THE PUNCHSPORT REPORT FOR SEPTEMBER 2025
The biggest MMA news of the year leads into its slowest month.
It's September, the damnedest of months. As tends to happen, the entire sport is slowing down for the Fall and reloading their guns for the October/November rush before we all hibernate for the Winter. No pay-per-views this month! Not a one. Nary a UFC title fight to be found, and that's with the company taking an uncharacteristic week off. We've got three fight nights, a single ONE appearance with barely any MMA on it, and a couple international PFLs with maybe two fighters you've heard of, and somehow, the single biggest event of the month is a really fun-looking Rizin. Enjoy the brief moment to breathe.
THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS
IS THERE ANY NEWS
The world of mixed martial arts has speculated about the post-ESPN future for the UFC, and it's been easy to prognosticate some form of failure. The product's rarely seemed colder, public interest has rarely felt lower, and ESPN's quarterly financial disclosures stated the UFC's pay-per-view buys had reached their lowest point yet. With their ratings falling and their PPV buys collapsing, would the UFC finally be taken down a peg?
Of course not. If you thought you were living in the era of corporate consequences, you were sorely mistaken.
As announced on August 11, the era of pay-per-view is coming to an end. The UFC has sold the next seven years of Fight Nights and numbered events alike to Paramount in a deal worth $1.1 billion a year and $7.7 billion total, which means this single broadcasting contract is worth slightly more than Paramount's entire $7.4 billion market cap. To say that this appears to be overpaying for the UFC would be a 'the Grand Canyon is mildly large'-scale underestimation. The ESPN deal, signed in 2018 when Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov and championship-level Israel Adesanya still existed, was worth $300 million a year, so you, reader, will have to decide for yourself if the UFC is 266% better now.
Alternatively, Paramount throwing themselves fully behind Trump to get their Skydance merger approved could possibly have something to do with Dana White getting an enormous amount of money. I'm sure that's totally out of the question, but coincidentally, I am constantly being kicked in the head by horses.
So, as of January, all of the UFC's live fights will stream through Paramount Plus. They've vowed to maintain the current $13/month subscription cost, which means you can count on it for at least 75% of 2026 and then they're going to start cranking it up on an annual basis like every other streaming service does. It's worth noting that this deal very pointedly does not include The Ultimate Fighter, Road to UFC, Dana White's Contender Series or anything archived or streamed through Fight Pass. Rumors currently have the UFC negotiating a separate deal for those to stay on ESPN, which might also include selling Fight Pass entirely. Does that mean killing all the regional feeder leagues that currently operate in partnership with the UFC and are seen only through Fight Pass?
Who knows! The UFC doesn't care, they just made seven point seven billion fucking dollars.
I really hope this leads to something good. There's no reason it can't! This could easily lead to increased fighter pay, an emphasis on higher-quality cards and better, less sterile production. After all, they just made seven point seven billion fucking dollars. There's no reason everything shouldn't get better!
Except that they already made seven point seven billion fucking dollars.
I hope I am wrong but I think things are on a trajectory to get worse than they have ever been.
WHAT HAPPENED IN AUGUST
We got off to a fast start on the 1st with PFL 8, which was a brisk nine-fight affair and if you aren't the kind of person who knows who Yves Landu is, all you need to know is not a single fighter below the co-main event gets to have their own Wikipedia page. Not that Frederik Dupras choking out Nathan Kelly wasn't fun. But the PFL is here for the tournaments, and the event marked the end of the Featherweight and Welterweight brackets. At 145, odds-on favorite and 2021 champion Movlid Khaybulaev maintained his undefeated record and notched a second tournament title by scoring an arm triangle on Jesus Pinedo in the fifth round of their bout; at 170, Thad Jean's underdog run came to fruition, as he couldn't quite finish Logan Storley, but he did earn a wide decision against him to bring home the crown.
August 2 started with ONE Fight Night 34: Eersel vs Jarvis, which was ONE's most MMA-heavy Fight Night in some time--which is to say half of the card and almost none of the prominent fights. Hilariously, they put in two separate Heavyweight matches--Ryugo Takeuchi knocking out Kang Ji-won and Kirill Grishenko grinding out a decision against Ben Tynan--which means about 60% of their entire Heavyweight division for the year is now spoken for. Elbek Alyshov also choked out Jeremy Pacatiw and Shamil Gasanov managed to shut down supergrappler Garry Tonon. But your actual main event was Regian Eersel defending the ONE Lightweight Muay Thai Championship against George Jarvis, which ended with Eersel knocking him out in a hair under ninety seconds.
But the UFC's long month of multiple replacements began with UFC on ESPN: Taira vs Park that evening. Down on the prelims, Piera Rodriguez notched a decision over Ketlen Souza, Rafael Estevam got his own nod against Felipe Bunes, and Rodolfo Vieira managed a decision over a Tresean Gore who showed up almost five pounds overweight and seemed mostly checked out of the fight itself. Meanwhile, Austin Bashi choked out late replacement John Yannis, Andrey Pulyaev knocked out Nick Klein, and Rinya Nakamura kicked Nathan Fletcher's liver out in about a minute. On your main card, Kevin Vallejos outworked Danny Silva, Neil Magny pounded out Elizeu Zaleski, Karol Rosa outgrappled Nora Cornolle, Estenban Ribovics won a fun brawl with Elves Brener, Chris Duncan managed to outpoint Mateusz Rębecki, and in your main event, Road to UFC winner Park Hyun-sung stepped in on short notice to replace Amir Albazi in a fight that could have propelled him into top five contendership, and instead, Tatsuro Taira more or less effortlessly destroyed him and tapped him out in six minutes.
PFL Africa 2 was next up on August 9, and man, it's hard to gauge the success of international events in the domestic market. I saw a lot of social media buzz around the many super-neat finishes the card produced, which is great, but also not a one of them seemed to get anyone talking about the actual fighters involved, so it's not like Dwight Joseph or Abderrahman Errachidy are drowning in fan support now. It was good, I guess! I hope it helps some fighters catch on, but Patrick Ocheme is not a household name yet.
Later that evening, we got UFC on ESPN: Dolidze vs Hernandez. It, too, was a weirdly thrown-together set of things with a real good main event. Down below: Eric McConico managed a split decision over Cody Brundage, Gabriella Fernandes kicked Julija Stoliarenko around to a unanimous decision, Uroš Medić got dropped by Gilbert Urbina, popped up and knocked him out all in sixty-three seconds, Joselyne Edwards turned out Priscila Cachoeira's lights in two and a half minutes, Elijah Smith terrified the entire viewing public by powerbombing Toshiomi Kazama so hard he had to go to the hospital (he wound up being fine), and Julius Walker got a decision over Rafael Cerqueira that had the commentators talking about how neither man was actually very good. Up top: Christian Leroy Duncan stopped Eryk Anders with a spinning elbow in one round, Jean Matsumoto got a close split over Miles Johns, Andre Fili got his own close split against Christian Rodriguez, Iasmin Lucindo got an in-no-way close decision over Angela Hill, and Steve Erceg got a decision over Ode' Osbourne that he was in real danger of losing before finding his wrestling in the final round. The main event was a much-anticipated Middleweight prospect battle between the unstoppable force of Anthony Hernandez and the perpetually weirdly threatening presence of Roman Dolidze, and, as he has tended to do, Hernandez just fuckin' crushed him. The constant pressure and mixture of attacks was too much, and by the end of the fight the striking differential was 120:39 and Hernandez had made Roman tap by just dragging him across the mat by his neck.
The 15th brought us the penultimate PFL, PFL 9. Your prelim stars included Renat Khavlov' and Chris Mixan both getting decent TKOs and Biaggio Ali Walsh getting a rushed rehab fight after his loss in June, but their headliner saw Juliana Velasquez winning a hard-fought decision over Ekaterina Shakalova as a tournament consolation prize, and the only non-championship main card fight was Robert Watley getting the same with a third-round knockout over Mads Burnell. The Bantamweight tournament came to an end with Marcirley Alves getting an absolute struggle of a decision over an extremely game Justin Wetzell, whose wrestling just wasn't quite enough to overcome the striking advantage. Up at Women's Flyweight, Liz Carmouche went back-and-forth with Jena Bishop for two rounds before knocking her flat in the third, continuing her reign as one of the most underrated Flyweights of all time. And in your main event, Alfie Davis won a real scraper of a decision over Gadzhi Rabadanov to take the upset victory in the Lightweight tourney.
The next day was the day of destiny: UFC 319: du Plessis vs Chimaev. There was one particularly unfortunate weigh-in mishap, as Bryan Battle, who had been forced up to Middleweight after repeatedly missing the Welterweight limit, somehow came in five pounds over the 185-pound Middleweight mark, resulting in his fight being canned and Battle getting cut from the UFC altogether. On your early prelims, Joseph Morales won the TUF 33 (jesus christ) Flyweight tournament after choking out Alibi Idiris, Karine Silva avenged her pre-UFC loss by beating Dione Barbosa, and Drakkar Klose got a close decision against Edson Barboza. On your regular prelims, Alexander Hernandez punched out Chase Hooper in one round, Loopy Godinez flagged in the third round but still got the duke over Jéssica Andrade, Michał Oleksiejczuk beat the stuffing out of Geralt Meerschaert in about three minutes, and Baysangur Susurkaev made a three-day turnaround from winning his DWCS contract by choking out regional Welterweight Eric Nolan fighting up a weight class on short notice, because everything is stupid. On your pay-per-view proper, Tim Elliott choked out Kai Asakura, Michael "Venom" Page got his usual low-event decision over Jared Cannonier, Carlos Prates and Lerone Murphy scored a duology of spinning back elbow knockouts over Geoff Neal and Aaron Pico respectively, and in the main event, Khamzat Chimaev wrestled the crap out of Dricus do Plessis for twenty-five minutes to win the Middleweight title and despite being a total washout people are still mad because he didn't really put him in danger of a finish. What can you do.
On the 21st, the PFL season finally ended with PFL 10, and as tends to go with the PFL, it had to be just a touch weird. The Middleweight, Heavyweight and Light-Heavyweight finals were all scheduled for the card, but the Heavyweight final was set to air on the prelims rather than the televised portion, which, as was pointed out by many, felt disrespectful to a tournament championship. Just days before the event, PFL shuffled the card to fix tghis, and the prelims got Impa Kasanganay knocking out ANdrew Sanchez, Lazaro Dayton punching out Bryce Meredith and Alexei Pergande choking out Ethan Goss instead, and the main card got all three championships. So, of course, the Heavyweight bout between Oleg Popov and Alexander Romanov was just awful, one of those remarkably uneventful bouts that reminds you that Heavyweight is a cursed division, and it ended with a split decision that could have easily coinflipped either way, and Oleg Popov got lucky. The Light Heavyweight bracket ended with Antônio Carlos Júnior, the man they call Shoeface, choking out Sullivan Cauley; the Middleweight main event saw Fabian Edwards steal his brother Leon's finish by headkicking Dalton Rosta to death out of nowhere in the third round.
And we ended the month on the 23rd, early both in that everyone took the last week off and early in that it was UFC Fight Night: Walker vs Zhang live from Shanghai at three in the morning. It was the UFC's big attempt to create new stars in the Chinese market, and, uh, it could've gone better for them. In your prelims, Uran Satybaldiev choked out Diyar Nurgozhay in a couple minutes, Su-young You got a decision over Chinese standout Xiao Long, Yizha destroyed punching bag Westin Wilson, Kyle Daukaus made a shock return by punching out Michel Pereira in less than a minute, Rongzhu got a decision over Austin Hubbard, Charles Johnson upset plans by not just beating but knocking out superprospect Lone'er Kavanagh, and Gauge Young managed to drag Maheshate to a decision. The main card got off to a weird start, as Taiyilake Nueraji knocked out Kiefer Crosbie, but only after landing an incredibly illegal downed knee that got him docked two points and probably should've led to a disqualification. Sumudaerji did a better job getting a decision over Kevin Borjas, and Sergei Pavlovich thoroughly outclassed Waldo Cortes-Acosta to a decision. The co-main probably shouldn't have happened. Aljamain Sterling was scheduled to face Brian Ortega at Featherweight, but prior to weigh-ins, Ortega came nowhere close to making weight and reportedly fainted and had to be taken away by an ambulance. Somehow, the fight went on at a 153-pound catchweight. Aljamain dominated an Ortega who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world, and I don't know what anyone expected. But the UFC mostly just cared about the main event as their coronation for their biggest male star from China, Zhang Mingyang, as he was scheduled to beat sacrificial lamb Johnny Walker, who was an enormous underdog. Johnny proceeded to kick his legs to pieces and win a brutal TKO in just a round and a half. Fuck your plans.
WHAT'S COMING IN SEPTEMBER
We get to a start on the 6th with ONE Fight Night 35: Buntan vs Hemetsberger. You know, I started an essay project to review all of Star Trek, and I tore myself away from it to write this paragraph instead. There are only two MMA fights on this card, and they're Akbar Abdullaev vs Ibragim Dauev and Adrian Lee vs Tye Ruotolo. That's it. ONE is among the five biggest MMA organizations on the planet and they're promoting two MMA fights in the next thirty days. But Jackie Buntan is going to fight for the vacant One Women's Strawweight Muay Thai Championship against Stella Hemetsberger, and I have friends who are excited for that, and I wish I could feel their joy.
Luckily we have the UFC, for which my joy is clearly overflowing. It's also on the 6th, it's a continuation of the world tour only now they're in Paris, and it's UFC Fight Night: Imavov vs Borralho. There are currently fourteen fights scheduled, so we'll see how many of those survived, but for now your prelims include Shauna Bannon vs Sam Hughes, Andreas Gustafsson vs Rinat Fakhretdinov, Brad Tavares vs Robert Bryczek, Sam Patterson vs Trey Waters, Rhys McKee vs Axel Sola, Oumar Sy vs Brendson Ribeiro, William Gomis vs Robert Ruchała, and Ante Delija making his UFC debut against Marcin Tybura. On your main card, Patrício Pitbull meets the debuting Losene Keita, Farès Ziam battles Kauê Fernandes, Modestas Bukauskas and Paul Craig see who can perform weirder, Bolaji Oki and Mason Jones somehow make it onto a main card, Benoît Saint Denis and Maurício Ruffy try to not make France unhappy, and in your main event, Nassourdine Imavov fights Caio Borralho in what could easily be a title eliminator.
On the 13th, it's time for Noche UFC 3: Lopes vs Silva. Once again, the UFC is trying to appeal to the Mexican audience to gain their fealty. On the plus side, it's not in Vegas this time! On the minus side it's San Antonio, Texas. This card is still being finalized, but as of now you can expect the return of Claudio Puelles against Joaquim Silva, Kelvin Gastelum vs Dustin Stoltzfus, the belated TUF 33 (jesus christ) Welterweight final between Rodrigo Sezinando and Daniil Donchenko, Tatiana Suarez vs Amanda Lemos (which is currently scheduled for the prelims and if that sticks, I swear to god), Rafa Garcia vs Jared Gordon, José Daniel Medina vs Duško Todorović, Rob Font vs Raul Rosas Jr. and, in your main event, Diego Lopes vs Jean Silva.
On the 26th and 27th, there's a PFL doubleheader. The first is PFL Europe 3, which is also currently an unfinished card and primarily features Lightweight and Bantamweight tournament semifinals and otherwise it's just one fight between Abdoul Abdouraguimov and Kevin Jousset, and second up will be PFL MENA 3, rescheduled from the 19th and now featuring a bunch of fights and an uncertain airing schedule and a main event between people you haven't heard of. Yannis Ghemmouri's gonna be there! You might remember him as the guy Payton Talbott knocked out in nineteen seconds. That should be fun.
Our very weird month ends its UFC run with UFC Fight Night: Ulberg vs Reyes on the 28th. We're in Perth this time, we currently have fifteen scheduled bouts on this card, and I'm not gonna make you look at all of them right here, but suffice to say you can look forward to a night featuring both Tafa brothers. That's a two-for-one special on Tafas, and you just can't beat that. I, personally, am here for Jamie Mullarkey vs Rolando Bedoya and Loma Lookboonmee vs Alexia Thainara, but Jake Matthews vs Neil Magny doesn't sound too bad, and Navajo Stirling vs Rodolfo Bellato should be very funny. Your main event could be crushingly depressing, as Carlos Ulberg will face Dominick Reyes, and that, somehow, could also be a title eliminator.
But the month ends on Rizin, as it damn well should. Rizin 51 is a big-ass card, the kind with a four-fight youtube prelim section before an eleven-fight main, but there's a lot of fun-looking stuff on it. Hiraoki Suzuki vs Yuele Huang is neat, Genji Umeno vs Ryusei Ashizawa is the kind of silliness that happens when kickboxers decide to fight in MMA for some reason, Danny Sabatello is continuing his attempt to become a gaijin hero by fighting Shoko Sato, and there's a championship triple-header--sort of. Rizin's big 2025 Heavyweight Grand Prix has fallen a touch flat in terms of fan fun value, but it's still found its way to conclusion, as Marek Samociuk and Alexander Soldatkin will fight to see who gets the honor of facing Ryan Bader on NYE to be the first-ever Rizin Heavyweight Champion. In your co-main, Razhabali Shaydullaev is defending Rizin's Featherweight title against Viktor Kolesnik, and up in your main, Roberto de Souza looks to continue his pseudo-dominant run as the only Lightweight champion Rizin has ever known by facing Yoshinori Horie.
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 bonepit of all that will be
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 - 19-3, 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. 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'll finally go for his fifth title defense against Yoshinori Horie at Rizin 51 on September 28.
Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs
Razhabali Shaydullaev - 13-0, 0 Defenses
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'll be Shaydullaev making his first defense against Viktor Kolesnik at Rizin 51 on September 28.
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.