THE PUNCHSPORT REPORT FOR DECEMBER 2023

We survived 2023, but not every MMA company did.

Congratulations, everyone, we made it to the end of another year. It's December, Bellator is gone, the sun itself has fallen into its torpid rest, and everyone's ready to go home. As is tradition, there are only a few fight cards here for us this month and then we take a nice, long break until mid-January, and, as is tradition, there's a big ol' New Year's special if you're into watching Japanese MMA until seven in the morning. If you celebrate holidays, may they be happy, and if you celebrate punchsports, may they be brutal and understanding.

THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

• UFC Fight Night: Dariush vs Tsarukyan, December 2

• UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs Imavov, December 9

• UFC 296: Edwards vs Covington, December 16

• ONE Fight Night 17: Kryklia vs Roberts, December 9

• Rizin 45: Archuleta vs Asakura, December 31

IS THERE ANY NEWS

As had been rumored for months, the Professional Fighters League officially acquired Bellator on November 20, 2023. When Endeavor purchased the UFC in 2016, it was a massive, $4 billion deal. Nothing quite underlines the stark difference between the major leagues of mixed martial arts, and the ultimate tragedy of Bellator's existence, like the PFL acquiring them for an estimated $250 million--in PFL stock.

The PFL, displaying its usual level of professionalism and long-term planning, made clear pretty quickly that it doesn't really know what to do with it just yet. There's going to be an annual PFL vs Bellator champions vs champions card! But we don't know when, or what the Bellator champions whose weight classes aren't promoted by the PFL will do. Also, the PFL isn't adopting Bellator's weight classes, so if you're a Middleweight, Bantamweight or Women's Flyweight, you're out of luck. But don't worry, because the PFL will be promoting Bellator events! Eight of them. As a global world tour. Each of which will also have a Bellator championship on it. But Bellator and its champions are also invited to compete in the PFL's 2024 season!

Except, y'know, if you're defending your championship.

Which may or may not exist anymore.

There's no sugarcoating this one. This sucks. It's marginally better than the alternative of Bellator simply winking out of existence, obviously, but there's one less league out there for mixed martial artists and one less thing bulwark standing in the way of the UFC's control of the sport. The PFL has always struggled to establish itself as a serious player in the sport, and chairman Donn Davis has been out there boasting about how this acquisition puts them on par with the UFC, but the lack of a definitive plan for Bellator's future--and the various Bellator champions chiming in on social media noting that, despite the PFL talking about them and their future fights live on air, no one from the PFL had actually talked to them yet--doesn't give me a lot of hope.

For now all we can do is wait and see, but boy, I'm not optimistic.

Fittingly, just before the month ended, the PFL announced a multi-year extension of its ESPN streaming deal. More years of fights! More years of tournaments! Bellator: Not included in that deal and still presently homeless.

This does leave PFL broadcasting alongside the UFC for the foreseeable future, which, as they try to become stiffer competition, could get interesting.

Also, it's very funny to me that 100% of their branding for this deal centers around two people who have never fought for the company and have no fights booked.

But don't worry, we're not done with doomsaying yet! ONE Championship, reportedly, is in pretty deep financial trouble. It's been an open secret that ONE's been playing shellgames with money for years--ever since their financials in 2020 reported a $341 million profit that was, in actuality, ONE selling its own intellectual property rights to itself for $400 million, which covered up ONE's actual financial performance, a $59 million loss. There are reasons ONE doesn't release ratings or gates or promote any sort of transparency whatsoever.

Those reasons appear to be finally coming to haunt them. According to Deal Street Asia, ONE laid off 10% of its staff in 2023 to deal with raising only $5-8 million revenue for the fiscal year. To be clear, that is revenue, and not profit, which is, uh, bad. Like any good startup aiming to DISRUPT THEIR INDUSTRY, ONE has pulled in venture capital investment while promising profitability is just around the corner, but reportedly their main investors--Qatar, of course--have finally gotten tired of their performance and are beginning to cut the pursestrings.

Which means it's within the realm of possibility that, by the end of 2024, two of the biggest MMA alternatives will have died in one calendar year.

So, y'know.

Everything's great.

Apropos of absolutely none of those stories or the health of the mixed martial arts industry, Bloody Elbow released some fantastic reporting showing exactly how underpaid UFC fighters are and just how badly even massive stars like Georges St-Pierre and Conor McGregor were getting paid fractions of the value they were bringing in, to say nothing of the fighters making $6,000 to fight.

You should read it, because it's good shit and Bloody Elbow deserves your attention and clicks for their hard work. It couldn't have come in a better month, either. Fuck.

MONTHLY RETIREMENT CORNER

The most common recurring theme in these retirement posts is the spectrum of success and failure in the sport. Olivier Aubin-Mercier, somehow, occupies both ends of that spectrum, and boy, that worked out gangbusters for him.

The comparisons to Georges St-Pierre started almost immediately with Olivier, and that level of pressure and expectation sort of prognosticated his failure. He was in the UFC at just 4-0, and the first time the UFC's audience saw him it was as a contestant on The Ultimate Fighter's fifth international spinoff season (jesus christ), Canada vs Australia. On the plus side: Every finalist was a Canadian! On the minus: Olivier lost. He experienced the cruel fate of being crushed under a skill ceiling. He was by no means bad--he even stopped Drew Dober, and, boy, that aged well--but by 2019 he was 7-5 in the UFC and the sun had set on his once-lofty prospects. His contract ran out and he went back home.

Until two years later, when he officially began participating in the then-shiny-and-new Professional Fighters League. In the UFC, he'd been stuck under the ceiling; in the PFL, he was the ceiling. Over two and a half years he went a perfect 10-0, including definitive victories over UFC runaway Shane Burgos, 2022 finalist Stevie Ray, and 2023 finalist and eternal boxing engine Clay Collard. And then, at the apex of his achievements as a two-time, $2 million champion, he retired. He said his heart and mind weren't in it to the point that he felt nothing about the championship fight save the desire to go be with his family.

Which, honestly, is the proudest goddamn achievement I can imagine. Sure, he didn't win a UFC championship, but speaking as one of the foremost championship fetishists in mixed martial arts, let me say: Who the fuck cares. He went to a competitor, he beat everyone they put in front of him, he almost certainly made more money from the PFL than all of his UFC opponents have earned combined, and he got the fuck out not because he was getting horribly damaged, not because he was on a losing streak, but because he knew it was time and he wanted to go home. He's leaving the sport young, healthy and wealthy, and honestly, that's the absolute best you can goddamn do in this industry.

Olivier Aubin-Mercier retires at 34 with an MMA record of 21-5, the 2022 and 2023 PFL Lightweight Championships, and two novelty-size million-dollar checks.

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WHAT HAPPENED IN NOVEMBER

The month kicked off with ONE Fight Night 16: Haggerty vs Andrade on November 4th, which is one of those cards that had exactly four MMA matches on it and concluded with an MMA fighter in a non-MMA fight, giving me the increasing feeling that I do not know what I am doing here. The big upset of the night was Spanish kickboxing champion Cristina Morales giving ONE fits by knocking out its postergirl-in-training, Supergirl Jaroonsak, who never quite recovered from getting punched in the body, which makes sense, because it fucking sucks. In the only divisionally relevant MMA bouts of the night, Ayaka Miura choked out Meng Bo with a scarf hold and Halil Amir punched out Ahmed Mujtaba. Up in your co-main, Tye Ruotolo won the inaugural ONE Welterweight Submission Grappling World Championship by defeating Magomed Abdulkadirov, whose biggest grappling accomplishment is a championship in ADCC Europe almost ten years ago, which is why so many grapplers are very, very tired of ONE's grappling titles. In your main event, ONE Bantamweight Muay Thai champion Jonathan Haggerty knocked out ONE Bantamweight MMA champion Fabricio Andrade to win the ONE Bantamweight Kickboxing World Championship, which is a ONE division neither has ever competed in. It is possible, perhaps, that ONE's championships have grown slightly out of control.

Rizin Landmark 7 was up later that day, and despite a few cancellations, it was a hell of a show. As Rizin's first-ever show in Azerbaijan it was a big showcase for regional talent, which is, on one hand, really neat, and on the other hand means you will probably never see most of these names again, because Rizin will probably not be bringing Ferit Göktepe to Japan anytime soon. But heavyweight Shota Betlemidze made Quentin Domingos quit on his stool after a round, Anastasiya Svetkivska tapped out Farida Abdueva, Kim Kyung-pyo floored Tural Ragimov in twenty-one seconds and Tofiq Musayev knocked out Koji Takeda after three rounds. The main event was wild and over very quickly, as Vugar Karamov lost the Rizin Featherweight Championship to Chihiro Suzuki after getting knocked out from the bottom position, which is rare and wonderful. On one hand, Rizin's got a new Japanese champion, which is what they really want! On the other, boy, going to Azerbaijan and having your Azerbaijani star get instantaneously knocked out is probably bad for our international prospects.

Finally, we had UFC Fight Night: Almeida vs Lewis, which was just a profoundly cursed card. It was already a little shaky on the merits after Curtis Blaydes dropped out of the main event, and then two fights got pulled the day before the card thanks to blown weight cuts, and then Armen Petrosyan fell ill and got pulled from his main card fight in mid-broadcast, and we were left with a terribly-paced, ten-fight card that wound up being real, real weird. Marc Diakiese outwrestled Kauê Fernandes to a split decision, Eduarda Moura missed weight by almost 5 pounds but still beat up a Montserrat Ruiz who was half a foot shorter than her, Angela Hill got a real close decision over Denise Gomes, Vitor Petrino knocked Modestas Bukauskas dead, and Rinat Fakhretdinov, despite dropping Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in the first fifteen minutes, went to a majority draw after Zaleski almost knocked him out in the third round. The main card saw Elves Brener knock out a last-minute replacement in Kaynan Kruschewsky, Caio Borralho win a real tentative decision over an exhausted Abus Magomedov, Rodrigo Nascimento take a heavyweight decision against Don'Tale Mayes in a remarkably uneventful fight, and in the co-main event, Gabriel Bonfim looked like an absolute killer for one round, as he always has, and then Nicolas Dalby made it to the second round, at which point Bonfim gassed and Dalby beat him to a TKO. And, in your main event, the coronation of Jailton Almeida wound up being a real Pyrrhic victory, as he easily beat Derrick Lewis--but he was unable to submit him, or hurt him, or ever really come close to finishing the fight, so it was basically just five rounds of Jailton Almeida grappling Lewis with virtually no offensive output while referee Marc Goddard got so irritated he began repeatedly threatening to stand him up out of full mount. Jailton won, but he managed to get a Sao Paulo crowd to boo a victorious main event Brazilian, which is absolutely incredible.

The following weekend's November 11th brought us UFC 295: Procházka vs. Pereira, which wound up being a strong contender for card of the year. Not only was it one of the better assemblies of well-matched fights the UFC's put together in awhile, almost every fight delivered for fantastic violence. Down on your early prelims Jamall Emmers took out Dennis Buzukja in less than a minute, Joshua Van and Kevin Borjas had a fantastic scrap that ended with Van on top, John Castañeda got a high-volume decision over Kyung-ho Kang, and Jared Gordon finally redeemed his no-good, very-bad year by knocking out Mark Madsen. On your regular-flavor prelims, Nazim Sadykhov and Viacheslav Borshchev fought to a fantastic draw, Mateusz Rębecki snatched a terrifying armbar over Roosevelt Roberts, Lupita Godinez punched her way to a split (that really shouldn't have been a split) over Tabatha Ricci, and Steve Erceg got an exceptionally hard-fought victory over Alessandro Costa. Your main card was short and sweet. Diego Lopes punched out Pat Sabatini in a minute thirty, Benoît Saint-Denis lost the race by knocking out Matt Frevola in a minute thirty-one, Jéssica Andrade spoiled the UFC's special night yet again by TKOing Mackenzie Dern in two rounds, and in your co-main event, Tom Aspinall ended the scariest streak at heavyweight by knocking out Sergei Pavlovich in just over a minute, becoming the UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion in the process and, in all likelihood, the actual world champion, as god knows if Jon Jones will ever really come back. In your main event, Alex Pereira became the latest person to succeed in the great two-belt gold rush, scoring a TKO some people think was a touch early (personally, I think it was fine) over former champ Jiří Procházka to win the Light Heavyweight Championship of the world.

November 17th saw off the final Bellator event of the year and, possibly, all of time and space: Bellator 301: Amosov vs Jackson. One last time, we had a giant ten-fight preliminary card, and in respect for the fallen, we're gonna go over all of it. Yves Landu took a split decision over Isao Kobayashi, Tim Wilde got a real fun headkick knockout over Mike Hamel, Cody Law put a legal beating on Jefferson Pontes, and Islam Mamedov scraped his way to a split against Killys Mota. A trifecta of submissions followed: Ramazan Kuramagomedov choked out Randall Wallace, Matheus Mattos choked out Richard Palencia, and Kery Taylor-Melendez guillotined Sabriye Şengül. Fittingly, the last three prelims were all decisions: Timur Khizriev ground out Justin Gonzalez, Denise Kielholtz kicked Sumiko Inaba just a whole bunch, and Archie Colgan defeated Pieter Buist. Your main card, on the other hand, started off real hilarious. Alexandr Shabily outpointed Patricky Pitbull in an extremely one-sided fight to get into the finals of the Lightweight Grand Prix, if, y'know, they still happen. A.J. McKee won a supremely weird match with Sidney Outlaw in which Outlaw thoroughly controlled him on the floor, but landed so little offense in the process that McKee still got a 30-27. Raufeon Stots and Danny Sabatello had a rematch of their ostensibly feud-ending bout from last December, and once again, Sabatello wrestled Stots a bunch and accomplished nothing with it and Stots battered him to a decision victory. In what probably should have been the main event, Patchy Mix and Sergio Pettis sought to unify their broken Bantamweight title and Patchy succeeded, dethroning the standing champion by rear-naked choke in just the second round. Interim is now Undisputed. Your main event saw a giant upset, as Yaroslav Amosov's title reign and 27-fight undefeated streak both came to an end at the hands of Jason Jackson, who, having not recorded a knockout in half a decade, not only dominated Amosov in the wrestling but knocked him out standing midway through the third round. Bellator has brand new Bantamweight and Welterweight champions--but what they are champions of, we won't know until next year.

The UFC's November concluded with UFC Fight Night: Allen vs Craig on November 18th. It was a weird card on paper, and sure enough, it was a weird card in practice. Down on your prelims: Charles Johnson's third-round rally wasn't enough to keep him from losing a decision to Rafael Estevam, Trey Ogden was two minutes away from an extremely clear decision over Nikolas Motta but referee Mike Beltran called Motta out on a submission that wasn't actually in and the fight wound up a No Contest, Ailín Pérez beat Lucie Pudilová and twerked on the octagon upside down, Jeka Saragih knocked out Lucas Alexander after he turned his back by mistake, Mick Parkin beat Caio Machado in a bout 80% of media scored against him, Christian Leroy Duncan struggled with Denis Tiuliulin before knocking him out in the second round, Jose Johnson submitted Chad Anheliger with just ten seconds left in their fight, and Joanderson Brito choked out Jonathan "JSP" Pearce. On your main card, last-minute replacement Myktybek Orolbai made his UFC debut by submitting Uroš Medić, Amanda Ribas overcame an early struggle with Luana Pinheiro and knocked her out with a spinning wheel kick, Payton Talbot got controlled by Nick Aguirre but submitted him in the third round anyway, Chase Hooper tapped out Jordan Leavitt in three minutes, and Michael Morales took a solid decision over Jake Matthews. Your main event put Brendan Allen and Paul Craig together in what some folks wanted to be a real interesting grappling battle, but unfortunately, aside from one neat near-calif slicer by Craig, it was mostly just Allen mauling him for two rounds and finally submitting him in the third.

And the month as a whole ended on November 24th with PFL 10, the traditional end-of-season pay-per-view. And, boy, it was fucking terrible. It was incredibly long, it was terribly paced, it had real awkward celebrity-commentary intrusions into fights (what DOES Wiz Khalifa think about clinch control?), and most of the fights were, ultiamtely, real uneventful. In non-title fights, Jesse Stirn took as decision over Josh Blyden, Phil Caracappa outworked Khai Wu, Biaggio Ali Walsh won yet another amateur bout, Derek Brunson outwrestled Ray Cooper III and Kayla Harrison judoed Aspen Ladd for fifteen minutes. In championship finals: Jesus Pinedo won the Featherweight title by TKOing Gabriel Braga, Impa Kasanganay took a five-round decision over Josh Silveira to win the Light Heavyweight tournament, Magomed Magomedkerimov became a two-time Welterweight winner after choking out Sadibou Sy in three rounds, Larissa Pacheco won the Women's Featherweight tournament with a long decision over Marina Mokhnatkina, and Renan Ferreira took the Heavyweight tournament with a second-round knockout over Denis Goltsov. Your main event was the Lightweight final, where Olivier Aubin-Mercier managed to win an incredibly slow grappling decision over Clay Collard, who, despite spending 3/4 getting outgrappled on the ground, still outstruck OAM. It was one of those. Godspeed, PFL. See you next year.

WHAT'S COMING IN DECEMBER

As always December is pretty sedate, but we've got a couple big explosions at the end.

The month kicks off on the 2nd with UFC on ESPN: Dariush vs Tsarukyan, which is one of those cards that's so all over the place it feels like a bit of a fever dream. Veronica Hardy had a big performance in her comeback earlier this year! So she's curtain-jerking the prelims. Steve Garcia's breakout year leads him to fighting Melquizael Costa. Clay Guida is fighting Joaquim Silva, for some reason? Miesha Tate is back, again, and she's fighting Julia Avila? On the prelims? Your main card has Khalil Rountree Jr. vs Azamat Murzakanov, Punahele Soriano vs Dustin Stoltzfus, Sean Brady vs Kelvin Gastelum as he returns to 170 pounds for the first time since 2016, Deiveson Figueiredo's bantamweight debut against Rob Font, Dan Hooker taking on Bobby Green, and in your main event, a wrestling-based barn-burner between Beneil Dariush and Arman Tsarukyan.

Then it's off to ONE on December 9th with ONE Fight Night 17, which, uh. Exists? At the time of this writing we're a couple weeks out, the card has no main event thanks to Tawanchai and Superbon being cursed never to meet, and there are only five fights announced for the show and all of them are Muay Thai kickboxing matches. Man, remember when ONE being on Amazon was a really big deal? Remember how hard they pushed that? And now we're here. Good job, Bezos. UPDATE: The new main event is ONE crowning yet another fucking champion, this time with Roman Kryklia fighting the debuting Alex Roberts for the ONE Heavyweight Muay Thai championship. Have fun.

Later that day we go back to the UFC for UFC Fight Night: Song vs Gutiérrez. That's right: The UFC is back in China for the first time since the pre-COVID days, and that means it's one of those cards with a pretty weird main event and a lot of fighters you probably don't know. Yi Zha vs Li Kai Wen! Xiao Long vs Lee Chang-ho! Rei Tsuruya vs Ji Niushiyue! I'm not even mad at it, they're going to be fun as hell, but you know the UFC isn't bringing any of them back until the next time they're in China again just like they do with their local appeal cards all the time, and boy, it makes it hard to feel invested. But you've still got Rong Zhu vs Shin Haraguchi, Song Kenan vs Kevin Joussey, Nasrat Haqparast vs Jamie Mullarkey, Sumudaerji vs Allan Nascimento, Tasuro Taira vs Carlos Hernandez, André Muniz vs the Iron Goddamn Turtle, and the aforementioned Yadong vs Gutiérrez, which should be a good scrap.UPDATE: The UFC gave up and moved this whole event out of China and into the god damned UFC Apex, so everything's changed and half the card is now cancelled. Will they announce the new card by the time the month's over? If this is still the end of this paragraph: Nope!

And the UFC calls a year with December 16th's UFC 296: Edwards vs Covington. As has become tradition, they're blowing it out a bit for the last pay-per-view of the year, as there's almost no wasted space on this card. Tagir Ulanbekov vs Cody Durden, Casey O'Neill vs Ariane Lipski, Martin Buday vs Shamil Gaziev, Randy Brown vs Muslim Salikhov, Irene Aldana vs Karol Rosa, Alonzo Menifield vs Dustin Jacoby and Cody Garbrandt vs Brian Kelleher--it's all pretty solid. Your (probable) main card's a banger, too: Josh Emmett vs Giga Chikadze, Vicente Luque vs Ian Machado Garry, Shavkat Rakhmonov vs Stephen Thompson, and, unfortunately, Tony Ferguson vs Paddy Pimblett, because everything needs a little grossness in it. You've got two title fights after that, though: Your co-main event has Alexandre Pantoja defending the Flyweight Championship against Brandon Royval, and in your main event, the UFC finally gets what it wants, as Leon Edwards defends the Welterweight Championship against Colby Covington.

But the curtain doesn't fall on the year until we get a Japanese MMA New Year's event, and 2023 is no different. Rizin 45 comes to you live on December 31st. Minoru Kimura just failed a drug test and had his last several fights turned into No Contests. Does Rizin care? No! Go kickbox Rukiya Anpo. Oh, whoops, he failed another drug test so the fight's off. Crazy! Shinobu Ota has faltered in his quest to become the latest Olympic Judoka crossover star and just lost to Shoko Sato in October. Is he out? Of course not! He's fighting Ryusei Ashizawa, a kickboxer who's never had an MMA fight in his life. Tsuyoshi Sudario looked iffy in his last fight? Give him the 2-1 Mikio Ueda! Bellator's no longer in a position to participate in cross-promotion? Go team up with the Bareknuckle Fighting Championship and have him fight Hiromasa Ougikubo! Your top-card attractions are Kleber Koike Erbst vs Yutaka Saito in the hopes of getting a shot at his featherweight championship again, Kyoji Horiguchi and Shinryu Takahashi in a do-over for their aborted fight to crown the first-ever Rizin Flyweight Champion, and in your main event, Rizin Bantamweight Champion Juan Archuleta defends his title against Kai Asakura. NOTE: Nobuhiko Takada will not be there. I know, I'm sad too.

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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS

Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Jon Jones - 27-1 (1), 0 Defenses

Very few things in combat sports reach the crossroads of awe-inspiring and unfathomably frustrating as Jon Jones. In 2020, Jon Jones notched the third defense of his second light-heavyweight championship reign after an exceedingly contentious decision against Dominick Reyes, only to abdicate the title because the UFC wasn't paying him enough, and he was bored of 205 pounds and wanted to move up to heavyweight like he'd been planning to for nearly a decade, and he needed more time to cement his place as not just one of the sport's greatest pound-for-pound fighters, but one of its biggest pound-for-pound pains in the ass. On September 23, 2021, Jon Jones was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame; on September 24, 2021, he was arrested (for the fifth time!) after his daughter called the police on him for beating her mother, during which he antagonized the police and, inexplicably, headbutted a police car. Because this is Jon Jones, of course, the primary charges were dropped, he paid $750 for the hood of the police cruiser, and got a stern warning to stay out of trouble, young man, because there is a money-powered reality-distorting field around Jon Jones whereby nothing matters. After a year of rumors, and after the unconscionable firing of heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, the UFC gleefully announced Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane to fill the vacant heavyweight throne. Did it matter to the matchmaking that there were more deserving candidates? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He deserves the spot for his earlier success. Did it matter to his public appearances that when last we saw him he was arrested for beating his fiancee? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He was, if anything, more up his own ass with self-righteousness than ever before. Did it matter to the fight that he hadn't competed in more than three years and looked terrible at the time? Of course not, because it's Jon fucking Jones. Ciryl Gane looked too nervous to use footwork let alone throw anything, and he should have been, as Jones effortlessly threw him to the canvas and choked him out in two minutes. The longest-running, most dominant and yet most persistently annoying show in mixed martial arts is back. And in the most predictable thing possible, some bullshit happened, he got injured, he's going to be gone for at least eight months, and the UFC is not only not stripping him of the title like they've done to everyone else, they've already gotten out ahead of themselves and made clear that when he comes back, he will be fighting Stipe Miocic, not whoever the interim champion is at the time. Funny, that.

Interim Heavyweight Champion

Tom Aspinall - 14-3, 0 Defenses

The UFC's Heavyweight division got itself into a weird spot in 2007. Randy Couture was the rightful, reigning, defending champion, but he and the UFC had a dispute that stretched out more than a year. The UFC couldn't strip him--it would have made it easier for him to get out of his contract--so they made an interim title. By the time Randy came back they had already made big plans for him and Brock Lesnar, but the interim title had gotten wrapped up in The Ultimate Fighter 8 (jesus christ) and it, too, had to be defended, meaning there were two championships being defended simultaneously: The Undisputed Championship, which was the 'real' belt despite being held by a guy trying to leave the company and contended for by someone with only two victories in the sport, and the Interim Championship, which was being fought over by the actual, legitimate top contenders. At UFC 295 on November 11th, 2023, Tom Aspinall, the rightful #4 contender, fought Sergei Pavlovich, the rightful #2 contender, for a new interim championship. And he won. On two weeks' notice! Aspinall's been one of the most promising heavyweight prospects in the world for years, his only loss in the UFC came from his knee tearing itself apart fifteen seconds into a fight, and he went toe-to-toe with one of the scariest punchers in the history of the sport and knocked him flat in just barely over a minute. He is, indisputably, the real deal. And now he gets to be the interim champion of a Heavyweight division in which the real champion, Jon Jones, is going to be out injured well into next year and, the UFC has made clear, will be returning to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who by that time will have been on the shelf for 3+ years and will be going on 42. So congratulations, Tom. You're the real Heavyweight champion. I hope you get some credit for it.

Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Alex Pereira - 9-2, 0 Defenses

Conflicting things can be simultaneously true in this sport. It is true that Alex Pereira was brought into the UFC as a 3-1 rookie based on his history as a kickboxer rather than his accomplishments in the sport. It is true that he was fast-tracked to a title shot against the primary focus of that history, megastar Israel Adesanya, after beating just three fighters, none of whom had any hope of testing his grappling. It is also true that he rendered that discourse ultimately irrelevant by not just beating but stopping Adesanya in his title shot anyway, in the process becoming the fastest Middleweight to go from debut to champion since Anderson Silva. It was more or less an open secret that he wasn't going to stay there: Being bigger than most Heavyweights in the UFC, the weight cut to 185 was always a short-term thing. Luckily for the UFC, he got knocked out by Adesanya and gave him the title right back on his way up to 205. Once again, he got fast-tracked, this time by happenstance. A split decision victory over Jan Błachowicz made Pereira a top five contender, and when Jamahal Hill was forced to vacate his title thanks to an ankle injury--and the previous champion, Jiří Procházka, was back from his own title vacation and injury--Pereira was slotted right back into championship place. They met at UFC 295 on November 11th, and after two back-and-forth rounds, Pereira punished a Jiří who dared to grapple by elbowing his skull until he briefly stopped moving. The commentary and audience thought it was an early stoppage, but Jiří Procházka didn't, so fuck 'em. It is true that Alex Pereira has fought seven UFC fights without having to fight an actual grappler, and that was an intentional choice by matchmaking. It is true that getting the chance to win championships in two weight classes within just two years and seven fights in the UFC is not a thing that happens to most fighters. But it is unavoidably true that Alex Pereira is a two-division champion and no one can take it away from him. But because Light Heavyweight cannot be allowed to be good or stable, Alex Pereira, despite being the champion, called out his first desired contender: Israel Adesanya. Congratulations, everyone.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Sean Strickland - 28-5, 0 Defenses

Yup. Against all reason, we're here. The UFC has been gleefully pushing Sean Strickland for awhile--half because he's their favorite kind of shitty, bigoted white guy, half because he takes fights basically every ninety days and costs way less money. Is he anything close to the violent knockout machine they market him as? No, not really: He has two finishes in the last half-decade and all his other finishes came back when he was still a welterweight. Has he enjoyed a long tenure as a top contender in the making? Well, not exactly: He's been fringe top ten for quite awhile, but he spent most of 2022 losing repeatedly and was 2 for his last 4. Did he earn his title shot by vanquishing top contenders and establishing himself as their better? Not even remotely: He has two top fifteen-ranked wins in his entire career, he got beaten by actual top contenders like Jared Cannonier and Alex Pereira, and he got his shot at the champion thanks to his victory over Abusupiyan Magomedov, veteran of one single, unranked, 19-second UFC fight. But Dricus du Plessis didn't want to take his well-earned championship match while he was injured, so the UFC sent Strickland to Australia, and he did the damn thing anyway. Israel Adesanya turned out a deeply baffling performance where he proved completely unprepared for Strickland's orthodox 1-2 pressure game to the point that Strickland almost finished the fight in the first round, which, admittedly, would have been hilarious in a the-ending-of-In-the-Mouth-of-Madness kind of way. Sean Strickland, god help us all, is a world champion. He is, thankfully, smart enough to know he has leverage, which came in handy when the UFC tried to get him to defend his title against Khamzat Chimaev with one week of preparation. Instead, he'll make his first title defense against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 297 on January 20.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Leon Edwards - 21-3 (1), 1 Defenses

It took half a decade to get the world to notice, but everyone sees Leon Edwards now. "Rocky" came from the kind of circumstances sports movies are made of--a poor kid from Jamaica who moved to England, lost his father to gang violence, nearly lost himself to it as a teenager and found a healthy outlet for his anger in mixed martial arts. Edwards made his debut in 2011 as a prime example of the modern generation of fighter, cross-trained from the beginning in every discipline, and in just three years he was the welterweight champion of Britain and off to the UFC. Entering 2016, Leon had suffered the first true loss of his career--he was 10-3, but one of those losses was a DQ for an illegal blow and the other a coinflip decision that could easily have gone either way--at the hands of the newly-crowned Ultimate Fighter 21 winner, Kamaru Usman, making his debut as an official UFC competitor. It took ten fights without a loss for Leon to get his rematch. The UFC seemed especially resistant to his title contendership, pushing him down in favor of the ostensibly more marketable UK star in Darren Till and booking him against numerous other contenders and gatekeepers while repeatedly elevating less deserving fighters to the championship. He wouldn't have gotten it at all, in fact, had Jorge Masvidal not gotten arrested. On August 20, the UFC acquiesced and granted the clear #1 contender his shot at the championship, and at revenge against Kamaru Usman--and after getting dominated for three and a half out of five rounds, with the commentators openly opining on the likelihood that he had given up, with just fifty-six seconds left in the fight, Edwards uncorked a headkick that shocked the world and knocked Kamaru Usman out for the first time in his career. The rubber match was inevitable, and once again, Edwards opened as an underdog, and once again, he proved everyone wrong. Instead of a last-minute comeback Leon simply shut Usman down for the majority of the fight, stuffing eleven of his takedown attempts, outstriking him in four out of five rounds and landing an absolutely wild 75% of his strikes in the process. It was an incredible performance against one of the greatest welterweights of all time, marred only by Leon losing a point for fence grabs. The decision was unquestionably his, and now legitimized as the champion of the world, Leon's first move is...getting into a big, public spat with the UFC, because instead of any of the working contenders of the division Dana White is demanding he defend the belt against Colby Covington. After fighting about it in public all year, the UFC got its way: Leon Edwards vs Colby Covington will headline UFC 296 on December 16th.

Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Islam Makhachev - 25-1, 2 Defenses

Destiny has come. When Islam Makhachev made his UFC debut in 2015, Khabib Nurmagomedov, considered by most to be the #1 contender and soon to be the best in the world, swore up and down that Makhachev, not him, would be the best lightweight champion of all time. Coming from him, the praise made sense: Khabib and Islam have trained together since they were children growing up and learning to wrestle in Makhachkala. Islam learned under Khabib's father, trained with Khabib's team and even made the pilgrimage to America to join Khabib at the American Kickboxing Academy. And then, two matches into his UFC tenure, Islam got knocked the fuck out in the first round by the little-known Adriano Martins, who hasn't won a fight in the six years since. Even as Makhachev racked up wins, the memory of his loss and his wrestling-heavy approach to his fights let people cast doubts on him. Sure, he's good--but he lost, so he's not as good as Khabib. Islam Makhachev, as his trainer tells it, never wanted to be Khabib. He loves fighting, but he doesn't love the spectacle or the glory or the attention. So when, after ten straight wins, Makhachev was picked to challenge Charles Oliveira for the vacant title he never truly lost, a lot of folks just weren't quite sure what to think. Sure, he was an incredible wrestler, but Charles Oliveira is a submission wizard, and sure, he's on a ten-fight streak, but he hasn't fought a single person actually IN the top ten, and Oliveira represents a huge, dangerous step up as a man who's been destroying some of the most accomplished lightweights in the sport's history. Analyst opinion was split right down the middle; the fight, as it turned out, was nowhere near that competitive, and the only analyst who was entirely correct was Khabib. Islam demolished the former champion, outstriking him, taking him down at will, controlling him in the grappling, and ultimately dropping him with punches and choking him out in the second round. His first defense was a different story. Islam faced featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 on February 12th in a rare best-of-the-best, champion vs champion match, and this time, his team's prediction of domination was thoroughly incorrect: It was a pitched battle that ended with Makhachev visibly exhausted and Volkanovski pounding on his face. Islam took an extremely close decision and the divisions will remain separate, but his aura of invulnerability has been thoroughly punctured. Or, at least, it was. In one of those funny moments of sport deterioration, his title defense against Charles Oliveira got scratched thanks to Oliveira busting his eyebrow in training, and on less than two weeks' notice the UFC ran Makhachev/Volkanovski 2, and with no hype, no marketing and no time to prepare, a visibly depleted Volkanovski got dropped by a headkick in the first round. Having now abruptly vanquished his rival, Islam Makhachev is...calling out the winner of the Leon Edwards vs Colby Covington welterweight title bout. God dammit.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 26-3, 5 Defenses

Sometimes, things get ruined for no good reason. Three things are true. 1: Alexander Volkanovski is one of the best fighters on the planet, and has proven it, repeatedly, over the last near-decade. His featherweight reign is second only to José Aldo in history, and he stands a great chance of surpassing him. 2: Alexander Volkanovski had one of the best performances of his career in February of 2023, when he met lightweight kingpin Islam Makhachev, took him to his limit and nearly knocked him out in the fifth round. Even though he lost a decision his stock rose considerably, and a rematch between the two seemed inevitable. 3: When the UFC called Volkanovski to step in and make that rematch happen as a short-notice replacement 13 days before fight night, he should have said no. For every fantastic story in mixed martial arts there are a thousand dreams crushed by reality. In reality, Islam Makhachev got most of a year to recover before training his ass off to fight Charles Oliveira for months, and Alexander Volkanovski had just fought three months prior despite having a crippling arm injury, had just gotten surgery for said injury, and had only just finished his post-op recovery in mid-September. The Alexander Volkanovski who stepped into the cage on October 21st could have beaten up 9/10 of the planet, but he still looked diminished, and unfortunately, a fully-healthy, fully-trained, fully-prepared Islam Makhachev is firmly in that 1/10 even on a good day. It wasn't competitive, it wasn't dramatic, and it didn't take long. Islam domed Volk with a headkick and pounded him out in three minutes. In the post-fight interview an emotional Volkanovski talked about taking the replacement thanks to the psychological need to get back out there and fight again, and insisted that despite rushing back into the cage, and despite getting concussed, he still wanted to defend his featherweight title against Ilia Topuria at UFC 297 on January 20th. I say this as an enormous fan of the man: I really, really hope there's someone in his camp who can talk him out of it. It would be his fourth top-level world title fight in eleven months, and it would be his second in a row that would leave him with barely any time to prepare--given that, having been knocked out, he shouldn't have any sparring contact until the end of December. We all need time to get healthy. UPDATE: Well, I kind of got what I wanted. Volkanovski's defense got pushed back one month: He'll know face Ilia Topuria at UFC 298 on February 17th.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Sean O'Malley - 17-1 (1), 0 Defenses

The house always wins. I have spent years being mad about Sean O'Malley. Very few people get the red carpet rolled out for them without having some other previous success to draw on, but Dana White seemingly hand-selected Sean O'Malley as The Guy back in 2017 when he won a contract on the second-ever episode of the Contender Series, and from the second he first stepped into the octagon, he was treated like a Big Fucking Deal. His matchmaking was favorable, his marketing was endless, and even when he fucked up--getting his leg broken against Andre Soukhamthath, pissing hot for ostarine and missing a year, getting knocked out by Marlon Vera--the UFC was there to pick him up and keep pushing him up the ladder. He went from fighting regional fighters and flyweights to a top ten matchup, and when that match ended with him poking out Pedro Munhoz's eye, he was catapulted into a title eliminator against the #1-ranked Petr Yan, and when he got one of the year's worst decisions against Yan, he was allowed to sit on his hands for almost a year to wait for a title shot against a champion who was given three months and no injury recovery time to prepare. Is it fair for me to dislike Sean O'Malley for decisions the UFC made? Absolutely not, and I don't blame him for them whatsoever. Fortunately for me, Sean O'Malley also has a great love of making public hot takes like "here's my power ranking of my female coworkers by how fuckable I think they are" and "publicly avowed rapist Andrew Tate is a great guy I want to co-promote and advertise with" and "convicted child molester Tekashi69 is my homeboy" and "I have an open relationship with my wife where I get to bang other people but she doesn't because I'm the man" that make me feel deeply, thoroughly at peace with disliking him for other reasons. But none of that means he isn't a hell of a fighter or he didn't absolutely fucking flatten Aljamain Sterling with a picture-perfect counterpunch in their title fight. Did he deserve the shot? Not even a little. Did he prove he belongs at the top? Undeniably. However much of a shithead he may be, he's the champion of the goddamn world. Just in case his status as a marketing favorite had not been made abundantly clear, the UFC announced he will have his first title defense not in a rematch with Sterling, or a meeting with top contender Merab Dvalishvili, or even a bout with the streaking Cory Sandhagen, but--of course--a rematch with Marlon "Chito" Vera, the #6 contender on a one-fight win streak who knocked O'Malley out back in 2020. Neat. They'll fight at UFC 299 on March 9th.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Alexandre Pantoja - 26-5, 0 Defenses

Sometimes, you just have someone's number. Brandon Moreno spent years fighting through a quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, and unfortunately for him, he had another trilogy waiting for him the second it was over. Alexandre "The Cannibal" Pantoja was Moreno's personal bogeyman, a man who'd fought and beaten him twice. But one of those fights was an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter, and the other was against a Moreno with five less years of evolution and growth. Surely, a third fight in 2023 would be different. And it was--unlike the previous, one-sided dominations it was a fight-of-the-year candidate that took both men to their limit and led to a split decision--but its ending was not. Alexander Pantoja scored a third victory over Moreno, and with it, after sixteen years of competition, he finally became the clear, unequivocal best in the god damned world. Which was made even more poignant when he used his post-fight interview to ask if his absentee father was proud of him--and was made even more irritating when he also revealed that despite having eleven fights in the UFC at the time, he was paid so little that he'd been part-timing as a Doordash driver just to make ends meet right up up until 2022. The idea that one of the absolute best fighters on the planet, after years and nearly a dozen fights in the world's biggest, most profitable fighting organization, would need to take on a gig-economy job to make money is outright offensive, and in a better world, it would have launched a furor. In this one, all we can do is be happy he's got the belt and will, hopefully, make some actual fucking money. His first title defense will officially come against Brandon "Raw Dawg" Royval as the co-main event to UFC 296 on December 16th, marking the first flyweight championship fight not to include either Deiveson Figueiredo or Brandon Moreno since January of 2019.

Women's Featherweight, 145 lbs

VACANT - The forgotten vow

Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs

VACANT - The last seat at musical chairs

June was a banner month for Vacant, as they claimed three belts in four weeks. Amanda Nunes spent seven years--minus about six really, really weird months last year--as not just the undisputed best women's mixed martial artist on the planet, but the undisputed best women's mixed martial artist of all time. While there are plenty of arguments to be had about the legitimacy of Women's Featherweight in the UFC, factually, she's the only UFC fighter to actually hold and defend championships in two weight classes at once, and she did it for years, and she made all of her opponents look like absolute shit. On June 10th she did it one last time, absolutely crushing Irene Aldana for five straight rounds, before officially retiring and passing into legend. With Julianna Peña still recovering from her injury, the UFC is finally filling the Women's Bantamweight void: Raquel Pennington will face Mayra Bueno Silva at UFC 297 on January 20th, and whoever wins gets the unenviable task of trying to rebuild the division. No word on Women's Featherweight, though. I wonder how long I'll even keep it here.

Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs

Alexa Grasso - 16-3-1, 1 Defense, Sort Of

Every once in awhile someone gets to shock the combat sports world, and in 2023, it's Alexa Grasso. The UFC has been high on Grasso since she left Invicta for her company debut back in 2016--she's been one of the most consistently featured fighters in ANY women's division, be it her time at strawweight or her move up to flyweight--but her two bids at the top of the mountain at 115 pounds met with disaster, once in Tatiana Suarez handing her the only stoppage loss of her career and once in Carla Esparza outwrestling her to a decision, and watching her manhandled by 115-pound fighters left the world doubting her 125-pound chances. But thanks to her solid boxing and her ever-improving ground game she ran up a four-fight winning streak, and when the UFC announced that she'd be taking on divisional queen and one of the greatest of all time in Valentina Shevchenko, the collective fan reaction was a unanimous "sure, okay," because Valentina disposing of people was a generally accepted phenomenon and she needed a warm body. The first round was a slight surprise, with Grasso stinging Shevchenko on the feet, but as so often happens, by the fourth round Valentina had taken over the fight, was ahead on every judge's scorecard and looked poised to cruise to her eighth title defense. And then, she was struck down by the bane of the sport: Spinning shit. Backed into the fence, Shevchenko did what she does entirely too often--a spinning back kick--and in the half-second she was turned away Grasso leapt to her back, dragged her to the floor, and became the first person to ever submit Valentina Shevchenko. Alexa Grasso, after years of work, is the Women's Flyweight Champion of the World. A rematch was inevitable, and it came at UFC Noche on September 16th, and, like everything does, it ended in controversy. After an incredibly close fight that the media had split almost cleanly down the middle, the judges ruled the contest a split draw. Which wouldn't be crazy--were it not for said draw hinging on Mike Bell, who is typically one of MMA's most reliable judges, giving Grasso a completely, utterly inexplicable and inexcusable 10-8 score in the final round, without which Valentina Shevchenko would have won a split decision. So Grasso did not win, in the end, but she did defend her title, technically. But unless Valentina turns out to need an extended break for hand surgery, we're going right back to the rematch well.

Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs

Zhang Weili - 24-3, 1 Defenses

Are you really surprised? There's a long tradition of underestimating unlikely champions in mixed martial arts, particularly when they're not the fan-friendliest in style or personality, from Michael Bisping to Frankie Edgar, only to have those demeaned champions remind the world that they didn't reach the peak of their divisions by mistake. Many of the wise, studied scribes of the sport warned the foolish masses against assuming the same about Women's Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza: She was no pushover, they said, and Zhang will have real trouble. And then, come fight day, we unwashed masses pulled them from their ivory towers and forced them to run in the streets amongst the mud and filth so they, too, could feel the unburdened joy of being, because Zhang Weili, as basically every fan had assumed, did, in fact, beat the absolute tar out of Carla. It wasn't particularly close: Carla got outlanded 37-6, hurt several times on the feet, and choked out just a minute into the second round. The inexplicable, season-long Cookie Monster subplot is over, Zhang Weili is now a two-time world champion, and things are back as they should be. What comes next, however, is tricky. Carla was blown out, so a rematch is out of the question. Rose Namajunas, the only person in the UFC to beat Weili, is a likely candidate--but after her disastrous performance against Carla, it remains to be seen how much faith the UFC has in her. Jéssica Andrade has a claim, but she's splitting time between 115 and 125, and probably needs to pick a weight class if she wants a shot. So the UFC solved the problem by picking Amanda Lemos. In a surprise to no one, Zhang absolutely dominated Lemos, outstriking her 296-29, smashing her to the tune of multiple 10-8 rounds, and winning a very, very wide decision. The next step is, in all likelihood, a China vs China championship showdown against Yan Xiaonan.

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NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Ryan Bader - 31-7 (1), 3 Defenses

Ryan Bader is the greatest Bellator Heavyweight Champion of all time, and on a dairy farm somewhere in Wisconsin, Cole Konrad feels a pang of regret. Bader made his name as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Nogueira vs Mir all the way back in 2008, but his UFC career proved to be one of Sisyphean torment and humiliation that included, somehow, impossibly, being the only man to lose a UFC fight to Tito Ortiz during his last six years in the company. Bader left for free agency and Bellator in 2016 and became its light-heavyweight champion on his first night with the organization, and just two years later he became its first-ever simultaneous double-champion after knocking out the legendary Fedor Emelianenko and taking the heavyweight title. Bader would go on to lose his 205-pound crown, but Fedor never forgot his 35-second drubbing at the American wrestler's hands, and for his retirement fight, he demanded a rematch. Thus it was that the entire mixed martial arts community watched with bated breath as on February 4th, 2023, Fedor Emelianenko walked into the cage one last time and promptly got the absolute crap beaten out of him again. Ryan Bader remains undefeated at heavyweight. He was to defend his title against Linton Vassell at Bellator's series finale-sounding Bellator 300, but Vassell got injured and, as Bader himself put it in a reddit post, Viacom is done with Bellator and didn't want to pay for a replacement. Ryan Bader is the best heavyweight champion outside of the UFC, and it's anyone's guess if he'll still be champion of anything by January.

Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Vadim Nemkov - 17-2 (1), 4 Defenses

Bellator CEO Scott Coker has been complicating title reigns with tournaments for decades and he's not about to stop now. Vadim Nemkov won the Bellator Light-Heavyweight Championship from Ryan Bader in 2020, and his title reign was immediately wrapped up in the Light-Heavyweight Grand Prix that started the following year. Nemkov, a Fedor Emelianenko protege, former Spetsnaz operative and understated wrecking machine who hadn't lost a fight since his early-career days in Rizin back in 2016, continued his Bellator streak by handling the always-game Phil Davis and dealing with some trouble en route to submitting Julius Anglickas, but then the tournament came to a screeching halt. Bellator threw all its marketing cash at the ultimately ill-fated Bellator 277 in April of 2022, and a sizable chunk of that misfortune came from both its championship and tournament-final co-main event. Corey Anderson looked handily en route to defeating Nemkov, only to unintentionally headbutt him while diving in to throw a punch. The headbutt opened an uncloseable gash on Nemkov's brow--and it happened five seconds before round three would've ended and allowed the judges to score a technical decision. It would be seven full months before the final got its re-do, and this time, Nemkov avoided Anderson's wrestling and controlled the fight with distance strikes en route to a unanimous decision victory. It took nearly two years for Bellator to complete an eight-man tournament, but they did it, and Vadim Nemkov is still your world's champion. Nemkov scored one more defense after defeating Yoel Romero at Bellator 297 on June 16th, and he followed it up by opining about giving up the division and the belt and moving to heavyweight. Bellator hasn't yet confirmed this, possibly because Bellator doesn't know in what fashion it will exist this time next year.

Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Johnny Eblen - 14-0, 2 Defenses

There's an old combat sports tradition whereby a champion isn't really a champion until they defend their title. Gegard Mousasi has been established as the best middleweight outside the UFC that, despite the one-sided nature of their fight, Johnny Eblen's victory over him was treated as an aberration rather than the passing of a torch. It didn't matter that Eblen was undefeated, widely considered one of the absolute best by his cohort at American Top Team or that he'd dropped Mousasi on his face with his bare hands, the world needed verification. On February 4th at Bellator 290, they got it. Fedor Emelianenko's team was intending to pull one big, beautiful night of success out of the ether for their leader's retirement fight, but it was not to be: Vadim Nemkov had to pull out of the card thanks to an injury, Fedor himself was crushed for the second time by heavyweight champion Ryan Bader, and middleweight hopeful Anatoly Tokov was competitive for the first couple of rounds but was subsequently washed out by Eblen's overwhelming assault. Johnny Eblen is a defending champion now, and as things always seem to go, the conversation changed overnight from his being overrated to his being better than everyone in the UFC. This mindset only grew again after Bellator 299 on September 23rd, as Eblen faced Fabian Edwards, knocked him out in the third round, and nearly got into a post-fight brawl with his brother, UFC champion Leon Edwards. Eblen admits he has no idea what his future is or if Bellator will still be around, but he's considering a move to light-heavyweight with Vadim Nemkov leaving the division wide open.

Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Jason Jackson - 17-4, 0 Defenses

Getting in right before the buzzer is one of the best times to get in. Jason Jackson does not win any points for having "The Ass-Kicking Machine" for a nickname, but his successes speak for themselves. Jackson actually had two run-ins with the UFC early in his career--since he got his start training with the short-lived Blackzilians team, he was part of The Ultimate Fighter 21 (jesus christ): American Top Team vs Blackzilians, where he was choked out in the second round. He didn't get invited to the UFC, but two years later he was on the third episode of the Contender Series, which saw him spend the first round mostly cage-clinching before breaking his ankle out of nowhere twenty seconds into the second round. He was in Bellator a couple years later losing a decision to Ed Ruth, and that was about the point the world decided to ignore him. As it turns out: A mistake. His path through Bellator was slow--to the point that he's only had one fight a year for the last three years--but by this year he was on a six-fight winning streak and a sensible opponent for Yaroslav Amosov. Very few people gave him a chance, but having not knocked anyone out since mid-2018, absolutely no one expected him to knock Amosov, the best Welterweight outside of the UFC, the fuck out in the third round. Jason Jackson is, officially, the Bellator Welterweight Champion. Whether there will still be a division for him in a month, we'll have to wait and see.

Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Usman Nurmagomedov - 17-0 (1), 2 Defenses

If there's a single, developing throughline of mixed martial arts in 2022, it's the growing power of the Dagestani wrestling brigade. Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov built an army of ultra-grapplers, and after his passing the American Kickboxing Academy's Javier Mendez and Adulmanap's son and protege, the now-retired Khabib Nurmagomedov, unleashed them on the world. Usman, Khabib's cousin (as well as the younger brother of Umar Nurmagomedov, undefeated and ranked UFC bantamweight), took to Bellator in April of 2021 and proceeded to burn an undefeated path through the Manny Muros and Patrik Pietiläe of the world. His style was a little more eclectic--lots of spinning kicks, lots of stick-and-move jabs and stomps to the leg--but the resemblance became uncanny once he inevitably, and easily, ragdolled his opponents to the canvas and generally choked them out in short order thereafter. When he was announced as the #1 contender to Bellator's lightweight title, I was somewhat miffed: He hadn't beaten any top contenders, Bellator had already held a title eliminator and it was won in a crushing thirty-second knockout by Tofiq Musayev, the whole thing smacked of a pathetic attempt to glom onto some of Khabib's mainstream attention. I at no point said that he wouldn't very, very easily win. At Bellator 288 on November 18th, Usman very, very easily won, defeating Patricky "Pitbull" Freire at every aspect of the game and leaving him sans both his championship and one eyebrow. Usman's first fight as champion was both a defense and an entry into the first round of Bellator's Lightweight Grand Prix on March 3rd at Bellator 292, where he met, crushed, and retired former UFC champion Benson Henderson, handing him just the third submission loss of a 17-year, 42-fight career. He faced fellow tournament semifinalist Brent Primus at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was as one-sided and yet uneventful as you can imagine. Until Usman failed his drug test. Bellator says it was for medication rather than PEDs and thus he won't be stripped, but the fight's a No Contest and they need a rematch, which seems awfully selective.

Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Patrício Pitbull - 35-7, 1 Defense

Patrício Pitbull has had a weird goddamn year. Pitbull has long been the GOAT of Bellator, sometimes to the company's open chagrin--there were definitely times they would have vastly preferred a Pat Curran or a Michael Chandler to carry their banner, and Patrício had this unfortunate habit of not just beating them but making them look like shit. By mid-2021, he was Bellator's dual featherweight and lightweight champion, he was on a seven-fight win streak, and he was a finalist in their Featherweight Grand Prix. And then undefeated rising star A.J. McKee dropped him and choked him out in two minutes. Bellator, clearly, felt they had hit the jackpot and were going to be riding the McKee train for some time, as by their rematch ten months later, McKee was the centerpiece of all of their advertising. It was somewhat awkward when, as he had done to so many before, Patrício took him to a victorious decision that made McKee kind of look like shit, neutralizing his offense in the clinch, jabbing under his range, and grinding away the clock. Bellator pushed for a trilogy, but McKee, pissed off, tired of cutting weight and worried about having it happen all over again, declined and moved up to lightweight. Instead of a big-money rematch, Patrício was left to face top contender Ádám Borics, and the match, while hard-fought, was not particularly entertaining or memorable. Pitbull's next fight was the rare cross-promotional bout, facing Rizin's featherweight champion Kleber Koike Erbst on the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin special. It was the only fight on the card that wasn't particularly competitive: He shut Kleber down completely and won a wide decision. There is only one featherweight king outside the UFC. And he's now on a two-fight losing streak, with one of those fights being a bantamweight loss to Sergio Pettis and the other a lightweight knockout to Chihiro Suzuki that he took on four days' notice. Bellator: Please stop killing Pitbull.

Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Patchy Mix - 19-1, 0 Defenses

It took a long goddamn time, but Patchy Mix is finally getting the credit he deserves. Fans had already singled out Patchy as a uniquely talented fighter by 2019, when he signed to Bellator as the 10-0 King of the Cage Bantamweight Champion who'd submitted almost everyone he faced, but it wasn't really until he choked out Yuki Motoya at Bellator's first co-promotion with Rizin that people really paid attention. Which was unfortunate, because his next fight was a shot at Juan Archuleta for the vacant Bellator Bantamweight Championship and Archuleta schooled him on their feet, ending both Mix's title hopes and his undefeated streak. It didn't help matters when, two fights later, he blew his weight cut for a big Dublin match against James Gallagher. But Mix kept winning, and when he entered the Bantamweight Grand Prix and promptly stormed the bracket by beating Kyoji Horiguchi and choking out Magomed Magomedov, suddenly, people paid attention again. When he fought interim champion Raufeon Stots and knocked him out cold with a knee in less than a minute and a half, people began wondering if maybe he was the real champion and Sergio Pettis, who'd been out for a year and a half and returned to a vanity fight with Patrício Pitbull, wasn't the fake. The two met at Bellator 301 on November 17th, and Mix left no doubt: He outwrestled Pettis and choked him out in the second round. Patchy Mix is, finally, the undisputed Bellator Bantamweight Champion. It remains to be seen if his division continues to exist.

Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Cris Cyborg - 27-2 (1), 5 Defenses

Yup. It's 2023 and Cris Cyborg is still out there. For those who don't know, Cris Cyborg was the canonical women's featherweight fighter, a Muay Thai wrecking machine who didn't just beat but brutalized essentially all of her opponents, including ex-Star Wars Gina Carano, and her popularity as a destroyer of humans is the only real reason women's featherweight even exists as a division, to the point that the UFC added it when she was the only actual fighter at the weight class they employed. She was 20-1 (1) when she passed the torch to Amanda Nunes, who slew her in just fifty-one seconds. She took one more fight in the UFC to complete her contract, but left for Bellator almost immediately afterward with uncharacteristic cooperation from the UFC itself--after all, they'd gotten what they wanted out of her. Her first Bellator fight was a one-sided destruction of their featherweight champion, and she's defended it three times since. At this point in Cyborg's career the problem isn't her or her fighting or her age, but simply that there's no one in Bellator for her to fight--after just five fights she's already hitting rematches, having just recorded her second one-sided bludgeoning of a very game but outmatched Arlene Blencowe. Cyborg decided her next fight would be a boxing match, and on September 25 she faced Simone da Silva, a jobber to the stars coming off twelve straight losses who had been knocked out just one month prior. Undeterred, she had her second boxing match on the undercard of December 10th’s Crawford/Avanesyan card, taking a unanimous decision over Gabrielle “Gabanator” Holloway, who is 6-6 in MMA and 0-3 in boxing. After a year and a half of inactivity, Cris Cyborg returned to MMA to defend her title against Cat Zingano at Bellator 300 on October 7th. It lasted four minutes. She'd like to go back to boxing now, if you don't mind.

Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Liz Carmouche - 20-7, 3 Defenses

It took more than a decade and some controversy, but Liz Carmouche got her flowers. "Girl-Rilla" was just as present a figure in establishing women's MMA in the mainstream, but she's the most consistently forgotten because she was the losing fighter in all of those establishing moments. She was a challenger for the early, pre-fame Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship, and was winning on the scorecards before Marloes Coenen choked her out. She was a central part of the inaugural Invicta FC card, and was planned as a title contender before the big show came calling. She became one half of the first women's fight in UFC history, and at one point had Ronda Rousey in a nearly destiny-defying neck crank, but was ultimately submitted in the first round. She's one of two women to ever defeat Valentina Shevchenko, but when given a second chance at the now-UFC champion Shevchenko, she fell short. Despite her powerful wrestling and submission skills, she was eternally denied the top of the mountain. So it was both particularly appropriate and particularly cruel when she finally won a championship on April 22, 2022--in a way that displeased everybody. Standing champion Juliana Velasquez was winning on every scorecard, but Liz Carmouche got her in the crucifix position and landed a number of, respectfully, small elbows, but referee Mike Beltran called a TKO to the immediate chagrin of the entirely safe ex-champion. The controversy made a rematch all but mandatory, and it took Bellator most of the year to do it, but the two met in the cage to run it back at Bellator 289 on December 9, and this time there was no controversy, as Velasquez submitted to an armbar two rounds in. The weirdness didn't stop there: Liz's next title defense against Deanna Bennett also hit the skids, as Bennett missed weight and was thus ineligible to win the championship. Carmouche put it on the line anyway, and fortunately, she choked Bennett out in the fourth round. She defended her title against Ilima-Lei Macfarlane at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was one of those fights where friends don't really want to hurt each other--until Ilima got kicked enough that her leg collapsed in the fifth round.

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Anatoly Malykhin - 13-0, 0 Defenses

ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs

Anatoly Malykhin - 13-0, 0 Defenses

Anatoly Malykhin's bizarre two-year journey through ONE Championship has finally come to a place of rest. Ascension in the heavyweight division has never been the longest road in the world, but in ONE, where they don't actually bother with divisional rankings past lightweight and there have somehow only been five undisputed heavyweight championship bouts in eight years, the road is very short and easily traversed through violent punchings. Thus, when Anatoly Malykhin arrived in 2023 and punched two men out in five minutes, that was more than sufficient. But the standing champion, Arjan Bhullar, just couldn't make it to the cage. They were supposed to fight in February of 2022, but Bhullar was hurt, so Malykhin got an interim title by destroying Kirill Grishenko. They were supposed to unify the belts in September, but Arjan was hurt, so they pushed it to December--and then Arjan played contractual hardball, so in a truly baffling reversal, ONE had Malykhin drop to 225 pounds and destroy double-champ Reinier de Ridder instead. The heavyweight unification got rebooked for March of 2023--and then Bhullar pulled out again. It wasn't until June 23rd, with their bout unceremoniously placed smack-dab in the middle of a Friday Fights Muay Thai card, that the match two years in the making finally happened. And it was...massively underwhelming, with Bhullar seeming alternately frozen and as though he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else in the world. Malykhin used him as a punching bag for two and a half rounds, with Bhullar at one point penalized for trying to escape the ring, and Malykhin put a stamp on it with a TKO in the third round. Finally--mercifully--the heavyweight championship is unified. Anatoly Malykhin is whole. And he immediately began talking about dropping to 205 for Reinier's OTHER belt, because, uh, ONE doesn't have any other fucking heavyweights to fight.

ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs

Reinier de Ridder - 16-1, 2 Defenses

There's a long tradition of B-league hype in mixed martial arts. The hardcore fanbase chafes under both the total ubiquity of the UFC as a product and the way they set themselves up as the end-all be-all of the sport. As the B-leagues create dominant champions of their own, the fanbase inevitably rallies behind them as equal to, if not greater than, the UFC's equivalent titleholder, and further, as evidence of other companies having even better talent. And once or twice a generation, they're right! But most of the time, they're not. Fighters who destroy their B-league equivalents will commonly take a step outside their comfort zone and get immediately rolled by reality. Reinier de Ridder, more than any other competitor, was the popular argument for ONE's supremacy over the UFC: An undefeated ultra-grappler with belts at two divisions, one of which happened to be the UFC's permanently embattled light-heavyweight class. The remarkable ease with which he ragdolled and submitted his opponents, and the shaky nature of his UFC peers, led to wide exultation of his skills and regular comments from ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong about his prospects against the best the world had to offer. It was consequently something of a bummer when he fought Anatoly Malykhin, the first opponent in years he didn't have a strength or grappling advantage over, and looked immediately lost when his takedown attempts did nothing. He had no visible striking defense to speak of and was ultimately, and distressingly easily, destroyed. The cycle has played out once again, the latest idol has lost, and now Reinier de Ridder will have to move forward. He lost a grappling match to Tye Ruotolo on May 5th, because ONE is silly.

ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs

Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 Defenses

ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs

Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 Defenses

It took three tries, but by god, Chatri gets what Chatri wants. Christian Lee, the male half of the first family of ONE Championship and its homegrown golden boy, was very mad about losing his lightweight championship in a controversial decision to Ok Rae Yoon last year. He demanded the decision be reviewed and overturned and his championship reinstated. Unsurprisingly: This did not happen. After months of complaining and just shy of a year of waiting, the two had their long-awaited rematch and Lee left nothing to chance, knocking Yoon out in six minutes to reclaim his belt. Having finally retrieved his title, Lee, being a responsible champion, proceeded to immediately challenge ONE'S 185-pound champion, Kiamrian Abbasov, for his title, a move that was definitely in no way influenced by ONE's repeated attempts to get his sister Angela Lee double-champion status. Fortunately for Christian, Abbasov horribly botched his weight cut: He came in overweight, lost his title on the scale, and was visibly depleted in the fight. Which is particularly lucky, because Abbasov beat Lee senseless in the first round to the point that a standing TKO would not have been an unreasonable stoppage. But whether from his failed weight cut or simply from punching himself out, Abbasov was exhausted by the second round, and Lee mounted a gutsy comeback and ultimately stopped him with ground-and-pound in the fourth round. After three attempts, ONE has succeeded in getting two belts on a Lee. Unfortunately, it was followed by tragedy. After the passing of his younger sister Victoria, Christian took the whole of the year to, understandably, grieve. He's planning his comeback for February of 2024.

ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Tang Kai - 15-2, 0 Defenses

Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China's WBK (after investigating, we THINK it's World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz "Ong Bak" Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai's weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai's Dragon Gym and Phuket's legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It's worked out quite well: He hasn't lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China's Rebel FC got ONE's attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he's held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare. And then Tang Kai busted his knee and announced he was out with no definite return date. Great job, everybody.

ONE Interim Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Thanh Le - 14-3, 0 Defenses

Well, we're right back here again. Thanh Le was considered a potential breakout star for ONE during their own breakout in 2020: A genuinely skilled, hard-punching, well-rounded, charismatic, American star who only won by stoppage and almost never lost. Moreover, he was a black eye for the UFC, as they had him not once, but twice--first on The Ultimate Fighter 22 (jesus christ), where he lost in the semifinals, and second on the Contender Series in 2017, where he scored a vicious headkick knockout. But they only offered him short-notice replacement debuts, and when ONE came calling, they simply let him go. Within a year, Thanh Le was 4-0 and had knocked out Martin Nguyen to become the new featherweight champion. And then, as ONE does, they fumbled the ball. Thanh twiddled his thumbs for a year and a half for a fight with the 6-0 Garry Tonon, whom he dispatched in less than a minute. Five months later, he lost his title to Tang Kai. He waited an entire year for a rematch--and when Kai got hurt, he took an interim title fight with Ilya Freymanov on October 6, 2023, and tapped him out in 1:02. He's back. He has a belt again. And nobody knows when he'll fight next.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

Fabricio Andrade - 9-2 (1), 0 Defenses

The second time was the charm. When Fabricio "Wonder Boy" Andrade joined ONE Championship back in 2020 he was a virtual unknown in the mixed martial arts world, a 20-3 kickboxer but only a 3-2 mixed martial artist who'd been fighting out in the regional circuit of China. His association with Tiger Muay Thai put him on ONE's radar, and his visible striking skills despite being just 21 at the time made him interesting enough for a developmental contract. Said contract proceeded to develop into Andrade going on a five-fight winning streak that only got more dominant as he met tougher competition, and three straight first-round knockouts punched his ticket to the championship picture. His first appearance in the spotlight, unfortunately, went a touch awry. First, bantamweight champion John Lineker lost his title on the scale after missing weight, meaning only Andrade was eligible to become champion, and he was well on his way to doing so before hitting Lineker with an errant strike to the groin so hard it shattered his cup, and with the fight not yet halfway complete, it had to be rendered a No Contest. It took four months to get to the rematch, and it was much more closely contested, but after four rounds Lineker threw in the towel, his face having been punched too swollen to continue. Fabricio Andrade is 25 and a world goddamn champion. He promptly skipped away from MMA completely and faced Jonathan Haggerty for ONE's Featherweight Kickboxing Championship on November 3rd, where he was immediately destroyed. Haggerty wants an MMA fight next.

ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs

Demetrious Johnson - 31-4-1, 0 Defenses

The king has returned. Demetrious Johnson's 2019 debut with ONE Championship was essentially scandalous. "Mighty Mouse" had long been a fan favorite of the lighter weight classes, a 5'3" combat machine who had been going the distance with world champions like Kid Yamamoto and Dominick Cruz while still working a day job in a warehouse, but it was only in 2012 when he dedicated himself to mixed martial arts as his full-time job that he became a star. He won the UFC's flyweight tournament and became its inaugural champion, and his talents are the reason a division that has existed for a decade has only had five champions--three of whom came in the last two years after he left. By 2018, Johnson had one of the longest winning streaks in the UFC, was the all-time recordholder for championship defenses in the UFC and had recorded some of the most outstanding finishes in the history of the UFC. By 2019, he was out of the company. Johnson and the UFC never got along--or, to be blunt, Johnson was one of the few publicly calling the UFC out on its bullshit. When he won the flyweight title and became a world champion while only getting paid $23k/23k he let it be known, when the UFC cut sponsorship money in the Reebok era he noted the raw deal it gave the fighters, and when Dana White tried to force him to take fights up at bantamweight by threatening to kill the flyweight division if he didn't, he told the world. After Henry Cejudo beat him in a razor-close coinflip decision and took the bargaining leverage of his championship away, it was over in a heartbeat. Dana White personally disliked him enough that he traded him to ONE Championship in exchange for their welterweight champion, Ben Askren. Johnson proceeded to immediately win ONE's flyweight grand prix, but took the first stoppage loss of his entire career in his shot at Adriano Moraes and his world championship and engendered a thousand MMA thinkpieces about if his time as a top fighter was over. A year and a half later, he got his rematch, and on August 27 at ONE on Prime Video 1 he returned the favor, handing Moraes his own first stoppage loss after knocking him out with a flying knee. The trilogy match was inevitable, and on May 5th, Johnson beat Moraes by a comprehensive decision, ending the story--and maybe his career. He says he's not sure if he's coming back yet. Fingers crossed.

ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Jarred Brooks - 20-2 (1), 0 Defenses

Jarred Brooks dealt with some crap on his way to a title. By 2017 he was one of the most-heralded flyweight prospects in the sport: An undefeated 13-0 multi-champion as an amateur, an undefeated 12-0 as a professional with fights across three separate weight classes, his heavy wrestling-and-grappling grinding style ground most of his opponents to dust. He took the moniker of "The Monkey God" thanks to his unorthodox striking and wrestling entries--when you're not afraid of grappling, you can get creative with the striking. And then he hit the UFC in 2017 and everything kind of went to hell. Three of his four UFC bouts went to split decision: A debut victory against Eric Shelton Brooks probably should've lost, a followup loss against future champion Deiveson Figueiredo Brooks probably should've won, an intervening bout where Brooks was easily dominating Jose Torres only to score the rare MMA own goal and knock himself out after smacking his head on the ground doing a big, showy slam, and a third and final split decision victory over Roberto Sanchez that really, really shouldn't have been split at all. And then the UFC cut him, despite being 2 and 2 and having gone the distance with the biggest new prospect in the division, because the UFC Doesn't Like Flyweights. So Brooks went over to Rizin, where he intended to build his way up as the next big foreign threat to top star Kyoji Horiguchi--and it was over in eleven seconds, after an inadvertent headbutt cut his opponent's eyebrow open and the blood-unfriendly Japanese network called a no-contest. His international comeback was further destroyed by COVID, and Brooks found himself iced for two straight years as he waited for the dust to settle. By November of 2021, he was making his long-delayed ONE debut; by June of 2022, he was 3-0 and the top contender. And then, of course, his title fight got delayed another six months thanks to an injury. On December 3rd, 2022, he finally got his long-belated shot at a major title, and shocking no one, he wrestled the shit out of Joshua Pacio for five straight rounds. Four years later than expected, Jarred Brooks has international gold. And because ONE's weight classes don't matter, he immediately called out 135-pound champ Demetrious Johnson, and because ONE's sport classes don't matter, he grappled Mikey Musumeci for his submission championship, and lost, on August 4th.

ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Xiong Jing Nan - 18-2, 7 Defenses

Xiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Xiong has notched three successful title defenses since, which set her up for her greatest challenger yet: Angela Lee, again, apparently. Despite ONE's best attempts, Xiong successfully defended her title against Lee again, nearly finishing her in the first round and ultimately winning a decision. An entire 364 days later, she had her next fight: A special rules match, with MMA gloves but only punches and no takedowns or clinching allowed, against Muay Thai champion Nat "Wondergirl" Jaroonsak. Xiong knocked her out in the third round. What are we fucking doing here?

ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

Stamp Fairtex - 10-2, 0 Defenses

It was slightly awkward when Seo Hee Ham and Stamp Fairtex were booked to meet at ONE Fight Night 14 in an interim atomweight title match, given the longstanding rumors of Angela Lee's retirement, and boy, it didn't get any less weird when ONE, which clearly knew what was going on, had Angela Lee announce that retirement just minutes before said match, which was promptly changed to an undisputed championship bout. But that's just part of how ONE rolls, as is their blatant attempts at favoritism, and boy, Stamp Fairtex is their most successful case study thus far. ONE signed her back in 2017 as a Muay Thai stadium champion, and within one fight in ONE she was their Atomweight Kickboxing Champion, and within two fights she was their Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Is this a statement about how quickly they push people they want or how thin their divisions can be? The answer, as always, is Yes. But none of that stopped Stamp from being really fucking good at fighting, and as she transitioned to mixed martial arts she ran up a great record--with the sole exception of a two-fight series with Alyona Rassohyna, where she tapped out in the first and attempted to deny it, then won a real close split decision in an immediate rematch. ONE did not feel the need to book a rubber match, for some odd reason. Stamp won the 2021 Atomweight Grand Prix, got her shot at Angela Lee, and got choked out for her troubles, but a year and two wins later, she was good to go for another championship showdown. It wasn't easy--Seo Hee Ham dropped Stamp in the second round and, for some mysterious reason, when recapping the round, ONE chose to highlight Stamp's offense and not show it--but she stopped Ham with body shots in the third round, and in doing so became not just the undisputed champion, but the first person to ever actually knock Ham out in a fight. (Before you say it: No, Ayaka Hamasaki doesn't count, that was a corner stoppage.) ONE has their new star, and she's a hell of a striker. The question is: Will they actually book more MMA fights for her?

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Roberto de Souza - 15-3, 2 Defenses

Roberto "Satoshi" de Souza is trying to become the new Gegard Mousasi. On April 17 he had the chance to avenge the only loss of his career, a half-knockout half-injury against "Hollywood" Johnny Case back in 2019, and he succeeded in emphatic fashion, climbing Case's back, locking him in an inverted triangle choke and eventually forcing an armbar. He's now 14-1 and inarguably one of the best lightweights outside of the UFC, but unlike most of the other fighters to bear that title, he has made it clear he has no interest in changing that. Where the A.J. McKees and Michael Chandlers of the world want to test free agency and notoriety, Roberto de Souza is happy in Japan, both because his Rizin pay is fairly lucrative and his entire family jiu-jitsu business is based in the country. This is admirable, but it's also a little unfortunate: Rizin really only has around a dozen lightweights under contract, and "Satoshi" has already beaten a third of them. He may be waiting for a Spike Carlyle or a Luiz Gustavo to work their way into contention, but the Rizin ranks hold few surprises for him at this point. It was thus of particular interest when the main event for the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin card was announced as Roberto de Souza vs AJ McKee--a test of where Souza ranks with the rest of the world's competition. Unfortunately for him and Rizin, the answer was "under them." He positionally threatened McKee and was able to land some solid strikes in the final round, but was otherwise controlled and lost a decision. On May 6th, Satoshi beat Spike Carlyle in a fantastic fight--but it was a non-title fight, because Japanese promoters are still real scared of their own belts. Satoshi fought Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 29th--in another non-title fight, naturally--and took the first definitive beating of his career, getting utterly outclassed and ultimately stopped on leg kicks in three rounds.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Chihiro Suzuki - 12-3 (1), 0 Defenses

Chihiro Suzuki has had a very fortunate year. Suzuki rose to Rizin's notice not through MMA, but after winning Japan's KNOCK OUT Super Lightweight Kickboxing championship. He made his Rizin debut six months later--and got knocked out in twenty seconds. He spent the next two and a half years simultaneously rounding out his MMA game and annually defending his kickboxing gold, and by 2023, he was one of Rizin's top Featherweight contenders, more than ready for his shot at Kleber Koike Erbst's Rizin championship. And--he got armbarred in three minutes. However, hilariously enough, Erbst lost his belt on the scale after missing weight, meaning the title was vacant and the fight, by Rizin rules, was a No Contest, so Suzuki didn't even technically lose. He then proceeded to get the biggest break of his career. At Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 30th, 2023, despite having just lost a five-round fight to Sergio Pettis a month prior, Patrício Pitbull was thrown onto the card against Suzuki on four days' notice--and Suzuki not only beat him, he became the first person to ever knock out Bellator's GOAT. Rizin immediately booked Suzuki in against new champion Vugar Keramov for their debut in Keramov's home country of Azerbaijan, and Keramov looked poised and powerful and was in the process of ragdolling Suzuki like he does everyone else--and Suzuki caught him with an upkick on the jaw and punched him the rest of the way out from his goddamn back. Chihiro Suzuki, you are Rizin's new star. Hold onto it as long as you can and pray they don't book a Kleber rematch.

Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Juan Archuleta - 29-4, 0 Defenses

Rizin has its first-ever American champion, and it happens to be a fighter with their partner and rival, Bellator. Seven months after Kyoji Horiguchi vacated it--and almost three years since its last defense--the vacant bantamweight throne was finally filled. Rizin had hoped to have Kai Asakura fight for the belt (do you notice a pattern, here?) agaisnt Archuleta at Bellator x Rizin 2, but Kai busted his knee in training and Rizin's 2021 Bantamweight Grand Prix Champion, Hiromasa Ougikubo, stepped in. And he was promptly ground down into dust by Archuleta's wrestling game. A lot of Rizin fans took to social media to register their displeasure at Archuleta's victory--I saw him called artless and passionless and a pox on the spirit of fighting--to which I say, my friends, I was there when the truest expression of mixed martial arts was a Gracie holding someone in full guard while hitting them in the ribs with their heel for forty-five minutes. If you don't LIKE wrestling, that's perfectly fine, but if you think teeth-grittingly long grappling exhibitions without a climax are counter to the spirit of mixed martial arts, you have never truly understood it. Juan Archuleta finished his celebration by yelling at Kai Asakura to get his shit together and find him, and I'd be shocked if Archuleta/Asakura wasn't the main event of Rizin's New Year's Eve special this year.

Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

Seika Izawa - 11-0, 1 Defense

All hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. Rizin's Superatomweight Grand Prix was both a big coming-out party for Izawa and a series of opportunities to look shockingly mortal: She had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska in the semifinals before ultimately submitting her, but her berth in the finals against former rival Si Woo Park proved the toughest fight of her career, ending in a split decision victory she easily could have lost. Seika was supposed to face Miyuu Yamamoto at Rizin 42, but after Yamamoto had to pull out with an injury, Izawa was instead scheduled to face...the last person Yamamoto beat, the 5-3 Suwanan Boonsorn, at DEEP Jewels 41 on July 28. Izawa choked her out, shockingly. It took more than an entire year, but Izawa finally had a title defense against the 8-4 grappler Claire Lopez, and Izawa scored the fastest championship victory in Rizin history, choking her out in just barely one minute.