THE PUNCHSPORT REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 2025
We reflect on a dead organization, a fake draft, and a nazi.
The year is rolling and so are we, even if all our organizations didn't make it out of January alive. The sport is back up to speed, we have months to go before our next weekend without a UFC and we're firmly entrenched in the postmodern apocalypse, but on the plus side: Invicta is back.
THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS
IS THERE ANY NEWS
Bellator MMA is dead.
Bellator, in all honesty, has been dead for quite some time--our own Jessica Hudnall wrote the excellent and deeply appropriate The Bellator Eulogy all the way back in November of 2023, after the PFL merger was announced, and yeah, that was just about right. The PFL's announcement of an entire year of Bellator events wound up being exactly five shows across nine months, followed by three abrupt cancellations and the eventual announcement of the brand's demise on Twitter.
Which is somewhere between tragic and perfect.
Bellator lasted seventeen years and for every one of those years it was in a constant state of weird, weird flux. At its outset, it was a tournament promotion built by a guy who (allegedly!) had a man's dog murdered as a legal strategy. Then it was a Viacom-owned property somehow doing MMA on MTV2. Then it was a Spike TV broadcast run by Scott Coker as a Strikeforce successor that tried so hard to ape the UFC's rise to power that it took its network, its reality show format and even its breakout headliners. 41 year-old Ken Shamrock in 2005? Nah, man. 52 year-old Ken Shamrock vs 49 year-old Royce Gracie as the main event of a card where Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000 fought a fight during which one of them legally died. It was a constant, endless flow of nonsense.
And it was also home to some of the best mixed martial arts on the planet. From Cole Konrad in 2010 to Kyoji Horiguchi in 2019, from the rise of international stars like Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler, from being a place where UFC-wronged veterans like Gegard Mousasi and Liz Carmouche could continue to ply their trade, from being the birthing ground for one of the best fighters in MMA history in Patrício Pitbull, from bringing back genuine international, interpromotional competition by co-promoting with Rizin, Bellator contributed a fucking ton to the canon of the sport. However goofy it was, however pathetic some of its attempts at me-tooing the industry were, the core of competition that kept it running created some amazing moments in combat sports.
And it showed, because the very first thing PFL's new management did with Bellator was run a PFL vs Bellator card in an attempt to get the company's shine to rub off on its new talent.
Instead, Bellator's champions crushed every single PFL champion.
(Except Ryan Bader.)
There may have been another five events, but that was the real finale for one of the weirdest, least-expected successes in the history of combat sports: Giving its new owners the finger on the way out with a last parting reminder that even in death, Bellator would continue to be the second-best MMA organization on the planet.
I will miss it, even in its madness. The Bellator Championship Graveyard is officially laid to rest, and we wish Ryan Bader the best in his future endeavors.
A flurry of news followed this announcement, including a bunch of those aforementioned Bellator stars seeking and being granted their releases because the PFL couldn't get them fights and was trying to force them to take pay cuts for their new contracts, so look forward to the return of folks like Patricky and Mousasi to the international circuit and, most depressingly, look forward to Patrício Pitbull making it into the UFC as a bright young 38 year-old, losing a bunch, and being immediately deemed to have always been bad.
But, most germane to the PFL itself, they've officially dumped their long-tortured format. The convoluted season, points and playoffs are gone, and in their place they will now have classic, eight-person, single-elimination tournaments, as is the tradition of the sport.
The tournaments are also now only worth $500,000 rather than a full million. This is in part because the PFL is finally trying to transition into a more standard promotion with a focus on starmaking--which will include, for the first time in PFL history, standing, defending champions.
But they didn't say how they're going to get there. Will the champions be last year's tournament winners? Will they be the PFL vs Bellator champions? As with all things, the PFL only had about 50% of a plan to announce, and as for the rest you'll just have to wait and see what Donn Davis decides makes sense. (Spoiler: It won't.)
(With apologies to MMA on Point for using their amazing thumbnail.)
The Global Fight League held its big draft special on January 25th. After months of being roundly mocked for how absurd everything about its hundreds of fighter announcements had been, this was its chance at a good first impression--its chance to demonstrate its seriousness as an organization and silence its doubters.
So the draft list leaked as an unfinished graphic on one of its internet streams, and then the introduction to the show was a horrifying AI-generated video of uncanny-valley fighters dressed as sci-fi superheroes, and then the draft took hours and spent more time on Brendan Schaub mugging for the camera than discussing its own format, and then the fighters happened to, for the most part, get conveniently drafted into teams that were already geographically closest to them.
And then, within the following twenty-four hours, multiple fighters who'd been specifically noted as high-value draftees, including Timur Valiev and Rashad Evans, came out on social media to note that, as far as they knew, they hadn't in any way agreed to be in the GFL draft and had no fucking idea what they were talking about.
So, as far as first impressions go: Seems pretty fuckin' accurate. Good luck, guys.
In the ongoing saga of the worst people on Earth attempting to close ranks and consolidate their power into one giant block of Axe-scented authoritarianism, Dana White (along with two other guys who are equally lousy but unrelated to MMA) was appointed to Meta's board of directors. In some small, deeply grating part, Dana White, boxercise instructor, now has some level of authority over Facebook.
I have spent most of my adult life around the tech industry, so let me personally assure you: They are almost all this pathetic and I am only shocked it took this long for all of its executives to go public about their desire to be big strong fascists who are very serious about their overpowering masculinity and are super-badass role models who also refuse to drink any water less dignified than Voss.
I am sorry we are all living through the dumbest times alive together.
Speaking of the dumbest possible times: Coming in right on the last day of the month like the buzzer-beater of bigotry he is, Bryce Mitchell, ranked Featherweight, started a podcast and couldn't even get through the first episode without talking about how Adolf Hitler was actually a good, honest man who loved his country and, and I'm quoting, here, "He wanted to purify it by kicking the greedy Jews out that were destroying his country and turning them all into gays." Co-host Roli Delgado quietly attempted to note the whole 'holocaust' thing, which Mitchell noted was a lie indoctrinated into us by public education and, again, the Jews.
Dana White, when asked about a ranked and regularly-promoted UFC fighter engaging in praise of Hitler and denial of the holocaust while doing a press conference for Power Slap, which is maybe my new least favorite sentence I have ever fucking written, replied that Bryce Mitchell is an enormous idiot, but the UFC is all about free speech and doesn't believe in punishing people for their opinions, so if you're mad about it, well, you'd better buy a ticket or buy a pay-per-view and watch him get knocked out.
And, boy, I sure do wonder how that free-speech mindset would hold up if fighters wanted to talk about unionization, the antitrust act, the corruption of the presidency or Dana slapping his wife in the face.
It's a bad company. It's a gross sport. Some of the worst people on Earth have always orbited around combat sports, but MMA only grew the way it did because of the constant, concerted effort to grow past them, and watching it recede into extremism is incredibly disheartening, and I cannot help feeling--or at this point, hoping--that one day, when the easy money train derails and they have to worry about retaining an audience for the first time in decades, the decision to intentionally alienate decent people will come back to haunt them.
It probably won't. But it'd be nice.
WHAT HAPPENED IN JANUARY
Our brand new year started with ONE Fight Night 27: Tang vs Abdullaev on January 11th. It was a short card--nine fights in total--and like half the damn card failed hydration tests or missed weight, including half of the main event and the entire co-main event. Let's be real, though: Describing most of ONE's cards have been an effort in expressed existential crisis for me for quite some time, now. There's a growing number of people who are really into ONE's Muay Thai fights, and I wish I could enjoy them the same way, but for one, MMA has my heart, and for two, I cannot abide John fucking Lineker being stuck in Muay Thai fights. He lost his here, by the by, to Kulabdam Sor.Jor.Piek-U-Thai. Also Denice Zamboanga beat Alyona Rassohyna for the aggressively silly Interim Women's Atomweight Championship. In the main, Tang Kai got pounded out by Akbar Abdullaev, but as Abdullaev missed weight he wasn't eligible to win Kai's title, so now he's a champion who just got knocked out, which is always great.
The UFC's year started on the same day, and it started in the damn Apex. UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2 wasn't so bad, but it was a card where the majority of fighters didn't have Wikipedia pages, which is a great way to get people excited. Nurullo Aliev got ground out by Joe Solecki, Fatima Kline elbowed Victoria Dudakova to death (and then she slapped her husband/cornerman and got fired for it), Bruno Lopes narrowly beat Magomed Gadzhiyasulov, Ernesta Kareckaitė squeaked past Nicolle Caliari, Jacobe Smith knocked out Preston Parsons, Thiago Moisés 29-28ed Trey Ogden with some great leg kicks, Marco Tulio got a weird knockout against Ihor Potieria, and Felipe Bunes tapped Jose Johnson in the first round. Up on the main card, Punahele Soriano knocked out Uroš Medić, Christian Rodriguez beat yet another Contender Series prospect in Austin Bashi, Roman Kopylov managed a slightly wonky headkick knockout over Chris Curtis, César Almeida took out Abdul Razak Alhassan in one round, and Santiago Ponzinibbio survived an early scare to knockout Carlston Harris in the third. Your main event was a rematch of the 2019 fight that ended Mackenzie Dern's undefeateed streak, and this time sahe got her revenge by armbarring Amanda Ribas in the third.
Next week's UFC, however, was a card to get excited about--up until it got messed up. UFC 311: Makhachev vs TsarukyanMoicano on January 18th was supposed to be main evented by Islam Makhachev against #1 contender Arman Tsarukyan, but Arman pulled out just before weigh-ins, and main card and #10 Lightweight Renato Moicano took his place, leaving Moicano's original opponent Beneil Dariush kicked off the card entirely. It's a testament to just how solid the card was that, even with this change, it still ruled. The prelims were an array of mostly good matches--Tagir Ulanbekov getting back on track by outwrestling Clayton Carpenter, Bernardo Sopaj taking out Ricky Turcios, Muin Gafurov stopping Rinya Nakamura's winning streak and Ailín Pérez outworking Karol Rosa--but there's still gotta be some weirdness in there, so Grant Dawson had to destroy Carlos Diego Ferreira, for some reason, and Bogdan Guskov choked out a debuting Billy Elekana, and Azamat Bekoev destroyed Zachary Reese, and Raoni Barcelos proved too experienced for Payton Talbott. The main card was hilarious: Reinier de Ridder managed to pretty effortlessly choke out Kevin Holland, Jailton Almeida got briefly outwrestled by Serghei Spivac but ultimately took ground control and pounded him out, and Jiří Procházka knocked out Jamahal Hill. The co-main event saw Merab Dvalishvili once again dashing the UFC's best-laid plans, as despite being an underdog in his own title defense he beat the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov, outlasting him and ultimately just styling on him and openly mocking him in the final round of the fight. The main event was Renato Moicano's long-awaited chance to prove that he is, truly, an underrated contender and given a chance he can be the best in the world. Unfortunately for him, Islam Makhachev choked him out in four minutes.
ONE's banner event for the month was ONE 170: Tawanchai vs Superbon 2 on January 24th, and it, too, feels like a case study in why I struggle with ONE. The card, as usual, was 3/4 kickboxing or Muay Thai, alongside one special attraction submission match between Marcelo Garcia and Masakazu Imanari, which is hilarious if you know who those people are and utterly meaningless if you don't. But the three big matches were all kinda weird. Superlek Kiatmuu9 was supposed to defend the Bantamweight Muay Thai Championship against Nico Carrillo, but Superlek got hurt, so Carrillo instead fought Nabil Anane for an interim title. Nabil won! Except he already got knocked out by Superlek in mid-2023, meaning their fight will be a rematch. In the co-main event, just shy of two years since winning ONE's MMA Bantamweight Championship, Fabrício Andrade finally defended it for the first time! Against Kwon Won-il, a man he already knocked out in one minute in mid-2022. This time it only took Andrade 42 seconds. But the main event was a Muay Thai masterclass between Featherweight chamipon Tawanchai P.K. Saenchaimuaythaigym and Superbon Singha Mawynn! Which was also a rematch of a fight they had at the end of 2023, which Tawanchai won. This time Tawanchai won again, and this time he did it with a knockout. Rematches: It's all we got anymore.
The month ended on the 25th with PFL Champions Series 1: Road to Dubai: Nurmagomedov vs Hughes, the exceedingly confusing PFL card that was originally a Bellator card except now Bellator is dead but their belts are still being defended and also it's a card named Road to Dubai except it happened in Dubai. Also as a consequence of beign in Dubai 2/3 of the talent were Middle Eastern or Russian fighters you absolutely do not know. (If you are the Talal Alqallaf superfan in the audience: I apologize.) There were still a few good scraps, including Ibragim Ibragimov beating Kenny Mokhonoana and Akhmed Magomedov choking out Nathan Kelly, but your co-main event was a truly silly match where Vadim Nemkov, one of the best Heavyweights outside of the UFC, dutifully trucked Tim Johnson, who turns 40 in March and hasn't had a ranked win since 2020. But everyone was really there for the main event, which was a fascinating and very close fight between Usman Nurmagomedov and Paul Hughes for Bellator's Lightweight Championship, which may well end up being the final title fight in Bellator's history. It was close as hell and divisive--especially with Usman losing a point for fouls--but Usman came away with the decision victory.
WHAT'S COMING IN FEBRUARY
The month starts immediately on the 1st with UFC Fight Night: Adesanya vs Imavov. It's...weird? It's a weird card. Some of it's good and notable, like Sergei Pavlovich vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik, or Jasmine Jasudavicius vs Mayra Bueno Silva! Except that one's buried neck-deep in the prelims. But you know what the main card gets as a co-main event? Shara Magomedov vs Michael "Venom" Page, baby. Feel the martial splendor. Your main event is Israel Adesanya vs Nassourdine Imavov, the test to see if Izzy still gets ranked contendership fights or not. I messed up my scheduling so I'm writing this after I already put out the weekly preview of this show and it makes it feel like I should be discussing it in the past tense even though it hasn't happened yet. Brains are silly.
But what's not at all silly is Invicta FC 60: Rubin vs Cantuária on February 7th. As is the Invicta way, the first half of the card is for rookies or journeywomen and the second half is your bigger fare, so where one half is anchored by Amber Medina, Joy Pendell, Liana Pirosin and Shino VanHoose, the other has your ex-UFC-folks you may have heard of. Victoria Leonardo faces Rayla Nascimento, Shanna "The Shanimal" Young is up against German champion Katharina Lehner, your growingly-rare Featherweight main card bout is Jackie Cataline vs Jamie Edenten, and in your main event, former title contender Olga Rubin is up against the cross-divisional threat that is Mayra Cantuária.
On the 8th, it's ONE Fight Night 28: Prajanchai vs Barboza and I feel like I'm going to say all the things I always say and I am all out of ways to say it. I'm sure the Muay Thai fights are real cool for people who are really into Muay Thai, but as far as MMA goes your top match is a cross-divisional catchweight bout between longtime veteran Zhang Lipeng and Japan's Hiroyuki Tetsuka and I just don't know, man. We're taking Bellator off the lists in this edition and ONE may not be going anywhere for awhile, but I sure do have similar feelings about it as I did about Bellator circa 2018.
But don't worry, you don't have to feel bad about MMA for long, because one day later you get a Sean Strickland main event. UFC 312: du Plessis vs Strickland 2 comes on February 9th, and outside of its top two fights--Dricus du Plessis defending the Middleweight title against Strickland and Zhang Weili defending the Strawweight belt against Tatiana Suarez--it's really, really half-assed. Wang Cong vs Bruna Brasil half-assed. Jimmy Crute vs Rodolfo Bellator half-assed. The third fight from the top of the card is coming-off-a-loss Justin Tafa vs debuting-in-the-UFC Tallison Teixeira half-assed.
Thankfully that only lasts a week, because on February 15th you have UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs Rodrigues, in which Edmen Shahbazyan and Dylan Budka are fighting just before the co-main event but Angela Hill vs Ketlen Souza is on the prelims. And Valter Walker is back. And Jared Gordon, the UFC's most-screwed man, is on the prelims against Kauê Fernandes. Your co-main and main are both prospects-vs-veteran fights, with Calvin Kattar trying to defend his progressively more desperate hold on the rankings against Youssef Zalal and Jared Cannonier clinging to the top ten against Gregory Rodrigues.
February 20th brings us ONE 171: Qatar, which is one of the rare times I have to just shut the fuck up and appreciate ONE, as it's an MMA-heavy card like they used to do. Is it indicative of the central problem that they're saving all their MMA fights for the first time they're in front of their Qatari financiers? Of course not, they're just being polite. Kade Ruotolo continues his cross-sport transition against Nicolas Alejandro Vigna, Ritu Phogat takes on Ayaka Miura, Mauro Cerilli and Kirill Grishenko will have a big silly Heavyweight bout, Shamil Gasanov and Martin Nguyen should be fun, the legend Bibiano Fernandes is back for the first time in years against Kevin Belington, botched prospect Roberto Soldić will give it another try against Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev, and former champion Aung La Nsang will face the undefeated Shamil Erdogan. Your co-main event is the threematch between Josh Pacio and Jared Brooks to hopefully end their series and reunify the Strawweight championship; your main is Bantamweight Kickboxing Champion Jonathan Haggerty against China's Wei Rui. You can't MMA-win them all.
And the month closes on UFC Fight Night: Cejudo vs Song on the 22nd, which, less than a month out, is still onyl partially announced. It's easily the UFC's best card of the month, though, with a lot of real fun shit on it. Andre Fili vs Melquizael Costa should be a banger, Ricky Simón may be having his last dance against Javid Basharat, Edson Barboza vs Steve Garcia is a hell of a fight as is Jean Silva vs Melsik Baghdasaryan, even if its matchmaking is aggressively confusing. Brendan Allen vs Anthony Hernandez is also absolutely fascinating. Your top card is weird as shit, though. #5 Heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes is defending his spot against Rizvan Kuniev, a man making his UFC debut after getting drummed out of the PFL over steroid tests, Dominick Cruz is having his retirement fight against Rob Font, of all people, in the co-main event, and up top, Henry Cejudo--who has not won a fight in almost five years, which was, funnily enough, against Dominick Cruz--faces Song Yadong, coming back for the first time since March of 2024. Whatever, man. Whatever we're doing now.
CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs
Jon Jones - 28-1 (1), 1 Defense
Very few things in combat sports reach the crossroads of awe-inspiring and unfathomably frustrating as Jon Jones. In 2020, Jon Jones notched the third defense of his second light-heavyweight championship reign after an exceedingly contentious decision against Dominick Reyes, only to abdicate the title because the UFC wasn't paying him enough, and he was bored of 205 pounds and wanted to move up to heavyweight like he'd been planning to for nearly a decade, and he needed more time to cement his place as not just one of the sport's greatest pound-for-pound fighters, but one of its biggest pound-for-pound pains in the ass. On September 23, 2021, Jon Jones was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame; on September 24, 2021, he was arrested (for the fifth time!) after his daughter called the police on him for beating her mother, during which he antagonized the police and, inexplicably, headbutted a police car. Because this is Jon Jones, of course, the primary charges were dropped, he paid $750 for the hood of the police cruiser, and got a stern warning to stay out of trouble, young man, because there is a money-powered reality-distorting field around Jon Jones whereby nothing matters. After a year of rumors, and after the unconscionable firing of heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, the UFC gleefully announced Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane to fill the vacant heavyweight throne. Did it matter to the matchmaking that there were more deserving candidates? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He deserves the spot for his earlier success. Did it matter to his public appearances that when last we saw him he was arrested for beating his fiancee? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He was, if anything, more up his own ass with self-righteousness than ever before. Did it matter to the fight that he hadn't competed in more than three years and looked terrible at the time? Of course not, because it's Jon fucking Jones. Ciryl Gane looked too nervous to use footwork let alone throw anything, and he should have been, as Jones effortlessly threw him to the canvas and choked him out in two minutes. The longest-running, most dominant and yet most persistently annoying show in mixed martial arts is back. And in the most predictable thing possible, some bullshit happened, he got injured, he's going to be gone for at least eight months, and the UFC is not only not stripping him of the title like they've done to everyone else, they've already gotten out ahead of themselves and made clear that when he comes back, he will be fighting Stipe Miocic, not whoever the interim champion is at the time. Jones beat a Stipe who looked tragically old and tired, and when asked about his future said he was leaning towards not retiring, but would not commit to fighting Tom Aspinall. The UFC also had a whole mess of graphics referring to Jon as the undisputed champion despite, y'know, the title being literally disputed, so I have a bad feeling Tom's twiddling his thumbs while they run Jones vs Pereira.
Interim Heavyweight Champion
Tom Aspinall - 15-3, 1 Defense
The UFC's Heavyweight division got itself into a weird spot in 2007. Randy Couture was the rightful, reigning, defending champion, but he and the UFC had a dispute that stretched out more than a year. The UFC couldn't strip him--it would have made it easier for him to get out of his contract--so they made an interim title. By the time Randy came back they had already made big plans for him and Brock Lesnar, but the interim title had gotten wrapped up in The Ultimate Fighter 8 (jesus christ) and it, too, had to be defended, meaning there were two championships being defended simultaneously: The Undisputed Championship, which was the 'real' belt despite being held by a guy trying to leave the company and contended for by someone with only two victories in the sport, and the Interim Championship, which was being fought over by the actual, legitimate top contenders. At UFC 295 on November 11th, 2023, Tom Aspinall, the rightful #4 contender, fought Sergei Pavlovich, the rightful #2 contender, for a new interim championship. And he won. On two weeks' notice! Aspinall's been one of the most promising heavyweight prospects in the world for years, his only loss in the UFC came from his knee tearing itself apart fifteen seconds into a fight, and he went toe-to-toe with one of the scariest punchers in the history of the sport and knocked him flat in just barely over a minute. He is, indisputably, the real deal. And now he gets to be the interim champion of a Heavyweight division in which the real champion, Jon Jones, is going to be out injured well into next year and, the UFC has made clear, will be returning to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who by that time will have been on the shelf for 3+ years and will be going on 42. So congratulations, Tom. You're the real Heavyweight champion, and to prove it, you're defending your title before Jon Jones. Aspinall avenged his one UFC loss by blasting Curtis Blaydes out in a single round at UFC 304 on July 27. Will he get to reunify the title? Who goddamn knows.
Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs
Alex Pereira - 12-2, 3 Defenses
Conflicting things can be simultaneously true in this sport. It is true that Alex Pereira was brought into the UFC as a 3-1 rookie based on his history as a kickboxer rather than his accomplishments in the sport. It is true that he was fast-tracked to a title shot against the primary focus of that history, megastar Israel Adesanya, after beating just three fighters, none of whom had any hope of testing his grappling. It is also true that he rendered that discourse ultimately irrelevant by not just beating but stopping Adesanya in his title shot anyway, in the process becoming the fastest Middleweight to go from debut to champion since Anderson Silva. It was more or less an open secret that he wasn't going to stay there: Being bigger than most Heavyweights in the UFC, the weight cut to 185 was always a short-term thing. Luckily for the UFC, he got knocked out by Adesanya and gave him the title right back on his way up to 205. Once again, he got fast-tracked, this time by happenstance. A split decision victory over Jan Błachowicz made Pereira a top five contender, and when Jamahal Hill was forced to vacate his title thanks to an ankle injury--and the previous champion, Jiří Procházka, was back from his own title vacation and injury--Pereira was slotted right back into championship place. They met at UFC 295 on November 11th, and after two back-and-forth rounds, Pereira punished a Jiří who dared to grapple by elbowing his skull until he briefly stopped moving. The commentary and audience thought it was an early stoppage, but Jiří Procházka didn't, so fuck 'em. It is true that Alex Pereira has fought seven UFC fights without having to fight an actual grappler, and that was an intentional choice by matchmaking. It is true that getting the chance to win championships in two weight classes within just two years and seven fights in the UFC is not a thing that happens to most fighters. But it is unavoidably true that Alex Pereira is a two-division champion and no one can take it away from him. After none of the UFC's other ideas worked out, Alex Pereira vs Jamahal Hill became the main event of UFC 300, and after weeks of talking endless rafts of shit, Hill got knocked out in the first round. Pereira was scheduled to defend his title against Procházka for a second time in August, but after Conor McGregor pulled out of UFC 303 because his toe hurt, the rematch was moved up with fourteen days to prepare. There was no question about the stoppage this time: Alex dropped Jiří right at the end of the first round and finished the job thirteen seconds into the second. Pereira ironically reinjured his already-injured toe on Jiří's skull, but that didn't stop him from defending against Khalil Rountree Jr. on October 5. After a surprisingly competitive first two rounds, Pereira took over and stopped him in the fourth. Next up, finally, will be Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 on March 8.
Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs
Dricus du Plessis - 22-2, 1 Defense
Middleweight's fucking wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds. As of this writing (February 1, 2024) we've had five separate Middleweight champions in less than fifteen months. Divisional king Israel Adesanya dropped the belt to his nemesis Alex Pereira, Adesanya dropped Pereira himself in an immediate rematch, and in one of 2023's bigger upsets, Adesanya lost his belt to human exclusion zone Sean Strickland. But that shot, initially, didn't belong to him: It belonged to Dricus du Plessis. Dricus joined the UFC in 2020 as one of the international scene's best prospects--a two-division champion in his native South Africa's Extreme Fighting Championship, a Welterweight champion in Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, and a finishing machine who'd never gone to a decision in his life. The spotlight of the UFC gave him two new reputations: For one, as an exceptionally awkward-looking fighter who could appear shaky and exhausted and still easily knock anyone out, and for two, as a guy with real uncomfortable feelings about his homeland. Shortly after his debut Dricus du Plessis began making comments about becoming the first "real" African champion in the UFC, citing the way fighters like Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou had left the country, and, boy, there's just no way to get around the topic that isn't gross as hell. But du Plessis knocked #1 contender Robert Whittaker dead, so it didn't matter. He was in pole position. And then he lost it, because he wanted more than a month to prepare for a world championship fight and the UFC decided that just wouldn't fly. A fully-trained du Plessis stepped into the cage against his replacement and now-champion Sean Strickland on January 20 at UFC 297, and after a close fight and a split decision, du Plessis brought the belt back to South Africa just like he promised. The UFC decided to go right back to their original racially uncomfortable plan and book du Plessis vs Adesanya at UFC 305 on August 17, and after a good, back-and-forth battle, du Plessis emerged victorious with a fourth-round submission. He is the first man to defend the Middleweight title in two years and four reigns, and he'll try to do it again when he rematches Strickland at UFC 312 on February 8.
Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs
Belal Muhammad - 24-3 (1), 0 Defenses
It took everything for Belal Muhammad to finally get here. Being a lifelong wrestler and shooting as many doubles as you do big right hands does not make you a marketing darling, and when Belal made his UFC debut in 2016 as an undefeated wrestling stylist and immediately went 1-2 he was quickly lost in the background radiation of the sport. The first sparks of momentum were visible after toiling away in mostly preliminary fights en route to a four-fight winning streak, but then Geoff Neal beat him and everyone wrote him off altogether. Everyone except Belal Muhammad. Belal worked harder, trained better, doubled down on his style, and forced his way back into the rankings with another four victories. And then, for the first time, the UFC tried to use him. Their other problem child contender, Leon Edwards, was supposed to fight and be summarily derailed by Khamzat Chimaev, but for the third time, the fight was cancelled; Muhammad stepped in on short notice. The fight ended in a No Contest thanks to an eyepoke just eighteen seconds into the second round. Despite having decidedly not lost the fight, despite having done the UFC a favor by taking it in the first place, it would be five fights and almost three and a half years before he got the rematch he deserved. He hadn't beat anyone in contendership, so he dominated Stephen Thompson. He had an unavenged loss to Vicente Luque, so he beat him. He was too boring, so he knocked out the undefeated Sean Brady. He was pressed to take a fight against top contender Gilbert Burns with three weeks to prepare while nursing one barely-functional ankle. He did it and won. He hadn't been defeated in ten straight fights. And Colby Covington got his title shot. The UFC tried everything to keep Belal away from contention, to the point that Leon Edwards attests that he asked the UFC why they weren't offering him the Belal fight and the UFC replied that Belal just wasn't important enough. But, on a long enough timeframe, you run out of both options and excuses. On July 27, at the UFC's big British supershow on UFC 304, Belal finally got the shot he'd deserved for years, and he did not waste a second of it. After five grueling rounds, Belal took a wide, definitive decision, and with it, the recognition he's been chasing. He's the UFC Welterweight Champion of the World. And now he has to deal with a division that's suddenly looking very, very lively. Belal was scheduled to fight Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 310 on December 7, but a nasty bone infection in his toe has put him on the shelf, possibly until mid to late 2025 if treatment goes poorly. Shavkat beat Ian Machado Garry in a title eliminator instead, so he'll be waiting.
Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs
Islam Makhachev - 27-1, 4 Defenses
Destiny has come. When Islam Makhachev made his UFC debut in 2015, Khabib Nurmagomedov, considered by most to be the #1 contender and soon to be the best in the world, swore up and down that Makhachev, not him, would be the best lightweight champion of all time. Coming from him, the praise made sense: Khabib and Islam have trained together since they were children growing up and learning to wrestle in Makhachkala. Islam learned under Khabib's father, trained with Khabib's team and even made the pilgrimage to America to join Khabib at the American Kickboxing Academy. And then, two matches into his UFC tenure, Islam got knocked the fuck out in the first round by the little-known Adriano Martins, who hasn't won a fight in the six years since. Even as Makhachev racked up wins, the memory of his loss and his wrestling-heavy approach to his fights let people cast doubts on him. Sure, he's good--but he lost, so he's not as good as Khabib. Islam Makhachev, as his trainer tells it, never wanted to be Khabib. He loves fighting, but he doesn't love the spectacle or the glory or the attention. So when, after ten straight wins, Makhachev was picked to challenge Charles Oliveira for the vacant title he never truly lost, a lot of folks just weren't quite sure what to think. Sure, he was an incredible wrestler, but Charles Oliveira is a submission wizard, and sure, he's on a ten-fight streak, but he hasn't fought a single person actually IN the top ten, and Oliveira represents a huge, dangerous step up as a man who's been destroying some of the most accomplished lightweights in the sport's history. Analyst opinion was split right down the middle; the fight, as it turned out, was nowhere near that competitive, and the only analyst who was entirely correct was Khabib. Islam demolished the former champion, outstriking him, taking him down at will, controlling him in the grappling, and ultimately dropping him with punches and choking him out in the second round. His first defense was a different story. Islam faced featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 on February 12th in a rare best-of-the-best, champion vs champion match, and this time, his team's prediction of domination was thoroughly incorrect: It was a pitched battle that ended with Makhachev visibly exhausted and Volkanovski pounding on his face. Islam took an extremely close decision and the divisions will remain separate, but his aura of invulnerability has been thoroughly punctured. Or, at least, it was. In one of those funny moments of sport deterioration, his title defense against Charles Oliveira got scratched thanks to Oliveira busting his eyebrow in training, and on less than two weeks' notice the UFC ran Makhachev/Volkanovski 2, and with no hype, no marketing and no time to prepare, a visibly depleted Volkanovski got dropped by a headkick in the first round. Islam defended his Lightweight title against a Lightweight for the first time against Dustin Poirier at UFC 302 on June 1, and unfortunately for the dreams of many, he dominated Dustin and choked him out in the fifth round. Islam was supposed to defend his title against top contender Arman Tsarukyan on January 18, but Arman had to pull out the day before the fight and the #10-ranked Renato Moicano stepped in; Islam, unsurprisingly, choked him out in one round. Islam's in a weird spot. He's unquestionably a top pound-for-pound fighter, he's unquestionably the world's best Lightweight, and now, with four defenses, he's broken the UFC's all-time 155-pound title defense record. But he also, through no fault of his own, has yet to defend against a top contender in his own division. With the UFC making clear Arman will have to fight another title eliminator and Islam talking about challenging for Welterweight gold, that may be true for some time to come.
Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs
Ilia Topuria - 16-0, 1 Defense
The king is dead, long live the king. Everyone paying attention knew Ilia Topuria was a special sort of prospect all the way back in 2020, but it wasn't until he destroyed Ryan Hall that the rest of the world noticed. A man who is equal parts German, Georgian and Spanish, Topuria established himself immediately as a force to be reckoned with: An undefeated wrecking machine with a strong wrestling game, a thoroughly solid grappling game, and the combination of terrifying knockout power and the sheer confidence to use it that can only come from having never lost a fight. Which was tested, thoroughly, when Topuria went up to Lightweight on short notice, fought a man in Jai Herbert who was half a foot taller than him, nearly got knocked out twice, and proceeded to recover, regroup, and fold Herbert in half with a punch in the second round. Suddenly, his prospect status was proven. Not only was he good, he was capable of dealing with adversity. Within the year he'd become the first (non-exhibition) fighter to ever beat Bryce Mitchell after ragdolling him and choking him out, and by the end of 2023 he'd dominated Josh Emmett, proving both his place at the top of the Featherweight contendership ladder and his ability to go five full rounds without falling over. His ascension couldn't have come at a better time. Alexander Volkanovski, one of the greatest champions in UFC history, was finally beginning to show signs of wear--somewhat unfairly, as those signs came from an incredibly inadvisable last-minute fill-in 155-pound fight against Islam Makhachev--but getting knocked out is getting knocked out, and when you've only been beaten once in a decade, getting knocked out in one round makes people ask difficult questions about your age, longevity, and durability. When Volk and Ilia met at UFC 298 on February 17, almost every question people had was, in fact, answered. Can Volk outwork Topuria? Absolutely; he won the first round handily and was dancing around him. Can Ilia keep himself in check? Completely; knowing just how good Volk was, Ilia was uncharacteristically patient and measured and didn't get himself in any real trouble in the first round while he figured out what he wanted to do. Can Alexander Volkanovski stand up to Ilia Topuria's punching power? Buddy: No one can. Three and a half minutes into the second round Topuria successfully trapped Volkanovski against the cage with his footwork, and one combination later, Volkanovski was on the floor. Ilia Topuria's destiny has come. He's the Featherweight champion, and he has written his name into the books with the blood of legends after knocking out Max Holloway in his first title defense. Dropping the two greatest Featherweights of this generation in back to back fights is really fucking impressive. And now he says he wants to leave the division and fight at Lightweight. But not vacate the title. Heaven forfend.
Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs
Merab Dvalishvili - 19-4, 1 Defense
2024 is the year of belated championship justice, and for Merab Dvalishvili, justice has been hard to find. Merab spent his childhood training to wrestle, grapple and fight in his native Georgia, but as a devout fan of mixed martial arts he knew he needed to sacrifice his homeland to secure a future in the sport. More than Georgia, he needed Matt Serra and Ray Longo yelling at him in New York English. Merab's MMA career officially began with a 1-2 record in 2014, and there's an argument to be made that said rookie year is the last time he legitimately lost a fight. By 2017 he was already heralded as an unsigned prospect, and then he made, and lost, his UFC debut--but it was a split decision to Frankie Saenz, and, unsurprisingly, almost all the media scorecards had it in Merab's favor. One fight later he met Ricky Simón, and this time he clearly won a decision--but he had been stuck in a guillotine choke at the end of the fight, and in one of the most batshit endings to a fight I have ever seen, the referee ruled that he was retroactively unconscious after the fight had already ended. Merab had made it to the big show, and Merab was 0-2, and Merab was, to most of the world, already an afterthought. So he started wrestling as hard as he fucking could. Between 2018 and the midpoint of 2024 Merab ran up an astonishing ten-fight winning streak in one of the most talent-rich divisions in the sport. He made himself undeniable as one of the best in the world, and in 2022 he retired one of the greatest in all time, José Aldo, and made himself undeniable as a top contender. There was a problem: He didn't want the contendership. Aljamain Sterling was his good friend, best training partner, and the reigning champion, and Merab had no interest in fighting him, and that made the UFC furious. So when Aljo lost the title in 2023, the UFC denied Merab the shot he had clearly earned and handed it off to Marlon Vera instead. Merab kept winning, and the UFC kept trying to put space between his contendership and promotional favorite Sean O'Malley, but the road ran out on September 14, 2024, when Merab wrestled O'Malley into dust in front of the very tired audience of the Sphere. He's the champion, he has avenged his best friend, on January 18, he became cemented his legacy with a defense. After months of angry back-and-forths about preferential treatment from management, the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov got the shot and Merab was a +300 underdog as a champion. By the end of the fight he was literally pointing and laughing at Umar as he cruised to a decision. Not only is Merab now a defending champion, he's in the odd position of having beaten all of his top contenders. In all likelihood, some mixture of Sean O'Malley, Petr Yan, Cory Sandhagen and Umar will have rematches to determine his next challenger.
Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs
Alexandre Pantoja - 29-5, 3 Defenses
Sometimes, you just have someone's number. Brandon Moreno spent years fighting through a quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, and unfortunately for him, he had another trilogy waiting for him the second it was over. Alexandre "The Cannibal" Pantoja was Moreno's personal bogeyman, a man who'd fought and beaten him twice. But one of those fights was an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter, and the other was against a Moreno with five less years of evolution and growth. Surely, a third fight in 2023 would be different. And it was--unlike the previous, one-sided dominations it was a fight-of-the-year candidate that took both men to their limit and led to a split decision--but its ending was not. Alexander Pantoja scored a third victory over Moreno, and with it, after sixteen years of competition, he finally became the clear, unequivocal best in the god damned world. Which was made even more poignant when he used his post-fight interview to ask if his absentee father was proud of him--and was made even more irritating when he also revealed that despite having eleven fights in the UFC at the time, he was paid so little that he'd been part-timing as a Doordash driver just to make ends meet right up until 2022. The idea that one of the absolute best fighters on the planet, after years and nearly a dozen fights in the world's biggest, most profitable fighting organization, would need to take on a gig-economy job to make money is outright offensive, and in a better world, it would have launched a furor. In this one, all we can do is be happy he's got the belt and will, hopefully, make some actual fucking money. His first title defense came against Brandon "Raw Dawg" Royval as the co-main event to UFC 296 on December 16th, and it was a wild affair with a couple scary moments, but Pantoja emerged victorious and notched the first successful defense of the title in three years. His next contender is, in all likelihood, the winner of the Brandon Moreno/Amir Albazi fight this February--or it would have been, until Albazi got injured. The UFC promoted a Moreno/Royval 2 showdown in hopes of scoring a Moreno rematch, but Royval won, so the UFC decided to forget the whole goddamn thing and book Pantoja against the #10-ranked Steve Erceg on May 4. It was a spirited fight, but Pantoja's experience ultimately got him the decision. On December 7 we got the rare cross-promotional treatment, as the UFC got Rizin champion Kai Asakura to sign up for an immediate title shot; Pantoja strangled him in two rounds and called out Demetrious Johnson. Godspeed, buddy.
Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs
Julianna Peña - 12-5, 0 Defenses
Yes, I passive-aggressively used a stock photo. The women's divisions are all returning to their norms, and we are being dragged to hell with them. Julianna Peña winning the title in 2021 was one of the biggest upset shocks in mixed martial arts history. She wasn't an enormously accomplished fighter--winning The Ultimate Fighter 18 was her biggest career highlight--and she'd already been tapped out by Valentina Shevchenko and, somehow, became the one and only woman to ever get submitted by noted kickboxer Germaine de Randamie. She was on a one-fight winning streak when she fought Amanda Nunes at UFC 269, and her second-round submission was an absolute stunner. But questions abounded about Nunes--the fight had been postponed from an earlier date after Nunes had COVID, people thought she seemed slow and exhausted and sloppy, the fans wanted to see them run it back. Peña, of course, called it all naysaying from people too afraid to admit she was the best in the world, and she welcomed a rematch to prove once and for all just how great she was. Nunes promptly threw her in a dumpster over and over for twenty-five minutes. It was the kind of one-sided domination you just don't see often in title fights, and it let Nunes retire one fight later with a clear conscience. Peña was supposed to have a trilogy, but her own injuries kept her on the shelf for more than two years instead, and when she returned, it was straight into a title fight with newly-minted champion Raquel Pennington. It was, to be gentle, not a great fight. Pennington had the volume, Peña had the wrestling, very few people enjoyed the fight, but the audience--and 93% of media scores--agreed Pennington had pretty clearly won. So, of course, Julianna Peña got the belt back thanks to a split decision. Wasting no time in reminding everyone just how tired they were of her in the first place, Peña celebrated her victory not by offering Pennington a rematch, or by accepting the challenge of #1 contender Kayla Harrison, but by calling out Amanda Nunes for retiring because she was too afraid to fight her again. God bless the smoldering crater that is Women's Bantamweight.
Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs
Valentina Shevchenko - 24-4-1, 0 Defenses
After almost two years of suffering, we have gone back to the start. At the end of 2022 Valentina Shevchenko was so thoroughly ensconced as The Greatest Women's Flyweight that a sizable segment of the fanbase had built an honest-to-god antipathy for her over it. Sure, she won, all the time, and sure, her only losses in almost a decade and a half came to the greatest of all time in Amanda Nunes, and sure, Shevchenko arguably won their second fight, but familiarity breeds contempt, and after watching the purported greatest struggle with a split decision to Taila Santos that could easily have gone the other way, too, a big chunk of the mixed martial world was ready to move on from Val. And then, unexpectedly, it did. Valentina was a -900 favorite when Alexa Grasso shocked the world, choked her out, and took her title away on March 4, 2023. An instant rematch was obligatory, given Val's long history on top, so half a year later they ran it back at Noche UFC in 2023, and, awkwardly, it ended in a draw. If the rematch had been obligatory, the threematch was mandatory, but a hand injury on Val's part and the UFC's desire to put an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter behind their promotion meant a full twelve months passed before they got back in the cage. That's a long goddamn time, and it left a lot of air, and that air was filled by doubt. Alexa won the first fight, after all--but she was on her way to losing a decision before Valentina made a costly mistake, threw one of her trademark nowhere-close-to-landing spinning back kicks, and got immediately jumped on and choked out for her troubles. Alexa didn't lose the second fight--but based on the scorecards, she should have, and would have, were it not for one judge handing her a completely indefensible 10-8 in the final round. When the third fight came on September 14, 2024, it was seen as Alexa's chance to cement her legacy: Either she was the superior fighter and the herald of a new generation for Women's Flyweight, or the whole thing was just a weird episode. Unfortunately for Alexa, it was the latter. Valentina dominated her. She outstruck her and outwrestled her with almost comical ease, the fight was a complete shutout, and despite their series being now tied at 1-1-1, no one has any doubts about the winner, nor any desire to see them fight again. Once again, much to the internet's chagrin, Valentina Shevchenko is a champion.
Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs
Zhang Weili - 25-3, 2 Defenses
Are you really surprised? There's a long tradition of underestimating unlikely champions in mixed martial arts, particularly when they're not the fan-friendliest in style or personality, from Michael Bisping to Frankie Edgar, only to have those demeaned champions remind the world that they didn't reach the peak of their divisions by mistake. Many of the wise, studied scribes of the sport warned the foolish masses against assuming the same about Women's Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza: She was no pushover, they said, and Zhang will have real trouble. And then, come fight day, we unwashed masses pulled them from their ivory towers and forced them to run in the streets amongst the mud and filth so they, too, could feel the unburdened joy of being, because Zhang Weili, as basically every fan had assumed, did, in fact, beat the absolute tar out of Carla. It wasn't particularly close: Carla got outlanded 37-6, hurt several times on the feet, and choked out just a minute into the second round. The inexplicable, season-long Cookie Monster subplot is over, Zhang Weili is now a two-time world champion, and things are back as they should be. What comes next, however, is tricky. Carla was blown out, so a rematch is out of the question. Rose Namajunas, the only person in the UFC to beat Weili, is a likely candidate--but after her disastrous performance against Carla, it remains to be seen how much faith the UFC has in her. Jéssica Andrade has a claim, but she's splitting time between 115 and 125, and probably needs to pick a weight class if she wants a shot. So the UFC solved the problem by picking Amanda Lemos. In a surprise to no one, Zhang absolutely dominated Lemos, outstriking her 296-29, smashing her to the tune of multiple 10-8 rounds, and winning a very, very wide decision. The next step was a China vs China championship showdown against Yan Xiaonan at UFC 300, and Yan did better than some expected--which is to say she won a round while also arguably getting choked out once and TKOed once, and ultimately, Zhang took a lopsided decision again. If the stars align, and no one gets injured, Zhang will face Tatiana Suarez on February 8.
NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD
Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs
Roberto de Souza - 18-3, 4 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. It was thus of particular interest when the main event for the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin card was announced as Roberto de Souza vs AJ McKee--a test of where Souza ranks with the rest of the world's competition. Unfortunately for him and Rizin, the answer was "under them." He positionally threatened McKee and was able to land some solid strikes in the final round, but was otherwise controlled and lost a decision. On May 6th, Satoshi beat Spike Carlyle in a fantastic fight--but it was a non-title fight, because Japanese promoters are still real scared of their own belts. Satoshi fought Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 29th--in another non-title fight, naturally--and took the first definitive beating of his career, getting utterly outclassed and ultimately stopped on leg kicks in three rounds. He fought Keita Nakamura at Rizin Landmark 9 on March 23 and put in one of the best performances of his career, battering K-Taro to a TKO in just 1:43--but because this is Japanese MMA it was, of course, a non-title fight, so it doesn't count as a title defense. His next title defense--his first in two and a half years--came against Luiz Gustavo at Rizin 48 on September 29, and it saw him drop Gustavo in fifteen seconds and pound him out to a maybe slightly premature TKO. He notched another win at Rizin Decade on New Year's Eve after putting the former 145-pound champion out with a triangle choke in the first round.
Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs
Kleber Koike Erbst - 34-7-1 (1), 0 Defenses
I'm not the biggest Michael Schiavello fan, but he nailed it when he asked how often a fight starts in one year and ends in the next. Kleber Koike Erbst was one of the best Featherweights in the world--a grappling champion, a wrestling threat, and a standout in Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki--when he was first betrayed by the scale. His hard-earned KSW championship was taken away from him after he missed weight by three pounds for his first defense, and a future UFC contender in Mateusz Gamrot kept him from regaining it. It was Erbst's only loss in three years, and it'd be his last for four more. He made the jump to Rizin in 2020 and strangled his way to a five-fight winning streak in just sixteen months, and after submitting Juntaro Ushiku Erbst earned his second set of international gold, and once again, it all fell apart immediately afterward. First, in December of 2022, the much-hyped Bellator vs Rizin interpromotional card ended with all of Rizin's competitors losing in non-title fights, including Erbst, who was outfought by Patrício Pitbull. Six months later Erbst had his first title defense against growing Japanese star Chihiro Suzuki, and he easily won, submitting Suzuki in three minutes--but once again, Erbst missed weight, meaning he not only lost his belt on the scale, but he was disqualified from winning the fight itself, rendering it a No Contest. Rizin was eager for a rematch, especially after Suzuki shocked the world by knocking Pitbull out during the second Bellator vs Rizin event the following year, but Erbst took an upset loss to aging veteran Masanori Kanehara. After thirteen years without back-to-back losses, Erbst found himself 0 for 3. And he chose to deal with it by staying as busy as possible. Three months later he choked out Yutaka Saito at the 2023 New Year's Eve special, six months later he tapped out former Bellator and Rizin champion Juan Archuleta in just two and a half minutes, and finally, he main-evented the 2024 New Year's show against Chihiro Suzuki for their long-belated rematch. It was much closer this time around, with Suzuki arguably doing more damage and Kleber having more near-finishes thanks to his submission attempts, and ultimately, the judges sided with him and returned the crown he never truly lost.
Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs
Naoki Inoue - 20-4, 0 Defenses
Rizin is one step closer to an all-Japanese championship roster. Naoki Inoue's route to championship gold has been oddly circuitous, and as is so often the case, a big part of that comes down to UFC management. In mid-2017, Naoki was one of Japan's star rookies, an undefeated 10-0 mixed martial artist and an amateur kickboxing champion despite being just 20 years old by a matter of days. The UFC signed him and had him debut on 2017's Asian-focused Singapore card, where he beat Carls John de Tomas despite Tomas missing weight by half a weight class, and in response to his efforts, the UFC iced him out for an entire year. They brought him back 53 weeks later--once again, for a Singapore card--and this time he lost a close coinflip of a split decision to future top ten Flyweight Matt Schnell. In response to his 1-1 record, the UFC immediately released Inoue. A year later Inoue was in Rizin and immediately became one of their best Bantamweights, but try as he might, he couldn't quite get to the top. In 2021 he was eliminated from the semifinal round of the Bantamweight Grand Prix by eventual champion Hiromasa Ougikubo; in 2023, he fell to Juan Archuleta, who would become Rizin's Bantamweight champion one fight later. But Archuleta missed weight and Kai Asakura won the belt, and six months later Asakura promptly vacated the title to sign with the UFC, leaving Rizin struggling to fill the void. They ultimately settled on a bout between Inoue and top contender Soo Chul Kim for Rizin 48 on September 29. It was not an upset that Inoue won; he, too, was very well-regarded. It was an upset that Inoue, who had scored only one knockout in twenty-three fights, punched out Kim, who had never been stopped by strikes after fourteen years of competition. Naoki's finally got his gold: Now we see how long he can keep it. He'll defend against Yuki Motoya on March 31.
Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs
Kyoji Horiguchi - 33-5 (1), 1 Defense
Well, this was a long time coming. Before Rizin even existed, Kyoji Horiguchi was the consensus #2 Flyweight fighter on the planet. He'd won Shooto's 125-pound title, he'd come to America half to face the best in the world and half because Japan's MMA scene was in a real, real bad place at the time, and by mid-2015, he was 15-1 and ready to fight for a world championship. Unfortunately, said championship was held by Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, the best Flyweight of all time. Johnson dealt Kyoji his second-ever loss and first-ever stoppage, and it stopped Horiguchi's dream of being the best, but it also opened him up to becoming a star. A year later he was out of the UFC, back home in Japan, and, immediately, one of Rizin's top attractions. But Rizin didn't have a 125-pound division--so he settled for just winning is 135-pound belt instead. When Rizin began cross-promoting with Bellator, he went and took their belt, too, just for good measure. But his strength of schedule and his own injuries caught up with him: He ultimately vacated both belts without ever recording a title defense. By the time he came back in 2021, things had changed. He'd been knocked out for the first time in Kai Asakura back in 2019, but he was fighting hurt and on short notice, so that was excused. When Sergio Pettis knocked him out in his 2021 return fight, it was a warning; when Patchy Mix dominated him in his first match in the Bellator Grand Prix of 2022, it was a sign. Horiguchi needed to be back at 125. Bellator opened a Flyweight division more or less just for him, and at Bellator x Rizin 2 in the summer of 2023, Horiguchi faced Rizin star Makoto "Shinryu" Takahashi to crown the company's inaugural champion--and the fight ended in a No Contest after Horiguchi poked Shinryu in the eye twenty-five seconds into the first round. And then Bellator got sold and stopped operating as an independent entity. Whoops! Rizin decided to just make the goddamn belt themselves, and on New Year's Eve of 2023, Horiguchi and Takahashi had their rematch, and this time, Horiguchi choked him out. Eight years after his first attempt, Kyoji Horiguchi has a Flyweight world championship. His first act as a 125-pound champion? Taking a June 9 fight against Sergio Pettis at 135 pounds, which he won by unanimous decision, but which, of course, was not a title defense. He finally got on the board--his first title defense in five lifetime championship reigns--by beating Nkazimulo Zulu at Rizin 49 on New Year's.
Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs
Seika Izawa - 15-0, 1 Defense
All hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. Rizin's Superatomweight Grand Prix was both a big coming-out party for Izawa and a series of opportunities to look shockingly mortal: She had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska in the semifinals before ultimately submitting her, but her berth in the finals against former rival Si Woo Park proved the toughest fight of her career, ending in a split decision victory she easily could have lost. Seika was supposed to face Miyuu Yamamoto at Rizin 42, but after Yamamoto had to pull out with an injury, Izawa was instead scheduled to face...the last person Yamamoto beat, the 5-3 Suwanan Boonsorn, at DEEP Jewels 41 on July 28. Izawa choked her out, shockingly. It took more than an entire year, but Izawa finally had a title defense against the 8-4 grappler Claire Lopez, and Izawa scored the fastest championship victory in Rizin history, choking her out in just barely one minute. Seika scored one more win on New Year's Eve, choking out Miyuu Yamamoto in her retirement bout, and while it was an honor, it does sort of emphasize the problem with Seika's position. She's unquestionably the best Atomweight in the world, but the last real top fighter she faced was more than a year ago. Will Rizin bring her real competition, or are they trying to simply build a star? And what IS real competition at Atomweight? She choked out Si Yoon Park at DEEP JEWELS 44 to add yet another win and belt to her credit, but the Rizin title wasn't on the line, so she's still only got the one defense. She was booked for Rizin 48 on September 29th, and once again instead of a top contender it was Kanna Asakura, and once again, it was a non-title match. Three months later, Rizin booked her for their New Year's Eve supershow--against Lucia Apdelgarim, a 2-3 kickboxer who'd never beaten an MMA fighter with a single win. Seika submitted her easily and requested international competition, and by god, I hope she gets it, because this is an aggressive waste of her time.
ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs
Oumar Kane - 7-1, 0 Defenses
The triple championship days are over, and we can go back to appreciating ONE's Heavyweight division for just how silly it really is. Oumar Kane's origins are very serious: He grew up near Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and established himself as an undefeated star of Laamb, better known as Senegalese wrestling, a particularly harsh form of the sport that takes place on sand or turf and is fought in tiny shorts. As a giant 6'4" muscle monster with a wrestling background, Kane was an internationally visible talent, and ONE picked him up just one fight into his MMA career and promoted him as an undefeated monster of African wrestling. And it was true! For two fights. In his third bout with ONE, "Reug Reug" lost his undefeated streak in 2021 after gassing just two rounds in against Kirill Grishenko, but the actual ending of the fight was a bizarre sequence involving Grishenko throwing a punch right at the bell that appeared to graze Kane's chin, only for Oumar to motion that he had been illegally punched in the throat after the bell and collapse onto the mat. After replays showed the punch barely connecting, the fight was ruled a TKO, and Oumar was accused of pulling a soccer dive. He spent three years building a three-fight winning streak--including a kickboxing match with "Boucher Ketchup" Mamadou Kamara, who is not a fighter but an influencer, and who fought exactly the way that sounds--and eventually that led him to a November 9, 2024 showdown with triple champ Anatoly Malykhin. The resulting fight was, to be gentle, pretty dreadful. Malykhin didn't know how to get in on Kane, Kane repeatedly backed himself into a corner to focus on countering, and outside of the first round and a bit of the fifth, very little actually happened. But a takedown in the first round, a yellow card on Malykhin's part for grabbing the ropes and a flash knockdown in the fifth were enough for Kane to win the title by split decision. "Reug Reug" is the champion. Unfortunately, he's the champion of a division with all of five other people in it and he's already fought four of them. ONE is trying to position Marcus "Buchecha" Almeida as the top contender, but given that Kane beat him to get his title shot in the first place--and, uh, Buchecha left the company after the fight--who knows what'll happen next.
ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs
Anatoly Malykhin - 14-1, 0 Defenses
ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs
Anatoly Malykhin - 14-1, 0 Defenses
For the second time in as many title reigns, ONE has managed to put a ton of hype behind a champion only to squash them prematurely. Anatoly Malykhin is one of the most successful marketing campaigns ONE ever ran: An undefeated, heavy-punching Russian Heavyweight with a 100% finishing rate. He knocked out everyone he faced, he carried ONE's Heavyweight division as an interim champion while standing champion Arjan Bhullar was having contract issues, and when Bhullar finally re-entered the fold, Malykhin destroyed him with ease. But ONE had greater hopes for Malykhin as their spearhead for real international notoriety: They would make him the first three-division champion in the history of mixed martial arts. And it'd be real easy, because the other two belts were held by one guy. Reinier de Ridder had been their superstar double-champion, but his relationship with ONE had soured, and they cashed in by having de Ridder face Malykhin, twice, at both his weight classes. Malykhin destroyed him and became the first-ever 265, 225 and 205-pound champion the sport has ever seen--admittedly easier when you consider 225 is not a division that exists in almost any other federation on Earth. But he did it! And then they organized his first-ever title defense by having him put the Heavyweight belt on the line against Oumar "Reug Reug" Kane, and he lost a split decision, and now he is a lowly two-belt schmuck. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Malykhin now, given that the last 205-pound fight ONE promoted was Malykhin's bout against de Ridder, and the last 225-pound fight ONE promoted was Malykhin's 2022 bout with de Ridder.
ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs
Christian Lee - 17-4 (1), 0 Defenses
ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs
Christian Lee - 17-4 (1), 0 Defenses
It took three tries, but by god, Chatri gets what Chatri wants. Christian Lee, the male half of the first family of ONE Championship and its homegrown golden boy, was very mad about losing his lightweight championship in a controversial decision to Ok Rae Yoon last year. He demanded the decision be reviewed and overturned and his championship reinstated. Unsurprisingly: This did not happen. After months of complaining and just shy of a year of waiting, the two had their long-awaited rematch and Lee left nothing to chance, knocking Yoon out in six minutes to reclaim his belt. Having finally retrieved his title, Lee, being a responsible champion, proceeded to immediately challenge ONE'S 185-pound champion, Kiamrian Abbasov, for his title, a move that was definitely in no way influenced by ONE's repeated attempts to get his sister Angela Lee double-champion status. Fortunately for Christian, Abbasov horribly botched his weight cut: He came in overweight, lost his title on the scale, and was visibly depleted in the fight. Which is particularly lucky, because Abbasov beat Lee senseless in the first round to the point that a standing TKO would not have been an unreasonable stoppage. But whether from his failed weight cut or simply from punching himself out, Abbasov was exhausted by the second round, and Lee mounted a gutsy comeback and ultimately stopped him with ground-and-pound in the fourth round. After three attempts, ONE has succeeded in getting two belts on a Lee. Unfortunately, it was followed by tragedy. After the passing of his younger sister Victoria, Christian took the whole of the year to, understandably, grieve. ONE planned his comeback for February of 2024, but, y'know, that clearly did not happen. ONE held an interim title fight between Alibeg Rasulov and Ok Rae Yoon to welcome him back--but that didn't exactly happen either, as Rasulov failed hydration tests, became ineligible to win the title, then won the fight anyway. Lee vs Rasulov was scheduled for October. And then November. It finally happened on December 7--and it ended in a No Contest after two rounds thanks to Christian unintentionally gouging Rasulov's eye. Whoops.
ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs
Tang Kai - 19-4, 1 Defense
Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China's WBK (after investigating, we THINK it's World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz "Ong Bak" Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai's weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai's Dragon Gym and Phuket's legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It's worked out quite well: He hasn't lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China's Rebel FC got ONE's attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he's held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare, and it was delayed by eight full months thanks to an injury. So after more than a year and a half without a fight, Tang Kai finally fought Thanh Le again, and this time, he knocked him out in three rounds. Congratulations, Tang Kai: You are back at square one. His position hasn't improved much, either. He was supposed to defend his title against Akbar Abdullaev on January 10, and Abdullaev pounded him out in the fifth round, but he also missed weight by a pound and a half and thus was ineligible for the championship. So, hey: Still a world champion! You just got knocked out a little bit. It's fine.
ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs
Fabricio Andrade - 10-2 (1), 1 Defense
The second time was the charm. When Fabricio "Wonder Boy" Andrade joined ONE Championship back in 2020 he was a virtual unknown in the mixed martial arts world, a 20-3 kickboxer but only a 3-2 mixed martial artist who'd been fighting out in the regional circuit of China. His association with Tiger Muay Thai put him on ONE's radar, and his visible striking skills despite being just 21 at the time made him interesting enough for a developmental contract. Said contract proceeded to develop into Andrade going on a five-fight winning streak that only got more dominant as he met tougher competition, and three straight first-round knockouts punched his ticket to the championship picture. His first appearance in the spotlight, unfortunately, went a touch awry. First, bantamweight champion John Lineker lost his title on the scale after missing weight, meaning only Andrade was eligible to become champion, and he was well on his way to doing so before hitting Lineker with an errant strike to the groin so hard it shattered his cup, and with the fight not yet halfway complete, it had to be rendered a No Contest. It took four months to get to the rematch, and it was much more closely contested, but after four rounds Lineker threw in the towel, his face having been punched too swollen to continue. Fabricio Andrade is 25 and a world goddamn champion. He promptly skipped away from MMA completely and faced Jonathan Haggerty for ONE's Featherweight Kickboxing Championship on November 3rd, where he was immediately destroyed. At the end of January, 23 months after winning the title, Fabricio had his first defense against Kwon Won-Il, who he knocked out in 2022. At the time, it took him 62 seconds. This time it took 42. Thanks, ONE.
ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs
VACANT - The fallen arch on the pinion
One of the greatest legacies in mixed martial arts ended in September of 2024, as ONE Flyweight Champion and unquestionably the greatest Flyweight fighter in history, Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, announced his retirement. We thank him for his service, we pray he does not pop up in BKFC, and we turn our eyes to ONE for the future. On one hand, ONE has not at all subtly been getting out of the MMA business, and losing one of their most internationally popular fighters isn't going to motivate them to change. On the other: It's an empty belt, and Chatri has never missed a chance to put a giant belt on someone's shoulder. We'll probably see a new Flyweight champion one day, it's just a question of how long it takes.
ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs
Joshua Pacio - 22-4, 0 Defenses
It's been a difficult couple of years for Joshua Pacio. "The Passion" stands as a true veteran of ONE Championship, having made his debut--and his first, unsuccessful attempt at winning the Strawweight title--all the way back in 2016. Pacio established himself as both a fan favorite and a solid promotional favorite for the company, and when he lost his second bid for the title against Yosuke Saruta in 2019, ONE, in a trick they'd become very friendly with over the years, gave him an instant rematch anyway. Pacio knocked Saruta out in the rematch and became easily the greatest 125-pound champion in ONE history, ultimately defending the title three times--including a trilogy match against Saruta. By 2022, Pacio was a crown jewel for ONE's lineup. Which is when he promptly got wrestled into paste by UFC cast-off Jarred Brooks. Rather than having him defend the title, ONE booked Brooks into grappling matches, and in the meantime Pacio fought and defeated undefeated prospect Mansur Malachiev to earn himself a rematch. Multiple delays ensued, but on March 1, the Brooks/Pacio rematch finally came. Fifty-six seconds in, Pacio attempted a standing kimura on Brooks, who hoisted him off the ground, suplexed him, and knocked him out. Unfortunately, this was a problem. Under ONE's ruleset, slams that land headfirst are illegal. ONE has been regularly criticized for this--less for the rule itself as for ONE's tendency to selectively enforce the rule, using it to benefit fighters they would like to succeed. ONE, of course, denies this vehemently. However you draw your own conclusions, at the end of the day Jarred Brooks was disqualified, and thus, by DQ, Joshua Pacio is now a three-time Strawweight champion. He almost immediately announced he has torn his ACL and is out for the next year. Because he's out, Jarred Brooks instead fought Gustavo Balart at ONE 25 in August for an interim Strawweight championship.
ONE Interim Strawweight Champion
Jarred Brooks - 21-4 (1), 0 Defenses
When the competitors are 'the guy who arguably should still be champion' and 'the 4-3 guy who lost to his last challenger,' the results are not particularly in doubt. Jarred "The Monkey God" Brooks feels like a singular symbol of ONE having lost the plot on mixed martial arts. In 2021 he was a huge free-agent pickup, in 2022 he became a popular world champion, and somehow, two years later, nothing has functionally changed, but all of the value of his presence has been squandered. He beat Joshua Pacio, and over the fifteen months of his title reign he didn't have a single fight--just a grappling match with Mikey Musumeci. When he did finally get a fight? It was a rematch. ONE's response? Another rematch. When Pacio was hurt? Yet another belt thanks to an interim title. When Brooks became the interim champion? A non-title fight up at Bantamweight against Reece McLaren, which he lost by split decision after getting effectively weight bullied. Now that all the juice is out of the lemon, it's time to run it back yet again. Pacio and Brooks will fight for the third time at ONE 117 on February 20th to reunify the belts.
ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs
Xiong Jing Nan - 18-2, 7 Defenses
Xiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Xiong has notched three successful title defenses since, which set her up for her greatest challenger yet: Angela Lee, again, apparently. Despite ONE's best attempts, Xiong successfully defended her title against Lee again, nearly finishing her in the first round and ultimately winning a decision. An entire 364 days later, she had her next fight: A special rules match, with MMA gloves but only punches and no takedowns or clinching allowed, against Muay Thai champion Nat "Wondergirl" Jaroonsak. Half a year later her next fight was finally announced, and it was, once, defending her title against ONE's new postergirl in Stamp Fairtex as the company attempts, once again, to make a double champ at Xiong Jing Nan's expense, and with Stamp out injured ONE is, once again, completely silent about Xiong's future.
ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs
Stamp Fairtex - 10-2, 0 Defenses
It was slightly awkward when Seo Hee Ham and Stamp Fairtex were booked to meet at ONE Fight Night 14 in an interim atomweight title match, given the longstanding rumors of Angela Lee's retirement, and boy, it didn't get any less weird when ONE, which clearly knew what was going on, had Angela Lee announce that retirement just minutes before said match, which was promptly changed to an undisputed championship bout. But that's just part of how ONE rolls, as is their blatant attempts at favoritism, and boy, Stamp Fairtex is their most successful case study thus far. ONE signed her back in 2017 as a Muay Thai stadium champion, and within one fight in ONE she was their Atomweight Kickboxing Champion, and within two fights she was their Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Is this a statement about how quickly they push people they want or how thin their divisions can be? The answer, as always, is Yes. But none of that stopped Stamp from being really fucking good at fighting, and as she transitioned to mixed martial arts she ran up a great record--with the sole exception of a two-fight series with Alyona Rassohyna, where she tapped out in the first and attempted to deny it, then won a real close split decision in an immediate rematch. ONE did not feel the need to book a rubber match, for some odd reason. Stamp won the 2021 Atomweight Grand Prix, got her shot at Angela Lee, and got choked out for her troubles, but a year and two wins later, she was good to go for another championship showdown. It wasn't easy--Seo Hee Ham dropped Stamp in the second round and, for some mysterious reason, when recapping the round, ONE chose to highlight Stamp's offense and not show it--but she stopped Ham with body shots in the third round, and in doing so became not just the undisputed champion, but the first person to ever actually knock Ham out in a fight. (Before you say it: No, Ayaka Hamasaki doesn't count, that was a corner stoppage.) ONE has their new star, and she's a hell of a striker. They immediately booked the rest of their championship year around her, setting up fights with Denice Zamboanga and Xiong Jing Nan regardless of what happened in the first, and as always before a fall, Stamp immediately got injured and will miss the rest of the year. Fuck off, ONE.
ONE Interim Women's Atomweight Champion
Denice Zamboanga - 12-2, 0 Defenses
Speaking of ONE needing to fuck off, we've got another interim champion. Denice Zamboanga, to be clear, is not the problem. She's a good fighter. She's been trucking along in ONE since 2009, she's proven herself repeatedly as a solid all-around competitor. She's tough, she's talented, she's never been finished. She's also never beaten a top fighter. She's fought 0-0 rookies, she's beaten journeywomen on losing streaks--in a dozen fights with ONE, she's only beaten someone coming off a victory at all twice. She was also notably defeated by Seo Hee Ham, the top Atomweight contender and former Rizin champion, twice in a row. It was consequently a bit of a surprise to Ham when ONE announced an interim title fight to make up for Stamp's injury absence and she wasn't in it. Instead of her, the #1 contender whose only loss in ONE was to Stamp herself, it would be Denice Zamboanga, the woman she beat, against Alyona Rassohyna, a woman she also beat and who, as a bonus, had not fought in ONE since September of 2021--when she lost to Stamp Fairtex. So now Denice is an interim champion in an organization with thirty-four different championship belts thanks to her knockout over someone who hadn't won a fight in almost half a decade and her reward is an eventual unification match with Stamp. Xiong Jing Nan has not had a mixed martial arts bout since September of 2022.
Invicta Bantamweight Championship, 135 lbs
Jennifer Maia - 23-10-1, 0 Defenses
It did not take Jennifer Maia long to find her way back home to Invicta after the UFC cut her in 2023, and it only took a year for her to reclaim gold in the company she left behind. This is, in fact, Maia's third stint with Invicta: The first time around was back in 2013, when Invicta was barely a year old and Maia was only a couple years and nine fights into her career, and it saw Maia distinguishing herself as a hot prospect but failing to get past the top ranks. She came back in 2016 as a more seasoned fighter and captured its Flyweight championship, but, as is the fate of all regional champions, she traded the belt for a ticket to the UFC. Her half-decade in the big show was by no means bad--she even fought Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC's 125-pound title--but she still couldn't crack the top of the mountain, and eventually, the UFC got tired of her derailing prospects and let her go. It only took two fights for Maia to dethrone Talita Bernardo and gain her second Invicta gold. Hopefully she sticks around this time.
Invicta Atomweight Championship, 105 lbs
Elisandra Ferreira - 8-2, 0 Defenses
The only major Atomweight division in America is back, and as happens so often, it belongs to Brazil. Elisandra "Lili" Ferreira started competing as an amateur at 19, lost all of her amateur fights, and proceeded to turn pro anyway, because giving up sucks. She spent the first third of her professional career fighting at Strawweight simply because Atomweight opportunities are few and farbetween, but she made the turn to the lower weight class in 2021 and never looked back, and boy, it's worked out for her. With one exception--a loss to Anastasia Nikolakakos, maybe the best Atomweight on this side of the globe--Ferreira's cleaned house on the division. She made the jump to Invicta in 2023, and a year and a half later she's 4-0 and the new bannerwoman for its most unique weight class, thanks to a hard-fought decision over Andressa Romero on September 20, 2024. Invicta's 2024 comeback has reclaimed its first lost title; now we just have to see who they line up to test Ferreira over the next year of its renaissance.