THE PUNCHSPORT REPORT FOR OCTOBER 2025
A bunch of championship fights, a pair of Nurmagomedovs, and a new Strawweight champion await.
Welcome to October, where nothing is spookier than the UFC asking you to pay for two pay-per-views in one month when they know damn well the entire business model is ending in January. Half of October’s cards have seen their main events swapped out just weeks before airtime, but if we try really hard, we can probably get that to 75%. Also, PFL puts its eggs in the Usman Nurmagomedov vs Paul Hughes basket again.
THIS MONTH’S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS
IS THERE ANY NEWS
Eh. I’m sure we could talk about Zuffa Boxing getting a Paramount deal or Conor McGregor ending his coke dream of becoming President of Ireland or BJ Penn getting arrested for the fifth time, but honestly? Take the month off from it. I’m trying to.
WHAT HAPPENED IN SEPTEMBER
A short, quiet month kicked off with ONE Fight Night 35: Hemetsberger vs Buntan on September 6. The MMA beat side of this is short and sweet: Natalie Salcedo choked out Macarena Aragon, Tye Ruotolo choked out Adrian Lee, and Akbar Abdullaev punched out Ibragim Dauev but he also missed weight so everyone was mad at him. That’s all the sum totality of the mixed martial arts ONE promoted in September. Did you know they pulled half their MMA rankings off their website? I wonder what on Earth could make them do something like that. In your co-main event, Shadow Singha Mawynn Muay Thai’d Bampara Kouyate to death with a spinning backfist, and in your main event, Stella Hemetsberger won the ONE Women’s Strawweight Muay Thai Championship that’s been sitting vacant for almost a year and a half by taking a decision over Jackie Buntan.
The UFC got their start out in Paris later that day with UFC Fight Night: Imavov vs Borralho. Down on your prelims Sam Hughes ran through Shauna Bannon with a second-round choke, and then we got six straight knockouts: Rinat Fakhretdinov punching up Andreas Gustafsson, Robert Bryczek getting an only slightly wonky stoppage over Brad Tavares, Sam Patterson knocking out Trey Waters, Kauê Fernandes kicking Harry Hardwick’s legs to pieces, Ante Delija punching out Marcin Tybura in two minutes, and Oumar Sy pounding out Brendson Ribeiro in a round. The main card briefly paused the horrifying violence so William Gomis could take a decision over Robert Ruchała, but it resumed immediately with Axel Sola outpunching Rhys McKee, Mason Jones stopping Bolaji Oki, and Modestas Bukauskas retiring Paul Craig with a big ground-and-pound elbow. The co-main event saw the beginning of a very bad month for the Fighting Nerds team, as Benoît Saint Denis ran a grappling clinic on Maurício Ruffy and submitted him in the second round, and up in the main event, Nassourdine Imavov pieced up Caio Borralho to a wide unanimous decision.
Next week brought us Noche UFC 3: Lopes vs Silva on the 13th. The annual attempt to capture the Latin-American market couldn’t have gone much better for them, altogether. On your preliminary card: Daniil Donchenko won The Ultimate Fighter 33 (jesus christ) by knocking out Rodrigo Sezinando, Montserrat Rendon got a split decision over Alice Pereira, Alden Coria notched the upset knockout over Alessandro Costa, Zachary Reese ended his fight with Sedriques Dumas in a one-minute No Contest after kicking him in the jimmy, Jesús Santos Aguilar got the decision over Luis Gurule, Tatiana Suarez outgrappled Amanda Lemos to a 2-1 call, Joaquim Silva got a split against Claudio Puelles, and Duško Todorović choked out José Medina. On the main card, Santiago Luna survived an early ass-kicking to instead knock out Quang Le, Alexander Hernandez notched his second TKO in four weeks by punching out Diego Ferreira, Kelvin Gastelum weighed in for his Middleweight bout at 191 pounds and beat Dustin Stoltzfus anyway, Rafa García stopped Jared Gordon in the third round, and short-notice replacement sweepstakes winner David Martínez jumped into the Bantamweight rankings by beating Rob Font. In your main event, Jean Silva and Diego Lopes went back and forth, with Lopes mauling Silva on the ground and Silva smacking him around on the feet, but Jean got overaggressive, ate a spinning elbow from Lopes and hit the canvas facefirst for a TKO stoppage just before the second round ended.
The month-ending stretch began with PFL Europe 3 on September 26, and it was, respectfully, a giant fucking mess. The card was already light on known names--if you’re plugged into the sport enough to recognize 9-5 Jungle Fight Veteran Johny Gregory, then may I say hey, caposa, I didn’t know you read these--and its truly known quantity was lost when the main event between UFC veteran Kevin Jousset and Abdoul “Lazy King” Abdouraguimov was cancelled after Abdoul pulled out. And then the replacement main event was also cancelled when one fighter couldn’t make it. So PFL’s triumphant European return was main-evented by Amin Ayoub knocking out Keweny Lopes. Could’ve gone better.
PFL MENA 3 from Saudi Arabia came the next day, and y’know, one of the kindest and most depressing compliments I have received about all of this stuff I do was how simply pleasant it was to see western MMA coverage of things like Rizin and ONE and the international scene as a whole when the English-speaking world mostly ignores MMA outside of America. I think about that, somewhat guiltily, any time I write about a Friday Fights or a PFL Africa that I am not covering in as much detail as I do the UFC. That said: This is a card where multiple fighters have almost no non-rookie experience and main card tournament bouts include the 1-0 Malik Basahel vs the 3-2 Ahmed Mostafa. I hope PFL’s leagues get them somewhere eventually, but right now, we are nowhere close.
But speaking of regional appeal, the 28th brought us back to Australia for UFC Fight Night: Ulberg vs Reyes, and any sense of superiority for the UFC’s matchmaking becomes awfully hard to maintain when you’re looking at a matchup like Brando Peričić punching out Eliesha Ellison in two minutes in the biggest MMA company on Earth. Other preliminary highlights include: Alexia Thainara beating Loma Lookboonmee to get a ranking in her second UFC fight, Michelle Montague choking out Luana Carolina, Colby Thicknesse, Jamie Mullarkey and Navajo Stirling all winning decisions, and Cameron Rowston smashing Andre Petroski in one round. On your main card, Tom Nolan choked out Charlie Campbell, Neil Magny did yet another prospect-crushing comeback and choked out Jake Matthews after a referee hiccup almost ended the fight prematurely in the first round, Jack Jenkins took a decision over Ramon Taveras, and Jimmy Crute submitted Ivan Erslan with what was basically a camel clutch. The main event saw Carlos Ulberg face Dominick Reyes, and Ulberg only threw seventeen strikes in four and a half minutes, and that was enough to flatten Reyes completely. Sorry, Dom.
And the month ended, as it so often does, with Rizin. Rizin 51 was also on the 28th and it was a giant card with four pre-show prelims and eleven main card fights and I won’t make you read about the finer points of 2-6 Kosuke Sugimura outboxing 5-5 Shogo Ota when you can click through yourself, so instead, highlights: Senegal’s Thiatou Bambilor made a successful Rizin debut by beating Pancrase veteran Kosuke Kindaichi, Yusuke Yachi continued his lose-one win-one streak by choking out Kai Bilal Haga, two kickboxers turned MMA rookies ended with Genji Umeno outworking Ryusei Ashizawa, and Bellator remnant Danny Sabatello continued his semi-underwhelming wrestling ways by getting a split decision over Shoko Sato. Rizin’s entirely underwhelming Heavyweight Grand Prix came to an end with Alexander Soldatkin taking a decision over Marek Samociuk, meaning Soldatkin will meet Ryan Bader for Rizin’s Heavyweight Championship on New Year’s Eve; the Flyweight GP was a bit more fun, as Erson Yamamoto upset Yuki Ito, Yuki Motoya turned away Makoto Shinryu, and Hiromasa Ougikubo beat the outmatched Alibek Gadzhammatov. The co-main and main were both championship defenses, and both were about as quick and definitive as it gets, with Razhabali Shaydullaev defending the Rizin Featherweight Championship after punching out Viktor Kolesnik in thirty-three seconds and, in the main event, Roberto de Souza choked out Yoshinori Horie in a minute forty.
WHAT’S COMING IN OCTOBER
The PFL starts us off on October 3 with PFL Champions Series 3: Nurmagomedov vs Hughes 2. By PFL standards, it ain’t bad. You’ve got a lot of lesser-known international talent on the prelims like Takeshi Izumi and Jarrah Al-Silawi, but all eyes are on Pouya Rahmani vs Slim Trabelsi and a fight I can only describe as an internet meme come to life, Zubaira Tukhugov vs Artem Lobov. Somehow. Your main card has Jack Cartwright fighting Caolán Loughran, Archie Colgan meeting Jay-Jay Wilson, and Magomed Magomedov having what will either be a very cool or very slow fight with Sergio Pettis. Above that, we get to the attempt to crown two more PFL champions. Bellator champ Corey Anderson will face Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov to crown the first true PFL Light Heavyweight Champion, and in the main event, Usman Nurmagomedov will have to meet Paul Hughes in a rematch to determine the fate of the PFL Lightweight Championship.
The 4th gets us our one ONE of the month, ONE Fight Night 36: Prajanchai vs Di Bella 2. The long, slow death of mixed martial arts is continuing on schedule for ONE, but there are, at least, four bouts this time around, and one of them is even a co-main event! Kade Ruotolo victim Nicolas Vigna faces the undefeated Shozo Isojima, Sanzhar Zakirov takes on Hu Yong, former champ Jarred Brooks tries to fix his winning streak by beating Mansur Malachiev, and former double-champ (sort of) Aung La Nsang tries to end his own two-fight, one-man losing streak by facing Zebaztian Kadestam. Your main event will reunify ONE’s Strawweight Kickboxing Championship, as Prajanchai P.K.Saenchai faces interim champ Jonathan Di Bella in a rematch after Prajanchai took a decision from him last year.
But the big show of the day is UFC 320: Ankalaev vs Pereira 2. On your early prelims, Veronica Hardy faces Brogan Walker, Ramiz Brahimaj fights Austin Vanderford, Punahele Soriano tries to punch up Nikolay Veretennikov, Patchy Mix looks for redemption against a debuting Jakub Wikłacz, and Macy Chiasson meets Yana Santos in your obligatory ranked women’s fight inexplicably stuck on the undercard. Your regular prelims: Daniel Santos vs Joosang Yoo, Chris Gutierrez vs Farid Basharat, Edmen Shahbazyan against André Muniz, and Ateba Gautier vs Ozzy Diaz. The main card starts a bit middling with Abus Magomedov vs Joe Pyfer, but it takes off from there: Josh Emmett and Youssef Zalal do battle to determine the heir to the outer top ten, Jiří Procházka faces Khalil Rountree Jr. in a potential title eliminator, and Merab Dvalishvili defends the Bantamweight title against Cory Sandhagen, who is finally getting his shot because everyone else is dead. Your main event is an instant rematch, as Magomed Ankalaev defends the Light Heavyweight title against Alex Pereira in a ‘please, please get the belt back on the guy we like’ type of affair.
We blissfully reunite on the 11th for UFC Fight Night: Oliveira vs Gamrot, the first of (currently!) two hastily thrown together main events for the month. We’re back in Rio for the first time in a year and a half, and consequently, there’s just a whole goddamn lot of Brazilians looking for blood. Your currently scheduled prelims include Beatrix Mesquita vs Irina Alekseeva, Vitor Petrino vs Thomas Petersen, Ricardo Ramos vs Kaan Ofli, Lucas Almeida vs Michael Aswell and Jafel Filho vs Clayton Carpenter; your main card is Valter Walker looking to hobble another man against Mohammed Usman, Jhonata Diniz having a bludgeon-off with Mário Pinto, Gabriel Bonfim facing Randy Brown, Deiveson Figueiredo coming back what seems like it might be too fast for someone as dangerous as Montel Jackson, and in your main event, former champion Charles Oliveira faces Mateusz Gamrot.
October 18 starts off with PFL Africa 3, which, three weeks out, currently consists of the eight semifinals for their Heavyweight, Welterweight, Bantamweight and Featherweight tournaments. Will there be more fights added? Probably! Will anyone on them rate a Wikipedia page? Almost assuredly not. But if you want to see Nkosi Ndebele fight Simbarashe Hokonya, then by god, you’d better download the PFL app.
That evening brings us the UFC’s first stop in Canada in more than two years, and it features an incredibly Canadian main event in the form of UFC Fight Night: de Ridder vs Allen. There IS a whole mess of Canadian talent on the card, in fairness, with fights including Kyle Prepolec vs Drew Dober, Charles Jourdain vs Davey Grant, Kyle Nelson vs Matt Frevola, and, most notably, the main-card trifecta of Manon Fiorot vs Jasmine Jasudavicius, Marlon Vera vs Aiemann Zahabi and Kevin Holland vs Mike Malott. But Reinier de Ridder vs Brendan Allen is the reason for the season, and depending on how impressively it goes, the winner could be in line for the next shot at Khamzat Chimaev’s 185-pound title.
But the month ends on the rare second PPV in four weeks, UFC 321: Aspinall vs Gane. Having finally gotten their big British Heavyweight champion, the UFC is holding the card in the most British of locations, Abu Dhabi. As happens with end-of-the-month events the lineup’s still a tiny bit up in the air, with an undercard purportedly featuring things like Ikram Aliskerov vs The Iron Turtle and Hamdy Abdelwahab against Chris Barnett, but your main card appears pretty set: Aleksandar Rakić vs Azamat Murzakanov, Umar Nurmagomedov vs Mario Bautista, a probable-title-eliminator between Alexander Volkov and Jailton Almeida, a battle for the vacant Women’s Strawweight title between Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie Dern, and in your main event, Tom Aspinall finally makes his first defense as the undisputed Heavyweight champion against Ciryl Gane.
CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs
Tom Aspinall - 15-3, 1 Defense
You know, once upon a time, the UFC would’ve killed for a Tom Aspinall. Entire years of UFC events were spent desperately trying to get a Dan Hardy or Darren Till or Jimi Manuwa into championship pictures so they could cash in on UK superstardom. And somehow, Tom Aspinall just fell into their lap. They didn’t go out of their way to softball him, they didn’t put a ton of effort into marketing him, they just let him mulch everyone in his path. In 2025, Tallison Teixeira has a main event in just his second UFC bout: In 2022 Tom Aspinall had to notch five straight stoppages to get his first crack at the top of the card against Curtis Blaydes, and it ended with his knee imploding fifteen seconds into the fight. When he lost that fight, Francis Ngannou was the reigning UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World. By the time Tom returned in the Summer of 2023, it belonged to Jon fucking Jones. Within one fight Aspinall was a top contender again, and with Jon comically scheduled to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who hadn’t fought in two and a half years, Aspinall was left in a holding pattern--until Jon injured himself in training. With barely two weeks to prepare, Tom Aspinall fought Sergei Pavlovich for an interim championship. Sergei was the most devastating knockout artist in the Heavyweight division: Tom knocked him out in sixty-nine seconds. Not only did it give him gold, it gave him a golden ticket. The sole purpose of an interim champion is to one day reunify the belts, and that meant Tom had a shot at Jon Jones, one of the biggest fighters in the history of the sport. All he had to do was wait. And wait. And wait. Tom waited so fucking long the UFC made him defend his interim title in a rematch with Blaydes--which he won easily, knocking him out in 60 seconds--on July 27, 2024. Four months later, Jon Jones returned and had his fight with Stipe, who by that point had been effectively retired for almost four years. Unsurprisingly, Jon won. Equally unsurprisingly, Jon and the UFC refused to commit to fighting Aspinall. Jones reportedly held the UFC up for a huge payday, and when they shockingly agreed, he changed his mind. In the end, the most obvious pair of conclusions happened: On June 21st, during the press conference after Fight Night Baku, Dana White announced Jon was retiring and Tom was being promoted to Undisputed Champion; an hour later, coincidentally, news broke that Jon was being summoned for arraignment in July on charges of leaving the scene of an accident after drunkenly crashing another car and leaving another heavily-inebriated half-naked woman behind in it and also threatening the police over the phone when they called him. It is the only way the Jon Jones story could possibly have ended. Tom Aspinall was an interim champion for 588 days, and despite already having an interim title defense to his name, he’ll try for his first undisputed one when he faces Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on October 26.
Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs
Magomed Ankalaev - 20-1-1 (1), 0 Defenses
Took ‘em long enough. Magomed Ankalaev’s title fight came just one week too early to mark seven years since his UFC debut, in which a young, undefeated Combat Sambo champion hopped into the biggest fighting company in the world, dominated Paul Craig for 14 minutes and 53 seconds, and somehow managed to get himself submitted in those last seven seconds anyway. It was shocking, it was embarrassing, and it was the last time Magomed allowed himself to lose a fight. For the next four years Ankalaev beat everyone in his path, and in 2022, after the Light Heavyweight Championship was vacated, Ankalaev finally got a well-deserved shot against Jan Błachowicz and won! On almost all of the media scorecards. For the judges, it was inexplicably a draw, which meant no champion and a very, very angry Dana White who blamed the fighters, as he does. Rather than a rematch or a fight against new champion Jamahal Hill, Ankalaev was put on ice for a year and busted back down to contendership clashes--which also went weird, as he blasted Johnny Walker with an illegal knee and got a No Contest for it. They rematched, Ankalaev destroyed him in two rounds, and the world waited for the now inevitable and clearly logical match with new champion Alex Pereira. And they did not get it. In yet another example of egregious matchmaking, the UFC kept Ankalaev on ice for almost the entire year while Pereira had rematches and fill-ins, and then, in October, they booked Pereira and Ankalaev to fight within three weeks of one another. Ankalaev dominated Aleksandar Rakić, a top contender; Pereira beat Khalil Rountree Jr., who was one fight separated from beating up Chris Daukaus. Much to the UFC’s chagrin, the public narrative shifted largely to the perception that they were protecting Pereira from Ankalaev out of fear that he would beat their star, which was cruel and disrespectful and also pretty true. The world finally got to find out at UFC 313 on March 8, and it was close--closer than most thought it would be no matter who they favored to win--but the UFC’s least favorite internet haters wound up being right again. Ankalaev tanked Pereira’s leg kicks, disarmed his footwork with forward pressure, kept him afraid of his wrestling and even stung him repeatedly with his boxing, and at the end of the night, he went home with a unanimous decision and the belt. It took two and a half years longer than it should have, but Magomed Ankalaev finally got his title and he did it by beating one of the UFC’s favorite sons. Ankalaev was supposed to have a rematch with Pereira this Summer but Pereira couldn’t make it, and in a reminder of how marketing works, rather than having Ankalaev fight anyone, they decided to simply wait it out. It’ll be Ankalaev/Pereira 2 at UFC 320 on October 4.
Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs
Khamzat Chimaev - 15-0, 0 Defenses
Yeah, this was probably inevitable. When Khamzat Chimaev showed up in the UFC in the middle of the Fight Island pandemic era and wrecked two people in ten days at two different weight classes, the world was prepared to believe he was special. When he ended Gerald Meerschaert with one punch less than two months later, all doubt was cast aside. The fighters, the audience, and the UFC itself were all true believers in the championship future that lay ahead for Khamzat Chimaev. Khamzat, in response, retired from mixed martial arts. As it turns out, fighting in the middle of a COVID pandemic makes it more likely you’re going to get COVID. Who’dve thunk? After a year, some prodding from Dana White and reportedly a lot more personal prodding from Ramzan Kadyrov, the dictator in charge of Khamzat’s native Chechen Republic, Khamzat returned to the sport a year later. His dominance continued unabated, but his schedule never recovered--in fact, it worsened. After a particularly unfortunate 2022 episode involving Khamzat torpedoing his own pay-per-view main event against Nate Diaz after missing weight by almost ten pounds and very nearly cancelling the event altogether, he instead wound up strangling Kevin Holland, taking another year off, moving permanently to Middleweight, and adopting a new schedule whereby he fought only once every twelve months, and every time he appeared, something bizarre would happen. In the first episode of New Khamzat he showed up in 2023 for what was supposed to be a long-awaited showdown with Paulo Costa, but Costa, as he is wont to do, pulled out and resulted in Welterweight champion Kamaru Usman stepping in with just days to prepare. Even weirder: He gave Khamzat the closest fight he’d ever had. One judge scored the fight a damn draw. Khamzat’s struggle with a career Welterweight gave a lot of folks pause when, one year later, he returned to face Middleweight kingpin Robert Whittaker. Rob was universally respected as one of the best 185-pound fighters in UFC history, and while he’d lost, he’d lost only to the best and never easily. Khamzat steamrolled him in three and a half minutes. He face-cranked him so hard it snapped a previous palate injury and left Rob’s bottom teeth floating in his mouth. By the time Khamzat came back in 2025 for his long-awaited shot at the belt, Dricus du Plessis had etched his spot in the record books as one of just five men to ever defend the Middleweight championship multiple times. He’d beaten everyone the UFC put in front of him, and he was still a betting underdog. The conventional wisdom was Khamzat would choke Dricus out in the first two rounds or Dricus would drag him through a difficult back half of the bout. As it turned out: Everyone was wrong. Khamzat did hand out one of the most one-sided championship victories in UFC history, but rather than destroying Dricus, he just outwrestled him for five straight rounds. He didn’t engage on the feet, he didn’t land much in the way of heavy ground-and-pound, and he isn’t even credited with a single submission attempt. Khamzat landed 529 strikes and only 37 of them were considered significant. But Khamzat won, unquestionably and easily, and now he has the belt everyone long assumed he’d get. We can only hope he defends it more than once a year.
Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs
Jack Della Maddalena - 18-2, 0 Defenses
Three years ago I wrote that the UFC would throw hundreds of fighters into the meat grinder of the Contender Series if it meant finding one Jack Della Maddalena, and three years later, he has justified their efforts. Jack was picked up as a striking-heavy, wrestling-allergic Australian boxing machine who dropped the first two fights of his career and never sniffed a loss again, and contrary to what I write about most UFC marketing darlings, they did not give him an easy path. He was fighting seasoned veterans and tough competitors two fights into his tenure with the company, and more impressively, he was stopping all of them. Ramazan Emeev, Danny Roberts, Randy Brown, he clocked all of them in a single round. And then he almost got wrestled to death by a regional replacement named Bassil Hafez and barely got to a split decision with Kevin Holland, and even in victory, the wheels seemed to be coming off the hype train. By the time Jack got to his top ten fight with Gilbert Burns in 2024 people were far less certain about his championship prospects, and for most of the fight they were right. With less than a minute and a half left in the fight, Jack was being outgrappled and outworked and was en route to having his winning streak snapped by a decision. And then he swept Gilbert, kneed him in the head and knocked him out. He wasn’t supposed to get a shot at the title--he was booked in against former champ Leon Edwards. But Shavkat Rakhmonov got injured, and cards got shuffled, and suddenly, Jack Della Maddalena had a shot at Belal Muhammad. The conventional wisdom saw it was nearly inevitable that Belal would grind him into dirt, given all of Jack’s historical problems with wrestling and Belal having the market cornered on the strategy. But the planets aligned for the UFC. Jack busted his ass improving his takedown defense, and Belal fell in love with his hands and didn’t pressure him the way he was intending to, and at the end of five rounds, Jack took a unanimous decision, knocked off the company’s least favorite champion, and added another world championship to the arguments people inevitably make for why the Contender Series is actually good. In yet another case of good fortune, Jack has also managed to inherit a superfight. Lightweight champion Islam Makhachev had long discussed his plans of challenging for the Welterweight title, but he did not want to fight Belal given their past as training partners and friends. The UFC openly announced that Belal/Jack would determine the fate of two belts--if Belal won, Islam would have stayed at 155 and defended the gate against Ilia Topuria. Instead, Islam left the Lightweight division and will be facing Jack in a champion vs ex-champion bout later this year. If Jack loses, he is a footnote in the Islam Makhachev story and his win will be completely overshadowed; if he wins, he slew one of the sport’s pound-for-pound greats and he reinforces that weight classes exist for a reason. We’ll find out at UFC 322 on November 15.
Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs
Ilia Topuria - 17-0, 0 Defenses
One of the most exciting things about following mixed martial arts is picking which prospects you really, truly believe in. There are hundreds of fighters across history that you will enjoy watching, and you may have some hopes for their future, but you don’t necessarily expect the world from them. When Ilia Topuria showed up in the UFC in 2020, if you were paying attention, you knew he was going to be special. The combination of wrestling, grappling and absolutely murderous striking was almost immediately visible, but what really set him apart was the unshakable confidence with which he used it. Even when he went up to 155 pounds on short notice and almost got knocked out by Jai Herbert he survived the onslaught, recovered, came right back at him as though he was utterly unfazed and destroyed Herbert seconds later. That was the truly exceptional danger of Ilia Topuria: His belief in his technique was so absurdly complete that it came across as absurdly silly arrogance and it made huge swaths of the audience disdain him and then he’d somehow always find a way to just go do the damn thing anyway. He outgrappled Ryan Hall. He submitted Bryce Mitchell. He beat Josh Emmett so badly he got a 50-42 scorecard out of it. And on February 17, 2024, he ended Alexander Volkanovski’s historic, nearly-four-year reign as the king of Featherweight by knocking him out in two rounds. When Ilia followed that up by saying he was going to become the first man to ever knock out Max Holloway--a thing Volkanovski, Dustin Poirier, José Aldo and Conor McGregor failed to do--even with his title victory, the audience was still particularly skeptical. He did it anyway. Once again, Ilia walked into a fight with supreme confidence, and once again, it ended with his opponent on the floor, this time in three rounds. Ilia Topuria had knocked out the two greatest Featherweights of the generation and seemed poised for a longer title reign than either of them. And then he quit the division. One of those first overconfident boasts of his had been the desire to move up to Lightweight and knock out Islam Makhachev to become a double champion. The MMA world thought he was talking about a far-away future, but he wanted it and he wanted it now. Unfortunately, so did Islam. Right as Ilia vacated the Featherweight title to move up to Lightweight, Islam vacated the Lightweight title to move up to Welterweight. So Ilia was left to fight for his destiny against Charles Oliveira instead. Oliveira’s always been incredibly tough and dangerous, and he hadn’t been knocked out in almost eight years, and even then it wasn’t unconsciousness but rather because a Paul Felder elbow had broken part of his face. That streak ended on June 28, 2025 when Ilia Topuria punched him limp in two and a half minutes. The UFC may not do double-champions anymore out of sheer promotional frustration, but in any rational sense, Ilia is the king of Featherweight and Lightweight, which gives him a horde of contenders like Arman Tsarukyan, Justin Gaethje, Dan Hooker and Mateusz Gamrot. So he appears to be fighting Paddy Pimblett next. If you ask Ilia, he’s just killing time until Islam wins the Welterweight title, because his destiny is to take his 5’7” frame all the way up to Welterweight so he can kill the king and be the first ever three-division champion in UFC history. Does it sound aggressively silly and arrogant? Of course it does. Do you feel comfortable ruling it out? Then you haven’t been paying attention.
Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs
Alexander Volkanovski - 27-4, 0 Defenses
And just like that, 2024 never happened. For eleven years Alexander Volkanovski was the best Featherweight on the planet, and most of that time was simply waiting for everyone else to notice. He was short and he won by decisions a lot and the world was entirely into Max Holloway so he skated under the radar right up until the moment he finally beat Max. And that wasn’t enough to convince people, so Volkanovski beat him again. And that somehow made the world doubt him even more, so he beat Max a third time. By 2023 Volk was second only to all-time great José Aldo in Featherweight title defenses--and he’d beaten Aldo in a fight, and his only actual loss was an all-timer of an effort against Islam Makhachev that still stands as the closest Islam has come to losing his title as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, so it was very, very easy to accept Alexander Volkanovski as the greatest Featherweight on the planet. And then he took a rematch with Islam with only one week to prepare and got knocked out in three minutes, and then he came back less than four months later and got flattened by Ilia Topuria, and in the space of two fights the audience went from celebrating him as the best around to calling for his retirement. Volkanovski took an entire year off to heal and rebuild, which was enough time for Ilia to get bored and vacate the belt to go chase Lightweight greatness, and the Topuria/Volkanovski rematch became Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes at UFC 314 on April 12 to fill the vacant throne instead. It was somehow both close and clear. Lopes gained steam in the middle stanza of the bout and at one point dropped Volk, but Volk got right back up and resumed punching him in the face, and by the end of the bout he’d outlanded him more than two to one. The judges sided with him, the audience sided with him, and Alexander Volkanovski became not just one of the rare few to win back a UFC title, but the first man over 35 to ever win a UFC belt in the sub-170 weight classes typically reserved for young lions. His logical next contender should be Movsar Evloev, but the UFC has booked him to fight an unranked, debuting Aaron Pico, thus clearing the way for a rematch with Yair Rodríguez in Guadalajara for Noche UFC 3 in September. Except the Arena Guadalajara isn’t done yet, so Noche UFC 3 has been moved to the most Mexican of places, Las Vegas, in October. And Alex’s manager says he has an eye injury that needs time to heal. Welcome back to the slow lane, Featherweight.
Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs
Merab Dvalishvili - 20-4, 2 Defenses
2024 was 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. But with Cory Sandhagen facing Deiveson Figueiredo, the UFC getting its way was officially inevitable. With a total record of 0 fights since losing their first match, Sean O’Malley somehow still got a second crack at Merab at UFC 316 on June 7, and despite the UFC’s hopes it went even worse for him: After a competitive first two rounds, Merab hulked up and destroyed him in the third, savaging him on the ground for four minutes before choking him out. The Sean O’Malley era is officially over, and after the fight Merab called out Cory Sandhagen for his own long-deserved shot at the belt, which will officially happen at UFC 320 on October 4. If Merab wins, he ties teammate Aljamain Sterling’s record for the most defenses the Bantamweight title has ever seen.
Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs
Alexandre Pantoja - 30-5, 4 Defenses
Sometimes, you just have everyone’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. Instead he got a TUF24 rematch against Kai Kara-France at UFC 317 on June 28, and this time, he choked Kai out in the third round. It looks like Joshua Van will be next.
Women’s Bantamweight, 135 lbs
Kayla Harrison - 19-1, 0 Defenses
Every once in awhile the inevitable turns out to actually be inevitable. Ronda Rousey parlayed a 2008 bronze medal in Judo into mixed martial arts stardom; Kayla Harrison took the gold medal in 2012 and 2016. The world was already asking her about MMA before the second. The UFC made a play for her, but there was a problem: By the standards of female fighters Kayla was huge. Ronda had competed at 70 kg in the Olympics, which translated to about 154 pounds, well within the range of weight cutting for the insane standards of combat sports and Women’s Bantamweight. Kayla competed at 78 kg, which was almost 172 pounds. Even at a twenty-pound weight cut, her division simply did not exist in major mixed martial arts organizations. So she had to find one that would build it. The Professional Fighters League needed star power, and Kayla was their gal. They founded the first Women’s Lightweight division in a major American organization, and it was populated mostly by Bantamweights and Featherweights who were trying the best they could. For four straight years, Kayla was their recurring, undefeated champion. She won the 2019 and 2021 tournaments, and in 2022 she made it to the finals and looked poised to take it for a third time, as her only competition was Larissa Pacheco, whom she’d already beaten twice. In a massive upset, Larissa took a decision off of her. It was shocking, it was unexpected, and it was also more or less fine, because Kayla was more or less done with the PFL. She took one more fight against Aspen Ladd as a one-off, but her future was with the UFC. Even with her loss to Pacheco, the world was sure she was a future UFC champion--as long as she could stomach the weight cut. And it did, visibly, kill her! But she made it. She choked out Holly Holm in her debut, she took a decision over Ketlen Vieira in a title eliminator, and all she had to do after that was wait. Julianna Peña was a +500 underdog in her own title defense against Kayla, and that turned out to be just about right. On June 7, 2025, at UFC 316, Kayla achieved the inevitable, ragdolled Peña and tapped her out in just two rounds. She’s the best in the world and she’s going to get her shot at the superfight everyone wanted in the first place, as Amanda Nunes is coming out of retirement to face her later this year.
Women’s Flyweight, 125 lbs
Valentina Shevchenko - 25-4-1, 1 Defense
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. And--only two years late--she defended her title against Manon Fiorot at UFC 315. It was close, it was contentious, and it was also a fight the audience does not want to see again. Her next fight, as it turns out, is a long-awaited champion vs champion affair against Zhang Weili at UFC 322 on November 15. But you know what that means.
Women’s Strawweight, 115 lbs
VACANT - The lost season of your favorite TV show
That’s right, baby. Vacant rides again. The UFC is done with the days of fighters parking multiple divisions--at least until they find someone who’ll make them Conor McGregor money again, at which point I’m sure the rules will abruptly change back--and our painful time with Zhang Weili atop the division has finally come to an end. It’s not that she was bad. If anything, there’s an argument to be made that Zhang Weili is the best strawweight fighter of all time. But she was painfully inactive. During her first run as challenger and champion between 2018 and 2021, Zhang fought a much more normal, two-fights-per-year type of schedule. After winning the belt back in 2022, Zhang fought once a year, no more. Reportedly, this was a product of her repeated attempts to get a shot at Valentina Shevchenko’s Flyweight title. Apparently she finally got her wish, but like Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria before her, she had to give up her belt and division in exchange. But don’t worry, the UFC knows who to put in her place. Remember Virna Jandiroba, the #1 contender? Good news! She’s getting her shot at the vacant belt. Will it come against Tatiana Suarez, the #2 contender whose only career loss came against Weili? How about Yan Xiaonan, or Amanda Lemos, at #3 and 4? Of course not! It’s Mackenzie Dern, the woman who lost to both of them and, coincidentally, has a five year-old victory over Virna. The UFC will finally, finally try to get what it wants when Virna and Mackenzie fight to fill the vacant Strawweight throne at UFC 321 on October 25.
NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD
Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs
Roberto de Souza - 20-3, 5 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. He faced Ki Won-Bin on May 31 and destroyed him in less than a minute, but it was, once again, a non-title fight. He finally went for his fifth title defense against Yoshinori Horie at Rizin 51 on September 28, and he choked Horie out--while standing--in the first round.
Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs
Razhabali Shaydullaev - 16-0, 1 Defense
I asked how long the second reign of Kleber Koike Erbst would last, and as it turns out, the answer was sixty-two seconds. Razhabali Shaydullaev’s rise through the sport has been impressively meteoric. Four years ago he was a rookie fighting on Batyr Bashy cards in Kyrgyzstan as a predominantly grappling-based fighter. Three years ago he was disposing of journeymen in the developmental leagues of Russia’s Absolute Championship Akhmat. Two years ago he was choking out top contenders in South Korea’s Road FC. One year ago he got signed to Rizin. In just six months he choked out a DEEP champion, submitted a Bellator champion and smashed through a K-1 Kickboxing champion with virtually no resistance. He was the favorite against Erbst, but few thought it would be an easy night, with Erbst having been finished only once in his entire career, and even that was an armbar all the way back in 2009 when he was still a rookie. Shaydullaev, as he has been doing for the entirety of his run thus far, destroyed Erbst. He walked through him and flattened him in just barely over a minute. Rizin’s got another gaijin champion, and given how good he’s looked, they may be stuck with him for awhile--or, worse, they might lose him to the UFC sooner than later. With Mikuru Asakura’s victory over Chihiro Suzuki on the same night he’s the logical next contender, but that would just be stupid, so instead it was Shaydullaev making his first defense against Viktor Kolesnik at Rizin 51 on September 28: He knocked Kolesnik out in just thirty-three seconds.
Naoki Inoue - 22-4, 2 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 notched his first defense at Rizin 50 after beating Yuki Motoya--and became the first man to ever defend the Rizin Bantamweight Championship in the process. He notched a second one by beating Ryuya Fukuda at Super Rizin 4 on July 27.
Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs
VACANT - The recurring nightmare of unbeing
Rizin just can’t really catch a break with the Flyweights. Kyoji Horiguchi was one of Rizin’s biggest signings, as one of the best Flyweights in the world, but Rizin didn’t have a Flyweight division so he fought at Bantamweight. This was successful, as was his winning the Bellator Bantamweight Championship during their co-promotion, but back-to-back losses made Kyoji long for Flyweight again. So Bellator and Rizin agreed to co-promote a Flyweight division, and Kyoji met Makoto Shinryu in a Rizin match for the Bellator Flyweight Championship, and it ended in twenty-five seconds with an eyepoke, and by the time the fight was rebooked for the New Year’s Eve special, Bellator had been sold to PFL and its future was clearly in question, so Rizin proceeded with minting their own belt. Horiguchi won it on December 31, 2023, and he didn’t defend it again until exactly one year later on December 31, 2024, and on March 28, 2025, Horiguchi’s long-rumored re-signing with the UFC leaked when he was added to their testing pool and it was officially confirmed by the man himself at Rizin 50. That’s two top champions the UFC has signed away from Rizin in a single year, and that’s one more vacant belt for Rizin to fill--they’re going to run a Flyweight Grand Prix, because you never miss an opportunity for a tournament.
Rizin Women’s Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs
Seika Izawa - 16-0, 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 in their eternal mockery of me, Rizin instead booked her to defend her title against the 3-0 Yu-jin Shin, who fights a weight class and a half up. Shockingly Shin did not make the Atomweight limit, so when Seika beat her easily it was a non-title affair.
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--and they don’t have any other fucking Heavyweights except, like, Kirill Grishenko--unsurprisingly, ONE decided to just book a rematch an entire year later. Kane vs Malykhin 2 is scheduled for ONE 173 on November 16.
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. He’ll try to get the Heavyweight title back at ONE 173 on November 16.
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
Yuya Wakamatsu - 19-6, 0 Defenses
After two years of solitude, ONE’s Flyweight title has a home again, and it is to one of the men most denied it. Yuya Wakamatsu was a Pancrase standout in Japan for years before the rest of the world knew his name, but even there, he couldn’t get over the hump, winning their Flyweight Neo-Blood Tournament in 2016 only to get knocked out by standing champion Senzo Ikeda when he challenged for the title itself. But ONE’s aggressive expansion in the late 2010s brought in a lot of Japanese talent, including both Wakamatsu and Ikeda, and fittingly, both lost their first two fights and were promptly forgotten by most of the audience. But where his nemesis retired in fairly short order, Wakamatsu kept grinding and ultimately built up a five-fight winning streak, which was more than enough to justify a shot at then-champion Adriano Moraes--which he lost. And then he missed weight and got knocked out. And then he won, but missed weight again. ONE was decidedly unhappy with him, but he got his weight cut under control and returned to his winning ways, and when Demetrious Johnson retired and abdicated the belt, ONE needed an answer. On March 23, 2025, Wakamatsu and Moraes had a rematch three years in the making, and this time, Wakamatsu made it count by pounding Moraes out in a single round. After a decade in the sport and three at-bats, Yuya Wakamatsu finally has his championship belt. His first defense? A champion vs champion match against Joshua Pacio at ONE 173 on November 16.
ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs
Joshua Pacio - 23-4, 1 Defense
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 was out for an entire year. On February 20th, 2025, Pacio and Brooks finally fought again and it was weird, but definitive. Jarred Brooks seemingly exhausted himself after a round and Pacio pounded him for the entire second round, which eventually elicited a mercy stoppage from the ref. ONE has only one 125-pound champion again. So he will, of course, challenge for the 135-pound title next. Pacio vs Wakamatsu happens at ONE 173 on November 16 so we have even less MMA to worry about booking.
ONE Women’s Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs
Xiong Jing Nan - 19-2, 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 went back to radio silence. It took half a year for Xiong to get rebooked--and it was a non-title fight against Bo Meng at 115 pounds. Xiong won, and once again, what the hell are we doing.
ONE Women’s Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs
Denice Zamboanga - 12-2, 0 Defenses
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. This was all supposed to end in a unification match with Stamp at ONE 173 on August 1, but in early May, ONE announced that Stamp had reinjured her knee and was going to miss at least the rest of 2025. With the awareness that it would have been close to two and a half years between title fights, Stamp ‘voluntarily relinquished’ her title. This wound up being even more infuriating when ONE failed to rebook Denice for so long that upon finally scheduling her again, they chose ONE 173 on November 16, where Stamp Fairtex, who is now healthy, will be fighting a completely unrelated kickboxing match. Denice will face Ayaka Miura. Rather: Denice was going to face Ayaka Miura, but at the end of August she announced medical issues will prevent her from fighting. So they made an interim title fight for Stamp’s return against a non-#1 contender, and then they stripped Stamp for being unable to compete, and then they didn’t schedule the next championship fight until the card where Stamp was making her return anyway, and now Stamp is healthy and fighting but the Atomweight champion isn’t. Just fucking stop already.
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 - 9-2, 1 Defense
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. Her first at-bat came against Ana Palacios at Invicta FC 61 on April 4, and Ferreira earned a near-shutout on the scorecards.
PFL Middleweight Championship, 185 lbs
Costello van Steenis - 17-3, 0 Defenses
For years, the Professional Fighters League has threatened to crown standing champions. Did they carry through any of their major tournament winners? Nope. Did they bring out their holdout Bellator champions? Not exactly! Did they at least make a big hubbub about finally going through with it? Of course not. Instead, just five days before PFL Champions Series 2, their promotional debut in South Africa, they abruptly announced that Bellator champ Johnny Eblen was suddenly the first-ever PFL Middleweight Champion, and his match with Costello van Steenis was the first-ever defense of the title. Costello, himself, was a Bellator veteran who’d been absorbed in the PFL buyout, but he’d always played second fiddle in the organization, unable to get through the John Salters and Douglas Limas of the world, and thus said world was mostly overlooking him as a challenger. The first three rounds of Eblen gradually grinding him into dust bore out that expectation, but then a funny thing happened: The inexhaustible wrestler got tired. Eblen found himself punched up by van Steenis in the fourth round, and he seemed to be pulling it together again in the fifth, but right before the bell could ring van Steenis managed to take his back and sink in a choke, and with just seven seconds separating him from an almost-certain decision victory, Eblen passed out. Costello van Steenis is the first man to truly hold a standing PFL Championship, and what that means from here is anyone’s guess, given that the PFL still doesn’t seem to have any idea how any of this is going to work.