THE PUNCHSPORT REPORT FOR FEBRUARY

Holy shit, January. What the fuck.

Boy, for a month with so few MMA events, January sure was a long, horrible slog of a time. Fortunately, it's February, and nothing bad will happen ever again! We're back to normal with three UFCs this month, but one of them starts at like one in the morning for the core American constituency, for which I'm sure the entire global audience is very, very sympathetic.

THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

• UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs Spivac, February 4

• UFC 284: Makhachev vs Volkanovski, February 12

• UFC Fight Night: Vera vs Sandhagen, February 18

• UFC Fight Night: Krylov vs Spann, February 25

• Bellator 290: Bader vs Fedor 2, February 4

• Bellator 291: Amosov vs Storley 2, February 25

• ONE Fight Night 7: Lineker vs Andrade 2, February 25
  

IS THERE ANY NEWS

Fuck me, was there. January was one of the worst months for MMA news in a long time, to the point that were it not for one notable exception it would be hard to know where to even start.

Victoria "The Prodigy" Lee, younger sister of ONE champions Christian and Angela Lee and herself a multiple-time grappling champion with a 3-0 MMA record in ONE, died on December 26 at the age of 18. The family chose not to announce her passing to the world until early January and have elected not to reveal her cause of death, which has resulted in their also having to beg people to stop hiring private investigators and contacting the family in the hopes of confirming that she died because of the evil COVID vaccine and the government/Anthony Fauci/the Bilderberg Group are forcing them to cover it up, because we live in Hell. But it would be too easy, and too disrespectful, to get as angry as those particular fucks deserve and miss the actual point of this story, which is fuck, an 18 year-old died.

It was, what, two months ago that I wrote about Rumble Johnson's passing and how 38 was a tragically young age to die? 18 is devastating. 18 is the age where being a professional fighter at all was insane, which she knew, because she'd put her career on hiatus to finish high school, because she was 18. I cannot even pay my respects to her the way I have with other eulogies in these reports that went into the depths of fighters' careers, lives and memories, because she was 18. The Lee family, which has lived and breathed martial arts since before their current generation of star fighters was even born, has permanently closed their MMA academy, and ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong isn't sure if Christian or Angela will fight again in the near future or at all.

It's hard to blame them. I quite frankly hope the family's privacy is respected and we never find out what happened, but there's no eventuality that won't take a long time for things to feel in any way okay. I hope they find peace and I hope I never write one of these again.

Yeah, we're not getting any better. "The New York Bad Ass" Phil Baroni was a star of the 200s era of the sport who made a name for himself as a road-warrior journeyman in the UFC, Pride and Strikeforce who was famous for three things: Wild, punch-heavy brawling, losing virtually all of his big fights, and shithead charisma that he used to cut promos about how people needed to do more steroids and have more sex. Some had sounded alarms about Baroni's behavior becoming erratic, with its most public example being his ride-or-die support of War Machine, formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver, after he was given a life sentence for raping and nearly killing his ex-girlfriend Christy Mack, and that proved unfortunately prescient, as Baroni was arrested in Mexico just after New Year's for brutally murdering his girlfriend.

Baroni's side of the story is that he didn't mean to kill her and simply threw her into the shower too hard after an argument. This will probably not help him. Multiple colleagues of his have taken to Twitter in the weeks following his arrest to discuss the visible toll CTE had taken on him and how difficult he had become to know let alone work with, but, boy, that doesn't really help matters now. His victim has been identified only by the name Paola.

But why stop there? Conor McGregor, whose assault record threatens to outstrip his fight record, is the suspect in an assault investigation in Spain, stemming from an incident last July where a woman states she was invited to a party on Conor's yacht because of their shared origins in Ireland only for Conor to begin berating her for her appearance midway through the party before kicking her in the stomach, punching her in the face and threatening to drown her, at which point the woman jumped the fuck off the yacht to get away. McGregor, through his lawyers, has denied all allegations.

And now, the elephant in the room. On January 2nd, TMZ published video footage of Dana White and his wife Anne arguing at a Vegas bar on New Year's. In the video, which is somewhat cut up and jumbled--which, I want to be abundantly clear, I am saying not to downplay its self-evident contents but to register my anger that an outlet as bad at its job as TMZ got this story--there's a visible shouting argument, Anne turns away as if to leave, Dana pulls on her wrist to force her to stay and she slaps him, at which point Dana slaps her much harder and then, still holding on to her, slaps her again, and appears to be going back for a third before a bystander jumps in to separate them.

In an interview thereafter, Dana White said he's unequivocally apologetic and there was no excuse for his actions, but offered no restitution or punishment for himself. In 2008, Jesse "JT Money" Taylor was removed from his Ultimate Fighter finalist spot and fired from the UFC for breaking a limousine window and causing a scene in a hotel lobby. Dana White, when asked about the lack of any ramifications for his actions, replied that the ramifications were being considered a domestic abuser by the public. Matt Riddle was fired from the UFC in 2013 after testing positive for marijuana twice and making an off-color joke about using it to make sure he doesn't beat his kids. Dana White, after facing no consequences for being caught on video assaulting his wife except being ardently defended by the worst fans on the internet who see this as a victory for gender equality and the right for men to beat women if they feel it's justified, promptly resumed doing press for Dana White's Power Slap League, which had its debut pushed back 7 days for sensitivity reasons. Highly-touted 18-4 prospect Jason High was banned from the UFC for life in 2014 after lightly shoving referee Kevin Mulhall after a fight, for which he immediately apologized. Dana White has elected to no-comment further inquiries about the assault, and an editor for ESPN, which airs the UFC, obliquely noted on social media that they were encouraged not to comment on the issue.

After its one-week long delay, which definitely solved the problem of people thinking about Dana White slapping his wife, Dana White's Power Slap League debuted on January 18th, using the tried-and-true partnership of professional wrestling and violent sports that helped the UFC take off back in 2005. AEW Dynamite, the third-highest-rated show on cable, gave it a lead-in of nearly one million viewers. Almost 70% of them turned it off immediately, leaving slap-fighting with 295,000 viewers and a final cable ranking of the 45th most-watched show of the night, exactly ten slots below 1000-Lb. Best Friends, but two slots above season four of Moonshiners: Master Distiller.

On January 8th a mob formed by thousands of militant supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, the recently-defeated right-wing authoritarian President of Brazil, stormed the Three Powers Plaza in Brazil's capital in a mirror of America's January 6th riots that somewhat aimlessly attempted to, through violence and occupation, restore Bolsonaro to power. While this happened, Jair Bolsonaro, who DEFINITELY had no hand in any of this, was staying with MMA legend José Aldo at his home in Orlando, Florida, posing for kitschy pictures and letting the world know about Aldo's Minions-themed bedroom. Bolsonaro was so busy at Aldo's house that he barely had time to meet with the capital's head of security Anderson Torres, who also just happened to be there, by some strange coincidence. Certain stories make me taste pennies in the back of my mouth.

It'd be great if we were done there, but of course, we aren't. Bolsonaro, like many authoritarian strongman politicians across history, has enjoyed the support of scores of prominent Brazilian fighters--a dozen of them, including Royce Gracie, Wanderlei Silva, Rafael dos Anjos and Fabricio Werdum, recorded Youtube advertisements for him in this past election--but the true faithful were unearthed when the rubber hit the road, with then-UFC Flyweight Champion Deiveson Figueiredo taking the grand prize as the most notable fighter to use all of his social media channels to actively post directions and instructions for would-be coup participants and encourage the military to arrest the newly-elected President and congress. A sitting UFC champion using his fame to aid an attempted overthrowing of his country was, of course, met with barely any response and absolutely no consequences or even comment from the UFC.

It seriously took us this long to get to news about the actual sport of mixed martial arts, and it's terrible, too. After two years of friction and contract negotiations, the UFC officially stripped and released undisputed heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou in January. If you believe Francis Ngannou, which you should, the UFC balked at demands like health insurance, a return to allowing fighter sponsors and an advocate for the fighters at UFC board meetings, as well as the freedom to pursue a boxing match with Tyson Fury. If you believe the UFC, which you should not, Francis Ngannou was greedy, had unrealistic money expectations and, in the chestnut I cannot believe Dana White still actually says every time a contract dispute happens, was intimidated by competition and simply afraid to fight the top heavyweights in the world. Francis Ngannou is a free agent, the UFC no longer has its own undisputed heavyweight title in its lineage, and the vacant belt will be filled by Ciryl Gane vs Jon Jones on March 4th, banking on the 50/50 chance Jon Jones makes it into the cage.

Bellator announced their 2023 Lightweight Grand Prix, and they are, in fact, throwing basically their entire top 8 at it. The tournament will kick off on March 10th, as Usman Nurmagomedov defends both a semifinal berth and his lightweight championship against Benson Henderson and Tofiq Musayev meets Alexander Shabliy on the other side of the bracket; on May 12th, Sidney Outlaw and Mansour Barnaoui will meet to determine the Henderson/Nurmagomedov opponent, and at an as-yet unannounced date, Patricky Pitbull will face A.J. McKee for the last semifinal spot.

For the third time, ONE has booked the continually cursed heavyweight unification bout between champion Arjan Bhullar and interim champion Anatoliy Malykhin. This time around, it is supposed to happen on March 25. I have even less faith in this than Jon Jones.

Jake Paul signed a multi-year deal with the Professional Fighters League to compete in mixed martial arts in its Super Fights division. This deal presumably cost more than their entire annual tournament budget. They can’t hurt you unless you let them.

Logan Paul signed a deal with the UFC to make PRIME its new sports-drink sponsor. The UFC is renaming the traditional red and blue corners to the Prime Hydration Recovery Zones, replete with new octagonal PRIME-sponsored stools. I will say it again: They cannot hurt you unless you let them.

MONTHLY RETIREMENT CORNER

After losing to Jamahal Hill in the main event of UFC 283 on January 21st Glover Teixeira laid down his gloves and announced his retirement in the cage, admitting that he had finally realized he was, perhaps, a little too tough and stubborn for his own health. It's deeply fortunate that his last-minute championship reign made people recognize his place in the annals of the sport, because his run is, genuinely, pretty incredible. 33-9 in just shy of twenty-one years of competition, the second-oldest UFC champion in history, victories over six world champions, fights in eight different countries, went the distance with Jon Jones in his prime. He was ridiculously tough, incredibly powerful and a terrifying grappler, but the single best testament to just how good he was is this: When the first issuance of the UFC's modern, official rankings came out on February 5, 2013, Glover Teixeira was ranked #4 at light-heavyweight, and in the final official rankings update of Glover's career just weeks shy of a decade later on January 17, 2023 every other fighter from that original list was gone save for Glover, who was ranked #2. He was ranked as one of the best light-heavyweights on the planet for ten god damned years--and even that is only his UFC ranking, prior to which he had won eighteen straight fights.

Glover Teixeira was the real goddamn deal. He helped legalize MMA in his home state of Connecticut, he immigrated to America twice, he used his platform to lobby for gun control laws after his niece survived Sandy Hook and he completed one of the sport's longest tenures without accruing any of the horrors the sport likes to inflict on its participants. I'm deeply glad he got his long-deserved, long-belated moment in the sun before he called it a day, and I hope he gets to enjoy a well-deserved retirement.

Maurício "Shogun" Rua also called it quits after UFC 283. For once I'm going to spare the career eulogizing here, partially because I already wrote a lengthy retrospective for him in last month's preview of the show, partially because I have since researched his deep support for Jair Bolsonaro and feel disinclined to write nice things about him. If you by some chance are reading this and did not read my Shogun career retrospective, you can find it here. He retires at 27-14-1 with a Pride Middleweight Grand Prix championship and a UFC Light-Heavyweight Championship to his name.

Seemingly out of nowhere, #12 lightweight Damir Ismagulov announced his retirement on New Year's Day, claiming 'circumstances and health problems' he didn't want to go into detail about had forced an end to his career. The abrupt end to his time in mixed martial arts, his relatively young age at 31 and his subsequent instagram posts about training back at his home in Russia have many fans hoping he'll return sooner than later, but honestly, if something spooked him enough about his health to quit that quickly, I hope he stays away and keeps himself safe. UPDATE: On January 30th, Ismagulov announced he was uanware he had one fight left on his UFC contract and intends to come back, fight his last fight (which he would like to be a rematch with Arman Tsaruykan, which he absolutely will not get) and go back to retirement.

Leah "Nidas" Letson announced her retirement from mixed martial arts on January 9th. At one point she was a promising prospect in the eternally-suffering women's featherweight division, a hard-hitting fighter who punched her ticket to the UFC with a violent knockout over veteran Elizabeth Phillips, got eliminated in the semi-final round of The Ultimate Fighter 28 by eventual winner Macy Chiasson and came back with a hard-fought decision over Invicta champion Julija Stoliarenko but, at the apex of her career, she found herself forced onto the shelf. Three straight years of medical problems--the UFC's doctors said a combination of overtraining and poor nutrition had very nearly killed her--meant she missed the entirety of Amanda Nunes' takeover of the division, and when she finally returned to competition in November of 2021 she ran into a brick wall, as Felicia Spencer stopped her in the third round after outstriking her 227-69. Neither woman would ever fight again: Spencer retired less than a month later for her mental health, and after more than a year of inactivity, a failed attempt to return at bantamweight and her own struggles with her health and future, Letson decided it was time to leave the sport behind. She retires at 5-2.

Cláudio "Hannibal" Silva also joined the army of fighters calling it quits in January. Silva's is one of the oldest stories in the sport--grew up as a gang kid in a favela of Rondonópolis (that someone on wikipedia, as of this writing, has quietly vandalized to instead read Minas Morgul), went to prison for armed robbery and ultimately saved his life through a dedication to martial arts. He moved to England, entered competition in 2007 and ran up a 9-1 record before getting picked up by the UFC, and two fights later was on the cusp of a top fifteen ranking after defeating a then-debuting Leon Edwards, but a score of injuries sidelined him for almost four years, and while he came back still successful, he'd lost a bit too much of his prime. After twelve years without a loss, Silva dropped three fights in a row in the 2020s, first to James Krause, then Court McGee, and finally, Nicolas Dalby. They were all hard-fought decision losses, and a 14-4 welterweight is still damned impressive, but the UFC gave him his pink slip in August of 2022 and with his 40th birthday just one month away, the conclusions were hard to ignore. Godspeed to his post-combat future.

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WHAT HAPPENED IN JANUARY

The combat sports year began with ONE Fight Night 6: Superbon vs Allazov on January 13th, a kickboxing-heavy card with a bunch of funny stuff and horrific violence. The list of scratched, rescheduled and otherwise compromised fights is twice as long as the card itself, but fun was still, ultimately, had. Stamp Fairtex lost her mixed-rules bout after her opponent missed the weigh-ins entirely thanks to family issues, leading her to instead barely scrape by Anna Jaroonsak in a kickboxing bout, supergrappler Garry Tonon came back from his first career loss by tapping out warm body Johnny Nuñez in two minutes, Rodtang Jitmuangnon missed weight but sitll beat up Jiduo Yibu, Aung La Nsang torched late replacement Gilberto Galvão in ninety seconds, Mikey Musumeci retained his flyweight grappling championship by going to a surprising decision against Bayanduuren Gantumur, in the co-main event Superlek Kiatmuu9 narrowly took the flyweight kickboxing champion with a controversial decision against Daniel Puertas, and in the main event, the long-delayed bout between two of the best kickboxers in the world ended definitively: Chingiz Allazov stormed Superbon Singha Mawynn, knocked him cold in two rounds, and took his featherweight kickboxing championship.

But the UFC's year began with January 14th's UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs Imavov, an exceedingly cursed card that lost eight fights, including its main and co-main events, and wound up instead putting Sean Strickland, who'd just main evented the UFC's last card of 2022, in pole position instead. What we wound up with was a Frankenstein's Monster of a card that managed some good times amidst the weirdness. On the undercard, Charles "InnerG" Johnson finally recorded a UFC win by pounding out an unretiring Jimmy Flick, Daniel Argueta beat an outmatched Nick Aguirre, Allan Nascimento got a super-cool choke over Carlos Hernández, debuting Polish champion Mateusz Rębecki dominated Nick Fiore but looked a little unpolished in the process, Abdul Razak Alhassan crushed Claudio Ribeiro, and Javid Basharat successfully bullfought Mateus Mendonça. On the main card, Umar Nurmagomedov knocked out Raoni Barcelos so violently he apologized and lovingly cradled him afterwards, Raquel Pennington scraped a split decision from #1 Women's Bantamweight contender Ketlen Vieira, Roman Kopylov put on a clinic destroying Punahele Soriano with liver shots and Dan Ige got his mojo back with a walkoff KO over the streaking Damon Jackson. The main event, just like the one before it, was five rounds of Sean Strickland walking down Nassourdine Imavov and somehow widely outstriking him without ever putting him in actual danger, while the commentators gushed about how, any minute now, he would turn up the pace.

Invicta took the stage on January 18th with Invicta FC 51: Tennant vs Bernardo, which was as long as it could possibly have been. 25 rounds across seven fights, each a hard-fought decision. Fatima Kline continued her climb from rookie to prospect, Rayanne dos Santos and Elisandra Ferreira both won their way into atomweight contendership, and Claire Guthrie and Olga Rubin both set themselves up for shots at the 135-pound crown. The co-main event saw Ketlen Souza soundly outfight Kristina Williams to take the vacant flyweight championship left behind by the endless churn of fighters signing with bigger companies, and in the main event, UFC cast-off Talita Bernardo had a close but ultimately decisive grappling victory over a very game Taneisha Tennant, wrestling her belt away to become the new bantamweight champion.

After an awful lot of confusion regarding when it was airing, who was fighting and if the main card would even be broadcast outside of Thailand. ONE's Lumpinee series wound up airing as ONE Friday Fights 1 on January 20th. As one would expect from their Lumpinee debut, there were only a couple MMA fights--one a split decision victory for lightweight Richard Godoy and the other a one-minute submission for the wonderfully named Colton Kielbasa--and the rest of the card was all Muay Thai. Rodtang ally Sakaengam Jitmuangnon knocked the shit out of Suayai Chor.Hapayak, Sonrak Fairtex, Khomarwut F.A. Group and Khunsueklek UFABoomdeksean all won decisions to round out the midcard, Prajanchai P.K.Saenchai outstruck Kompetch Sitsarawatsuer in a swing bout, and in the main event, bantamweight champion Nong-O Gaiyanghadao destroyed the Russian national champion Alaverdi Ramazanov, retaining his title with a third-round knockout.

The short month, but a very busy week, concluded on January 21st with UFC 283: Teixeira vs Hill. It was the UFC's first trip back to Rio de Janeiro in almost four years, and it was just as violent as the last one, but it was also a banner night for UFC rookies. On the prelims, first-timers Daniel Marcos and Ismael Bonfim both recorded tremendous knockouts, and last-minute replacement Brunno Ferreira upset the middleweight top twenty by viciously knocking out Gregory Rodriguez. Josiane Nunes drummed Zarah Fairn out of the UFC (in all likelihood, anyway), Cody Stamann edged out Luan Lacerda, Nicolas Dalby took an incredibly close split decision over Warlley Alves, Jailton Almeida predictably crushed Shamil Abdurakhimov and Thiago Moisés submitted a game but overmatched Melquizael Costa--and in the somewhat sadder end of the prelims, Ihor Potieria knocked Maurício "Shogun" Rua out in the last bout of his mixed martial arts career. The main card saw Johnny Walker and Gilbert Burns make very short work of Paul Craig and Neil Magny respectively, and human wrecking ball Jéssica Andrade beat an irresponsible amount of tar out of Lauren Murphy. The co-main event saw the end of the legendary Moreno/Figueiredo quadrilogy, but somewhat fittingly, it had one last bit of (silly) controversy, ending on a third-round doctor's stoppage after Moreno punched Figueiredo's left eye shut. The main event, and the end of three months of very silly light-heavyweight vacancy, saw a comically tough Glover Teixeira refuse to stop fighting despite being battered for five rounds by new champion Jamahal Hill. Teixeira, too, laid down his gloves and retired after the fight.

WHAT'S COMING IN FEBRUARY

February starts with a double-header, and we're gonna give those crazy kids at Bellator first billing, because for once, their offering makes more sense if you're in the western hemisphere. Bellator 290: Bader vs Fedor 2 comes to us the evening of February 4th, and it's a weird card in a lot of ways, and not just for the main event. This is Bellator's debut on American network television, thanks to CBS, home of such wonderful shows as Survivor, So Help Me Todd and Young Sheldon. On the other hand, as with every MMA network television debut in history, this means the main card is ultra short and weird. So your free, youtube/pluto-aired prelims are eleven goddamn fights long and feature stars like Darrion Caldwell, Alejandra Lara, Karl Albrektsson, Henry Corrales, Lorenz Larkin and Neiman Gracie, and then your main card is Sabah Homasi vs Brennan Ward in what Bellator hopes will be an all-action affair to keep everyone tuned in despite the second fight, Johnny Eblen defending the middleweight championship against Anatoly Tokov. The main event sees Ryan Bader defending the heavyweight championship against Fedor Emelianenko, in what is both a rematch of the 2019 tournament final where Bader knocked him out in thirty-five seconds and Fedor's retirement fight, which is, I think, the third time he's said that.

The UFC starts the month later that night with UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs Spivak, which is one of the profoundly weirdest cards they've put on. This event was initially planned to be the UFC's return to Korea after more than three years of absence, but scheduling and Chan Sung Jung getting injured ruined their plans. So this is still a profoundly Korean card--six of its twelve fights star Korean fighters like Da Un Jung, Doo-ho Choi and Jun-yong Park and the finals of last year's all-Asian Road to UFC tournament will finally be held on the undercard--but the event is airing live from the empty Apex Arena in Nevada, BUT the main card begins at 10 PM PST/1 AM EST because they want Korean fans to watch it. AND the main event is the Derrick Lewis vs Sergey Spivak showdown that was supposed to happen back in November only to get cancelled midway into the card after Lewis turned out to have been hospitalized the night before. It is very, very rare for me to say this: If you only watch one card that day, and you're in America and thus beholden to our time zones, you should probably pick Bellator. Go to bed at a reasonable time. For your health.

But the UFC is back on its game 8 days later--yes, 8, this UFC is on a Sunday, don't panic--with February 12th's UFC 284: Makhachev vs Volkanovski. It's the company's first show in Australia since before the pandemic and they're capitalizing on the local marketing: It's a big, wild card with a bunch of brawls and a hell of a main event. Loma Lookboonmee and Elise Reed will hit each other a whole bunch, both of the Tafa brothers are in action at heavyweight, Tyson Pedro returned, somehow, Joshua Culibao and Melsik Baghdasaryan will have a great fight, Jamie Mullarkey and Francisco Prado will beat each other around the head and face, Jimmy Crute and Alonzo Menifeld will fight for a top 15 spot, and Jack Della Maddalena will finally get a stiff, rankings-potential test as he takes on Randy Brown. Your co-main event will fill the featherweight throne until its king returns in either victory or defeat, as wild kickboxer Yair Rodríguez meets the fighting Falmer himself, Josh Emmett, to crown an interim featherweight champion. This is because, of course, of the main event, one of the only champion vs champion matches the UFC has put on that I don't hate: Newly-crowned lightweight champion Islam Makhachev defends his title against the UFC's best male champion, featherweight kingpin Alexander Volkanovski, in a fight that will either once again reinforce the reason weight classes exist or make it really, really hard to deny Volkanovski pound-for-pound great status.

And we're ending the UFC's month just six days later with Saturday, February 18th's UFC Fight Night: Vera vs Sandhagen. The card is a sort of Frankenstein's Monster of fights that got rescheduled from other cards coming together into a big, weird showcase that's half prospects and half aging veterans. On one hand you have fighters with names I only wish I could've made up like Juancamilo Ronderoes, Clayton Carpenter, Evan Elder and Themba Gorimbo; on the other you have Joe Solecki taking on Benoît Saint-Denis, Gerald Meerschaert scraping his bones on Abusupiyan Magomedov, William Knight having a muscle-off with Marcin Prachnio, Lina Länsberg taking on Mayra Bueno Silva and the twice-rescheduled Ovince Saint Preux vs Philipe Lins, and somewhere in the middle of that Josh Parisian will heavyweight as best he can against Jamal Pogues and Jim god damned Miller will try to continue turning back the clock against Gabriel Benítez. Your main and co-main events, however, are very interesting contendership battles. Taila Santos, the woman who just went to a split decision with champion Valentina Shevchenko, is up against the runaway stampede that is Erin Blanchfield, and it's hard not to see it as the UFC trying to strap a rocket to Blanchfield, as the fight could take her from #10 to #2. In your main event, #4 Marlon Vera is taking on #5 Cory Sandhagen, and that, too, has some real interesting connotations, particularly with champion Aljamain Sterling injured and Henry Cejudo jockeying for a championship return.

And we end the month on February 25th with a triple-header. First-off, we have Bellator 291: Amosov vs Storley 2. This is yet another attempt by Bellator to corner the Irish market, which means it's in Dublin, it's full of Irish fighters, and it has an absolutely preposterous 20 fights announced. 15 of those are prelims with a lot of local-tier talent, as Bellator is wont to do, but there are still a few interesting fights buried in the ocean--a heavyweight showdown between Gokhan Saricam and Oleg Popov, Greek champion Elina Kallionidou vs grappling ace Jena Bishop, Charlie Ward vs Mike Shipman, Karl Moore vs Maciej Różański and Oliver Enkamp vs Luca Poclit--but, as always, the relevant and/or 'relevant' stuff is on the main card. After getting him thwomped in his last two Dublin appearances Bellator is trying to get top Irishman Peter Queally a hometown win against the equally embattled Bryce Logan, the ongoing rehabilitation of top Irishwoman Sinead Kavanaugh continues as she meets the 6-6 Janay Harding, Pedro Carvalho and Jeremy Kennedy will do battle in a what-are-you-doing-here-neither-of-you-are-Irish co-main event, and in your main, Bellator reunifies its welterweight lineage, as champion Yaroslav Amosov is back from fighting the Russian invasion of his home in Ukraine, and is looking to reunify his belt against Logan Storley's interim championship.

The second part of that doubleheader comes with ONE Fight Night 7: Lineker vs Andrade 2. It's another of ONE's big Amazon Prime swings, with just a few prelims currently announced--the biggest of which is a women's atomweight bout between Linda Darrow and Victória Souza--and a main card with a bunch of action. Andrei Stoica and Françesco Xhaja will have big-man kickboxing times, Saemapetch Fairtex and Zhang Chenglong will have small-man kickboxing times, Eko Roni Saputra and Danny Kingad will try to climb the flyweight MMA ranks, Danielle Kelly and Ayaka Miura will have a grappling match, Martin Nguyen and Shamil Gasanov will jockey for a claim to Tang Kai's featherweight MMA title, and in the co-main event, Tawanchai P.K.Saenchai defends the featherweight Muay Thai title against Jamal Yusupov. The main event is the reason anyone cares. ONE's first attempt at this all-action bout this past October was disastrous; John Lineker lost his bantamweight championship on the scale after a botched weight cut and showed up to the fight looking preemptively exhausted, but the fight ended in a no-contest after Fabrício Andrade hit Lineker in the groin so hard it shattered his cup. Hopefully, this time, both men make weight and no one engages in CBT.

And finally, we have the UFC with UFC Fight Night: Krylov vs Spann, which they helpfully chose not to announce until after I had already written my draft up, for which I am deeply grateful and not at all annoyed. Thankfully it's at least an interesting card, even if the main event is pretty weak. You've got prospects like Ode' Osbourne and Trevor Peek in action, Jordan Leavitt is getting booked again now that the UFC has extracted a Paddy Pimblett win out of him, Ailin Perez drops down to bantamweight in record time, Mike Malott and Yohan Lainesse will hit each other a bunch, André Muniz and Brendan Allen will have a very cool grappling match and Augusto Sakai is going for the extremely rare fifth consecutive UFC loss, somehow. Honestly, the big story of the card isn't even the main event, it's the theoretical return of undefeated women's flyweight Tatiana Suarez, who looked like an absolute monster and a lock for title contention until injuries kept her on the shelf for almost four goddamn years. The UFC is wisely taking it a bit easy and pitching her a bout against the unranked Montana De La Rosa, presumably to see if Tatiana still has it in her. The main event is a light-heavyweight tilt between Nikita Krylov and Ryan Spann, because big guys get better booking.

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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS

Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

VACANT - From past the stars and beyond the moon

There is a hole in the hearts of man where nothing but vice and greed can survive, and from that hole, Vacant finds purchase. We had exactly one month in the last seven that saw no title vacancies in the UFC and those days looked to finally, mercifully, be over, but thanks to corporate mismanagement Vacant went up from light-heavyweight to heavyweight without missing a beat. After two solid years of contractual friction between the UFC and its undisputed heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, the dam broke. Francis Ngannou's side of the story, which seems likely, was the UFC's refusal to accept his desire for health insurance, sponsorship rights, a fighter advocate and the chance to pursue boxing superfights the way Conor McGregor did. Dana White's side of the story, which seems less likely, is the 17-3 Francis Ngannou who beat five UFC champions is scared of fighting real competition and doesn't have it in him anymore. Either way, as it always does, the money won: On January 14th, during the post-fight press for Strickland/Imavov, Dana announced Ngannou had been stripped of his title and released from the company. The UFC, which is a very smart company, is pinning the future of the heavyweight championship on a March 4th, UFC 285 showdown between the man they already tried to use to scab Ngannou once, Ciryl Gane, and the only man who has somehow been stripped of or vacated a championship belt more times than he's held one, Jon Jones. The UFC, because they are jerks, made sure to emphasize that the new champion would be the undisputed champion, because there is absolutely nothing disputable about cutting your victorious heavyweight champion and replacing him with either the last guy he soundly defeated or a fighter making their heavyweight debut. MMA: It's never not silly. I'll see you again in the April Punchsport Report when the belt is still vacant because Jon Jones crashed his car into an elementary school the day before the fight.

Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Jamahal Hill - 12-1 (1), 0 Defenses

The dread prophecy has been fulfilled: After five years Dana White's Contender Series has produced a UFC champion, and all it took was the complete and utter collapse of a division. After half of the light-heavyweight top ten retired or left the UFC in the span of just two years the division scrambled for a new frontrunner, and after Jan Błachowicz, Glover Teixeira and Jiří Procházka all won and lost the title in the space of just four fights and a draw between Błachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev failed to fill the throne, the division was left in dire straits, with half of the top ten ruled out through loss, draw or injury. So the UFC pulled the trigger, went past their own higher-ranked Anthony Smith, and booked #2 Glover Teixeira vs #7 Jamahal Hill for the vacant belt. It is, in many ways, Dana White's dream: Hill won his way to the UFC through the Contender Series in 2019, just a year and a half after his professional debut, he's a big, tall, American striker who doggedly pursues knockouts and he's a staunch company man to the point of getting in hot water on social media for brave stances like "my boss slapping his wife is fine" and "Andrew Tate is good, actually." A lot of people, myself included, picked Glover to submit Hill--the only blemish on his record (not counting the No Contest one of his victories was swapped for because he dared to smoke the devil weed) is a grotesque submission loss against Paul Craig and just one fight prior he'd struggled visibly with the grappling of Thiago Santos--but the Jamahal Hill who showed up against Glover Teixeira was massively improved, stuffing 15 of 17 takedown attempts and giving up only three and a half minutes of ground control across five rounds against one of the most feared top games in the sport. He wobbled but wasn't able to finish Glover, but he did batter and control him, and however many questions there are about how much he deserved the title shot itself, there are no questions about how much he deserved his 50-44 shutout victory. What happens from here, who knows. Jiří wants to fight for the title again this Spring but doctors aren't sure if he'll be ready, Jan and Ankalaev are in a tenuous position and Aleksandar Rakić is still injured. For the moment, Dana has his personal champion.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Alex Pereira - 7-1, 0 Defenses

Sometimes in this sport things that shouldn't really have happened wind up happening perfectly. Alex "Poatan" Pereira getting a title shot was ridiculous on its face: He was only 6-1, he'd only fought three UFC fights, he'd only fought one ranked fighter at all. It was the UFC's most blatant attempt to manufacture a title contender since Conor McGregor scored a comeback title fight after pulling a long-expired bag of Donald Cerrone from the back of the break room fridge. The UFC didn't even try to hide that Pereira was getting the shot solely because he'd beaten divisional kingpin and MMA superstar Israel Adesanya in kickboxing--twice. They ran highlights from an entirely different sport far, far more often than highlights from Pereira's UFC tenure during their monthslong attempt to hype up the title fight between the biggest and most consistent middleweight sensation since Anderson Silva and a mixed martial arts neophyte whose toughest test had been a guy who fought at 160 pounds for five years. Naysayers (like me!) said Pereira's lack of MMA experience would cost him when the fight inevitably turned to grappling, and it did: Israel Adesanya, noted non-wrestler, was able to repeatedly ground, control and almost submit Pereira. Naysayers (it's me again, being wrong!) said Pereira's untested MMA technique and staying power would cost him in a championship-level fight, and it did: Israel Adesanya stung him repeatedly, nearly knocked him out, and was cruising to a broad decision victory on all three scorecards. And then, with two and a half minutes left in a five-round fight, Pereira caught him sleeping, put a string of fists upside his head and battered him to a standing TKO. All of the problems in the world fall before the power of destiny. For the third time and in the second sport of their lives, Alex Pereira defeated Israel Adesanya. Is he going to have serious trouble the second he fights any of the very, very good wrestlers at the top fifteen in his division? Oh, absolutely. Is the UFC going to let him? Nope! As predicted, rather than risking their kickboxer against any grapplers, the UFC is going back to the well of instant fucking rematches with Pereira vs Adesanya 2 at UFC 287 on April 8, and rather than another contender waiting in the wings, they've started hyping a superfight--I cannot use the term loosely enough--between Pereira and light-heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill if Pereira wins. Divisions: They're not real.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Leon Edwards - 20-3 (1), 0 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. Holding onto the belt won't be easy--Dana White is foaming at the mouth for a Wembley Stadium rematch between the two to end their trilogy--but Leon Edwards is cemented into history as the man who killed the king, and for a beautiful moment, as the best welterweight on the planet.

Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Islam Makhachev - 23-1, 0 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. The Charles Oliveira story is over, the Islam Makhachev era has begun. Unlike most new champions, there's no question about what's next for him: The UFC is intent on having him defend against featherweight champion and pound-for-pound great Alexander Volkanovski when they go to Perth, Australia for UFC 284 on February 12.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 25-1, 4 Defenses

Sometimes it takes a lot of work to convince people you're the best. Alexander Volkanovski's rise through mixed martial arts is the kind of thing reserved for the all-time greats of the sport: He lost once, in the fourth fight of his career--at welterweight--and that was nine years ago. He's won twenty-one straight fights since, defeating top talent from around the world before landing in the UFC and proceeding to dominate every fighter placed in his way. There was one, single weight placed around his career's ankle: Max Holloway. Holloway was the UFC's much-lauded and much-marketed featherweight champion while Volkanovski was on his way up, and even as a 20-1 dynamo, he was an underdog against the Hawaiian. Alex beat him--soundly--but because of Holloway's prior dominance, and because the UFC wanted to get the most for its marketing buck, they ordered an instant rematch. Alex won again, but this time it was by a very close split decision, and that left a vocal part of the fanbase even angrier and more certain Max was the real champion. Two years and two fights apiece later, Alex and Max met one last time on July 2, and Volkanovski beat every shade of hell out of Holloway, not just repeatedly wobbling and outstriking him but completely and utterly shutting him out of a fight for the very first time in his career. When the bell rang, there were no questions left: Alexander Volkanovski is the absolute, undisputed best featherweight in the UFC. And now, having more or less destroyed his division, he has his eye on the pound for pound ranks. Volkanovski called his shot at the lightweight title before Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev had even fought, and moments after Makhachev was victorious, Volkanovski was in the cage staring him down. Come February, he'll get his chance at all-time greatness, but Josh Emmett and Yair Rodríguez will be meeting that same night to crown an interim featherweight champion, so whether Volkanovski ends the night with one belt or two, he'll have business to attend to.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Aljamain Sterling - 22-3, 2 Defenses

Aljamain Sterling is the most simultaneously blessed and cursed fighter I've ever seen. A lifelong wrestler and grappler who started fighting at 19, Aljo took the long road to championship contention, dealing with setbacks and beating half the challengers the division had to offer before getting his shot at the seemingly unbeatable Petr Yan. He left their fight as the new, victorious champion, not because he had defeated Yan--he appeared to be on his way towards a loss--but because Yan had both illegally and outright intentionally kneed him in the head on the ground, resulting in the first-ever title change by way of disqualification. It took thirteen months for the inevitable rematch to materialize, and this time, Aljamain soundly outgrappled Yan and won fair and square--but the judges only gave him a split decision, which Dana White himself got pissy about, and the fanbase that already loved Yan and hated Sterling took it as carte blanche to shit on him all over again. Aljamain Sterling had the rare and coveted UFC title defense, and people hated him more than ever. The UFC itself made matters worse when, rather than booking the José Aldo title fight everyone wanted or giving Marlon Vera and his fan-favorite winning streak a shot, they tapped former champion and marketing favorite TJ Dillashaw as the top contender after winning one contentious split decision. Fans were split on whether Sterling would be able to outgrapple the accomplished wrestler, and Sterling made them all look extremely silly by catching a Dillashaw kick and immediately, easily ragdolling and controlling him thirty seconds into their fight. Unfortunately, seconds after that, Dillashaw dislocated his shoulder. Because everything is silly, Dillashaw was allowed to fight for a round and a half with one of his arms clearly not functioning, leading to Sterling getting a very easy ground-and-pound TKO in the second round, and after the fight Dillashaw immediately admitted that his shoulder had popped out dozens of times during camp, to the point that he had forewarned the referee of the injury before the fight so he wouldn't stop it immediately. If everything about that sentence sounds completely insane and backwards to you: Welcome to our fake idiot sport. Aljamain Sterling has three straight victories in championship fights, and through absolutely no fault of his own, most of the fanbase thinks none of them should count. Jesus wept.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Brandon Moreno - 21-6-2, 0 Defenses

The war is over. Brandon Moreno has one hell of a career arc in the UFC. He was brought in as part of 2016's The Ultimate Fighter: Tournament of Champions, where he represented Arizona's World Fighting Federation as its flyweight titleholder, only to get eliminated in the first round by Alexandre Pantoja. The UFC kept him on, but cut him two years later despite a 3-2 record after two consecutive losses to future Bellator champ Sergio Pettis and, once again, Alexandre Pantoja. He was backo in the UFC just one year later, and just one year after that he was fighting Deiveson Figueiredo, the man the entire world thought was the new unbeatable flyweight king, for the UFC championship. Their feud became the first thing to make the UFC give a shit about the flyweight division in years, and as the UFC does, it showed it by re-running it over and over. In December of 2020, Moreno fought Figueiredo to a shocking draw--primarily because Figueiredo was docked a point for groin strikes. An instant rematch was ordered for June of 2021, and this time, a Moreno who'd learned and adjusted to Figueiredo's power and timing outfought him, dropping him with jabs and choking him out in three rounds. The UFC decided to roll the dice again, seeing the fight as insufficiently determinative given their previous bout, and booked the two against each other again in January of 2022, and this time it was Figueiredo who had made the necessary adjustments, dropping Moreno three times en route to a unanimous decision victory. With the series now 1-1-1, the UFC, of course, needed a closing chapter. The fourth fight was originally booked for the summer, but a hand injury forced Figueiredo out and led to an interim title fight between Moreno and top contender Kai Kara-France instead, but destiny would not be denied, as Moreno exploded Kai's liver with a kick, handing him his first knockout loss in a decade. The final chapter, an unprecedented Figueiredo/Moreno 4, was rebooked for January 2023 as a title unification match--and because the gods of violence love jokes, the concluding fight ended on a doctor's stoppage. It SHOULDN'T be controversial, as the stoppage only happened because Moreno punched Figueiredo in the god damned eye so hard it was left swollen completely shut within a round, but Figueiredo's inability to tell he hadn't been poked, the confusion of the commentary team, and a partisan Brazilian crowd so angry Moreno had to be rushed backstage while being pelted with cups and garbage all conspired to make the fight seem somehow invalid. In the end, it didn't matter anyway; after the fight was over Deiveson Figueiredo announced he was leaving the 125-pound weight class and moving up to bantamweight because the cut was ruining his life. The longest series in UFC history is over, Brandon Moreno stopped the scariest flyweight on the planet twice, and he is, at last, the undisputed champion of the world.

Women's Featherweight, 145 lbs

Amanda Nunes - 22-5, 2 Defenses

Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs

Amanda Nunes - 22-5, 0 Defenses

Things are back as they should be. Up until December of 2021, Amanda Nunes was unquestionably the greatest women's mixed martial artist in history. She held and defended titles at both the signature class of Women's Bantamweight and the arguably real class of Women's Featherweight, and with her mixture of vicious power, aggressive grappling and solid conditioning, she defeated every UFC champion in the history of either class and, for good measure, Valentina Shevchenko, the ultra-dominant champion of Women's Flyweight, twice. What's more, she crushed most of them, taking on legends like Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg and knocking them dead in under a minute. Which is why it was something of a shock when she was choked out by unheralded journeywoman Julianna Peña. The abruptness of the ending to her streak, and the shockingly sloppy way she was taken out, left the fanbase both demanding a rematch and openly questioning how much of the loss was due to something being wrong with Nunes, rather than Julianna Peña doing something right, and opinions flew wildly regarding how close the second bout would be. Seven months and one season of The Ultimate Fighter later they met on July 30, and the answer was: Not even slightly. Amanda Nunes dumpstered Julianna Peña for five straight rounds, dropping her a half-dozen times and elbowing her face entirely open, and barring one touchy moment with an armbar, Peña was entirely shut out and lost a wide unanimous decision that included an incredibly rare 50-43 scorecard. Back on her throne, Amanda Nunes signaled her readiness to take a goddamn vacation for the first time in years while the UFC figures out where to go from here.

Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs

Valentina Shevchenko - 23-3, 7 Defenses

Sometimes, when you've been untouchably atop your division for too long, any display of weakness seems like a loss. Sometimes, you might actually have lost. Valentina Shevchenko is a martial arts phenom: Multiple black belts, multiple Master of Sports degrees, dozens of kickboxing championships, hundreds of combined fights across all of her disciplines and twenty years of combat sports experience--by 34. Her most internationally popular achievement, of course, is her reign as the UFC Women's Flyweight Champion. She is, in fact, 12-2 in the UFC, and those only two losses came against Amanda Nunes, the champion of both 135 and 145, and the second was a split decision that could easily have gone the other way. This is what made it so shocking for people when the relatively unknown Taila Santos very nearly defeated her at UFC 275. Santos controlled Shevchenko on the ground, spend a good part of the fight in back mount and at one point nearly choked her out, but Valentina fought back and eked out a razor-close split decision victory that, as always, many people disagreed with. While the sport continues its ongoing struggle over what wrestling and positional control do and don't count for anymore, Valentina Shevchenko remains the queen of the hill. It was assumed--and at a couple points outright stated--that her next challenger would be the winner of UFC 280's battle between top contenders Manon Fiorot and Katlyn Chookagian, but despite Fiorot's victory, a number of people--bafflingly including Fiorot herself--called for her to have another fight before challenging for the belt. So Manon Fiorot is currently not booked to fight anyone, and Alexa Grasso, despite being ranked four spots lower, is going to fight Valentina for the championship at UFC 285 on March 4th.

Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs

Zhang Weili - 23-3, 0 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. Amanda Lemos is on deck, but she could really use a marquee win first. The UFC is spoiled for almost-but-not-quite contenders: They just need to crown someone.

NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Ryan Bader - 30-7 (1), 2 Defenses

No, I will never stop hating on Ryan Bader. I know it's not fair. Objectively, the man's had a pretty great career--he's a huge, action-figure-looking wrestleboxing motherfucker who only ever lost to the best of the best (EXCEPT TITO ORTIZ), when he puts it together he's got some great knockouts to his name and he humiliated Fedor Emelianenko AND Matt Mitrione, which are both things I deeply adore. But Ryan Bader is Ryan Bader, and that is both his blessing and his curse, and the continual ire he gets from the MMA community for daring to exist in the way that he does is as responsible for his career resurgence as his fists. He followed his successful slow-motion nothing of a title defense back in January with an even slower, less eventful defense in his rematch with Cheick Kongo, which for bonus points was in front of a very partisan and very upset Parisian crowd who in no way appreciated his wrestling and his refusal to mix any offense into it. He recently signed a new Bellator deal that he intends to retire under and he's made clear he no longer has any intention of competing at light-heavyweight, and that opened the door for Scott Coker's early-2000s PRIDE nostalgia humiliation fetish to rear its ugly head once again. On February 4th at Bellator 290, Ryan Bader will defend his heavyweight title in a rematch against Fedor, who swears it will be the final bout of his career. When last they met in 2019, Bader knocked him out in thirty-five seconds. Whatever happens: It's going to be very, very funny.

Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Vadim Nemkov - 16-2 (1), 3 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 was initially planned for a quick turnaround against Yoel Romero on February 4, but it was scratched just before New Year's for as-yet unstated reasons. The future is uncertain.

Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Johnny Eblen - 12-0, 0 Defenses

The world did not see this one coming. Gegard Mousasi, widely considered the best middleweight outside of the UFC and arguably better than the majority of those inside, was a -260 favorite to retain his Bellator championship and cruise through his second straight year as a titleholder. And then he got punched in his god damned face. "The Human Cheat Code" Johnny "Diamond Hands" Eblen "Suffix Nickname" dropped Mousasi on his forehead with a hook out of nowhere just minutes into the fight, and that signalled the beginning not just of an upset but a five-round shut-out, as Eblen dominated Mousasi standing and grappling, earning both Bellator's middleweight championship and, for the first time in his career, his own Wikipedia page. Unsurprisingly, Eblen is a lifelong wrestler out of American Top Team, explaining the power hooks and power doubles alike, and unsurprisingly, Mousasi's achilles heel was a really good wrestler. After Vadim Nemkov was forced to pull out of Bellator 290 on February 4, Fedor's team wanted another of his proteges in a title fight for the night and they found their man in Anatoly Tokov, who's riding a 7-fight undefeated streak over a sedately-paced six-year run in Bellator. He'll fill the void for Eblen's first title defense.

Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Yaroslav Amosov - 26-0, 0 Defenses

Yaroslav "Dynamo" Amosov is in that very strange place where he's simultaneously one of the most successful prospects in the sport and a fighter almost no one feels a need to pay attention to. He's a four-time world champion in sambo, he's undefeated in nearly a decade of mixed martial arts competition, he has a 26-0 record at just 28 years old and he dominated the very tough Douglas Lima to become the first Ukrainian MMA world champion (you came so close, Igor), and he has a total of 1,253 Twitter followers. Some of it is exposure--it probably doesn't help that Amosov was on Bellator's prelims just before his title eliminator--and some of it is a very tactical and sometimes control-centric style that does not lend itself well to attracting viewers, as seen in a 7-0 Bellator record with only two stoppages, one of which was a doctor's stoppage on cuts between rounds. The fact that he's a 26-0 world champion and is still mostly being looked at as a prospect is a testament to both the amount of talent he very clearly has and the way everyone's still kind of waiting for something big to happen to him, which, uh, also indicates where Bellator is in the pecking order of the collective MMA consciousness. Bellator had been planning to finally cash in on their many years of can-crushing by having Amosov defend his title against weirdo striker Michael "Venom" Page on May 13, but the small, unimportant matter of Russia fucking invading his home country saw him stay in Ukraine and join the defense efforts. Having fought a war for nearly the entirety of the previous year, Amosov will make his return to competition on February 25th at Bellator 291 where he'll reunify the title with the guy they tapped to take on MVP in his stead.

Bellator Interim Welterweight Champion

Logan Storley - 14-1, 0 Defenses

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A company books a massively-hyped international superstar striking specialist against an American wrestler and the result makes everyone really mad. Bellator has been salivating over the idea of getting a championship on British kickman Michael "Venom" Page for years, and with Amosov no longer available they thought the half-a-foot-shorter Logan Storley would be a good candidate, and shockingly, the 14-1 wrestler whose only loss was a split decision to Amosov himself proceeded to wrestle Page for about 2/3 of their 25-minute fight. He ultimately won a close split decision that should easily have been both broad and unanimous, and as always happens with this script, MVP wants an immediate rematch. Scott Coker, proving every promoter is just one piss-fit away from becoming Dana White, used the post-fight presser to complain about the judging and insist that Storley's choice to just wrestle "isn't MMA" and shouldn't have won him the decision. It's 2022 and it is still the wrestler's fault that their opponent can't wrestle. After a quiet half-year of twiddling his thumbs, Storley's going to be fighting to become the undisputed champion in a wrestler vs wrestler match for which the grinding will be enormous.

Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Usman Nurmagomedov - 16-0, 0 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. Next up for him is not just a challenger, but a field: Bellator's Lightweight Grand Prix for 2023 kicks off on March 3rd at Bellator 292, where he'll be both defending his belt and fighting for the next round against former UFC champion Benson Henderson.

Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Patrício Pitbull - 35-5, 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.

Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Sergio Pettis - 22-5, 1 Defense

So Sergio Pettis is good now, apparently. It's not that he was ever bad, exactly, it's that he was more or less forever in big brother Anthony's shadow. Sergio had a long five years in the UFC where he on several occasions seemed poised to break out into the top ranks and vie for a title, but he always managed to fall just short, building a strong win streak before getting controlled by Henry Cejudo, barely squeaking past Joe Benavidez only to get dominated by Jussier Formiga, moving up to 135 and getting shut down by Rob Font. He went to Bellator just a few months before his brother left for the PFL, and now, in a stunning turnaround, Sergio is the successful one in the family. He won Bellator's bantamweight championship in his third fight with the organization, and in the biggest fight of his career, an interpromotional match pitting his title against Rizin bantamweight champion (and former Bellator champion himself, who vacated due to injury) Kyoji Horiguchi, Pettis shocked the world by battling through four difficult rounds he was fairly clearly losing and knocking out the heavy favorite with a painfully pretty spinning backfist. Sergio Pettis is no longer an also-ran. Unfortunately, as these things always go, he followed this up by getting injured. He's out of this year's Grand Prix and his timetable for return is iffy enough that Bellator immediately booked an interim championship between Raufeon Stots and Juan Archuleta for Bellator 279 on April 23.

Bellator Interim Bantamweight Champion

Raufeon Stots - 19-1, 1 Defense

He did not waste the opportunity. Raufeon Stots has been looked on as a major bantamweight prospect for years: A two-time DII wrestling champion, a heavy-handed puncher and an exceptionally conditioned grappler with guidance from Roufusport, Jens Pulver and Kamaru Usman thanks to their shared alma mater who won his first regional title just two years into his career. He's 18-1 with his only loss coming via a shock 15-second knockout against one of the best in the world in Merab Dvalishvili. Stots stormed Bellator in 2019 and is on an unbeaten seven-fight streak with the organization, and when faced with both the entrance to his first grand prix, the stiffest competition of his career in former champion Juan Archuleta and the interim Bellator championship on the line, Stots did what some of the best in the world couldn't and knocked Archuleta out in the third round. After spending most of the year dealing with the constant presence of top contender and endless loudmouth Danny Sabatello, the two met in both the first defense of Stots' championship and the semifinal of the grand prix, and Stots took a split decision--and the decision being split instead of unanimous was so egregious that Doug Crosby, one of the worst judges in history, got admonished for his crimes. At some point in 2023 Stots will face the toughest test of his career: The tournament final against fellow superstar Patchy Mix.

Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Cris Cyborg - 26-2 (1), 4 Defenses

Yup. It's 2022 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. It's kind of tiring to watch the second-best women's featherweight in MMA history take repeated nothing boxing matches, but on the other hand, what on Earth is there better for her to do right now, other than, uh, use her instagram account to call for a military coup of her home country in the hopes of restoring fascism to power?

Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Liz Carmouche - 18-7, 1 Defense

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. Liz Carmouche, at last, is a world goddamn champion.

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Arjan Bhullar - 11-1, 0 Defenses

It's Arjan Bhullar, the man ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong swears is better than Francis Ngannou. Bhullar, the first Indian world champion in the sport, was a big deal as a wrestler in his native Canada, won multiple collegiate championships at heavyweight, took a Commonwealth Games championship and ultimately achieved his dream of representing Canada at the 2012 Olympics where he was eliminated in the first round. He made his MMA debut two years later as, you may have already guessed, predominantly a wrestler. He was picked up by the UFC in 2017 at 6-0, and had a respectable 3-1 record with the organization, but chose not to sign a new contract after feeling the UFC was lowballing him. He signed with the then-growing ONE Championship in 2019, won his debut fight, took a year and a half off for the pandemic and returned in May of 2021 to TKO the baddest heavyweight in ONE, its reigning champion of almost six years, the man, myth, legend and Truth, Brandon Vera. And then, much like Vera, he promptly refused to sign a new contract and sat out for a year so he could play hardball. Chatri publicly shat on him and his management and set up an interim championship.

ONE Interim Heavyweight Champion

Anatoly Malykhin - 12-0, 0 Defenses

ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs

Anatoly Malykhin - 12-0, 0 Defenses

It was a very good, but very strange, 2022 for Anatoly Malykhin. With Bhullar out indefinitely, the undefeated Russian bruiser was placed in the driver's seat of the heavyweight division, and after quickly dispatching of an outmatched Kirill Grishenko, Malykhin took home an interim championship. ONE planned to reunify the championships fairly quickly, with Bhullar vs Malykhin tentatively planned for ONE's debut on Amazon Prime Video in August, but Bhullar needed more time to recover from his injury layoff. The match was finally, formally announced for ONE Championship 161 on September 29--and then, the day of the aforementioned Prime debut, Bhullar announced he was pulling out with another injury. The match was once again tentatively planned for December, but the two sides couldn't come to terms, and after ten months, ONE was tired of doing nothing with their big, angry punchman. The new announcement was even more surprising: Malykhin, while remaining the interim heavyweight champion, was also dropping down to light-heavyweight and challenging the undefeated double champ and promotional kingpin Reinier de Ridder. The result was quick and brutal, as Malykhin bludgeoned de Ridder to a bleakly one-sided first-round knockout. Now that he has another, stable championship, ONE is taking its third swing at the constantly-rescheduled heavyweight championship unification match. Bhullar vs Malykhin has been booked, yet again, for ONE Fight Night 8 on March 24th. Keep your fingers fucking crossed.

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 thesmelves 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 continue defending his sole championship.

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. With the death of his 18 year-old sister and fellow ONE competitor Victoria Lee, the future of the entire Lee fighting family is both up in the air and the last possible thing that could matter at this moment in time. For now, they have to grieve.

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. Tang Kai, at the beginning of ONE's worldwide invasion, is suddenly a very visible prospect: A power striker on a 10-fight winning streak and a champion in the world's most competitive weight class. The target on his back is very, very real.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

VACANT - The darkness that fills a dying heart

It's said that when God closes a door, they open a window. After six beautiful months, Vacant's reign as the UFC Lightweight Champion had to come to an end. But ONE Championship has made no bones about their intention of bringing competition to the world of mixed martial arts, and they were not about to let the soon-to-be hottest free agent in the sport slip through their fingers. Just two days before Islam Makhachev and Charles Oliveira fought to claim the empty throne, disaster struck across the globe: John Lineker's reign as ONE Bantamweight Champion ended after 223 days when he came in 3/4 of a pound over the 145-pound championship limit. He was stripped of his title and the following day's match proceeded with only his challenger, Fabrício Andrade, eligible to become champion. But the vengeful spirits that watch over mixed martial arts refuse to let a good opportunity go. The fight was back and forth in the first two rounds, but Lineker began to visible fade in the third thanks to his bad weight cut, Andrade's excellent work in punching his eye shut, and the size and reach differential that saw him getting repeatedly punished. Two and a half minutes into the round Andrade landed a knee to the body that left Lineker reeling, absorbing punishment and seemingly on the verge of the first TKO loss of his career, and sensing the ex-champion was on the ropes and this was his chance to become a hero Fabrício Andrade charged bravely forward, wound up, and landed a perfectly placed, sharply thrust knee on Lineker's balls. It hit so hard it shattered Lineker's cup and left the unbelievably tough man dry heaving into a bucket. The fight could not continue, which meant Fabrício Andrade could not win, which meant that once again, Vacant claimed a world championship. Never before in mixed martial arts history has someone won two championships in two major organizations in one year. Count yourself lucky to have lived at the same time as this generational superstar. Lineker and Camoes will run it back for ONE on Prime Video 7 on February 10th.

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. A trilogy rematch seems inevitable, but for the moment, having just turned 36, Mighty Mouse is a world champion in the second weight class of his career and shows no signs of slowing down.

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 inadvertant 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.

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.

ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

Angela Lee - 11-3, 5 Defenses

Angela Lee is one of ONE's biggest stars and has been widely called its postergirl, and while the metrics may be debatable, she's an extremely solid choice. Her background is varied both culturally and martially: Born in Canada in a Singaporean-South Korean family made entirely of martial artists who all collectively moved to Hawaii when she was a child, she was not only training alongside them as a child, but training in multiple disciplines. By 15 she was a national Pankration champion, by 18 she had been signed by ONE before having a single professional fight, and by 20 she had two black belts and three defenses of ONE's atomweight championship. Lee is an extremely versatile fighter, capable of backing up her aggressive if sometimes loose striking with very solid defensive and offensive grappling, and her only two losses have come when fighting up a class at 125 pounds, against both its champion Xiong Jing Nan--whom she later choked out in a rematch at 115--and world jiu-jitsu champion Michelle Nicolini in a very, very close decision. Lee went on hiatus at the end of 2019 to have a baby and intended to be back by the end of 2020, but then the pandemic happened and she decided to use her cache within the company to just sit it out, making her arguably the smartest fighter in the world. ONE declined to make an interim championship, so she returned to competition this past March as a defending champion and main-evented the ONE X supercard against its atomweight queen in her absence, Stamp Fairtex, and notched her fifth title defense after choking her out in the second round. She got a trilogy fight with Nan on September 30, once again coming to her weight class and challenging for her title, but ultimately fell short and lost a decision. In the wake of her 18 year-old sister Victoria's tragic passing, Angela and the rest of the Lee family have shut down their gym and are focusing on much more important things than fighting.

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Roberto de Souza - 14-2, 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.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Kleber Koike Erbst - 31-6-1, 0 Defenses

Rizin has found the solution to Japanese MMA's historical troubles with losing their championships to foreigners: Get Japanese foreigners. Kleber Koike Erbst, while born in São Paulo, moved to Japan as a fourteen year-old and, four years later, elected to stay behind and continue training in grappling and mixed martial arts while his parents returned home. He found community with the above-mentioned de Souza family, working odd jobs to fund his continuing study at their school in Iwata, and later that same year he began his career as a professional fighter. His rookie years were somewhat fraught: By his twenty-first birthday he was only 4-3-1 and his prospects seemed somewhat dim. As it turns out, aging into actual adulthood makes a fucking difference, as in the following twelve years he has lost only two fights. One was a decision loss to Artur Sowiński, the champion of Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki federation, and he rematched and choked him out two years later; the other, Erbst's final KSW fight, was a loss to Mateusz Gamrot, who is currently the #8 fighter an entire weight class up in the UFC's lightweight rankings. Koike joined Rizin in 2020 and immediately snapped off a five-fight submission streak, leading to his challenging featherweight champion Juntarou Ushiku at Rizin 39 on October 23. It only took six and a half minutes for Erbst to submit Ushiku with his trademark triangle choke, making him, for the second time in his career, a world champion. Kleber had the shortest turnaround of all the Rizin talent competing at Bellator x Rizin, and the stiffest competition in the form of the legendary Patrício Pitbull, and that proved to be a bad combination. Erbst was unable to muster any effective striking or grappling and spent fifteen minutes getting calmly picked apart by one of the greatest fighters in the sport.

Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Kyoji Horiguchi - 31-5, 0 Defenses

Kyoji Horiguchi is going through a difficult time in his career. Horiguchi is indisputably one of the best flyweights on the planet. He's an incredibly fast, powerful striker with very solid wrestling and aggressive grappling to back up his skills, and the streak of incredible knockouts and submissions on his record is a testament to them. Trouble is: He's not fighting at flyweight, he's fighting at bantamweight, and it's finally become a problem. His half-decade unbeaten streak ended in 2019 thanks to a first-round upset loss against Kai Asakura, but Rizin rushing him back in mid-knee injury was blamed for that, especially when Kyoji starched Kai in a rematch the next year. And then he lost his Bellator bantamweight championship to Sergio Pettis after winning most of the fight only to walk into a spinning backfist. And now he's lost his berth in Bellator's bantamweight grand prix after just getting grappled to death by Patchy Mix, who, while very good at jiu-jitsu, also had the advantage of half a foot of height and reach. He continues to be almost certainly the best fighter in Rizin, and inarguably Japan's best at flyweight AND bantamweight, but three years ago he was the nearly-undefeated champion of the two biggest b-leagues in the world simultaneously and now he's 2-3 in said three years and has a Rizin title he's never defended. Nothing best expresses how stuck in the middle he is as his participation on the Bellator x Rizin New Year's Eve special, where he represented Bellator, where he has a record of 1-2, against Rizin, where he has a record of 11-1, in a flyweight bout, which neither company has committed to promoting. He won, and fairly easily, but he remains a fighter without a home.

Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

Seika Izawa - 9-0, 0 Defenses

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, in no mood to slow down, has called for a fight with Invicta's atomweight champion Jillian DeCoursey.