the UFC’s heavyweight division was just Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski over and over again.

Also? If we’re going to sit here wondering where all the good heavyweights went, let’s not forget that the UFC fumbled the last true undisputed heavyweight champion (fella by the name of Francis Ngannou) and then badmouthed him all the way out the door and beyond. It’s not like we just woke up one morning with the heavyweight cupboard bare. Choices were made.

I think at the core of your question is a misunderstanding of the UFC’s own incentives. Ask yourself, how does UFC suffer as a result of the shallower talent pool in certain weight classes (like heavyweight)? The answer is that it doesn’t.

UFC has spent the last 20 years or so making the brand (and the CEO) the star. UFC sees the fighters as mostly interchangeable. They come and go, rise and fall. The brand continues. It’s the brand that brings in the guaranteed TV money. It’s also the brand that convinces fans to take one fighter more seriously than another.

I think the UFC actually does do more than people realize to cultivate talent (at least the talent that can get to a UFC Performance Institute), but at this point UFC makes money because it’s the UFC. If there are only a few good heavyweights because the true elite athletes of that size are off making real money in the NFL or boxing or the NBA, so what? The machine still churns along. And that machine is not running out of lightweights or featherweights or bantamweights any time soon.