SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 FROM THE GOLDEN 1 CENTER IN SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM

It’s Sunday and this card still isn’t finalized. I am, once again, relying on the wisdom of Marcel Dorff to guide how this card is set up, because the company can’t be bothered to clarify what’s a prelim, what’s a main and who actually gets the co-main slot. But I hope this is correct, half because I don’t want to have to redo it, and half because co-main event Vitor Petrino would be fucking hilarious.

MAIN EVENT: MUSICAL CHAIRS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Anthony Hernandez (15-3 (1), #6) vs Gregory Rodrigues (19-6, #11)

This is a real darkest-timeline kind of main event.

We came so close to the Anthony Hernandez dimension. An eight-fight winning streak in a division as tumultuous and stupid as Middleweight is a hell of an achievement, especially one that included knocking out kickboxers, choking out jiu-jitsu world champions and finishing the previously unfinishable. His getting a title eliminator made sense. His being a favorite against former and future champion Sean Strickland made sense. Everyone saw it.

I wholly include myself in this instance of Everyone. I was on the goddamn train, man. I knew he was sloppy, I knew his defense was a bit on the porous side, but he was so tough, so aggressive and so well-conditioned that everyone who’d tried to take advantage of it had found themselves broken down and exhausted within minutes. His ability to walk his opponents down and punch the fight out of them was best-in-class. Did I think he’d have an easy time against Strickland? Absolutely not. Did I think he’d win? Sure! I watched Hernandez walk through heavier strikers, I fully believed he was capable of dragging Strickland through Hell and maybe tapping him out at the end of the bout.

One of the greatest sources of agony and ecstasy in mixed martial arts is the thin, thin margin that separates success and failure. There are just whispers of space between an awful lot of wins and losses. Uriah Hall can knock out Gegard Mousasi with the most Ong Bak shit you’ve seen in your life on Monday and Mousasi can dust him in one round by Friday. Matt Serra dropped Georges St-Pierre and got his ribs turned to powder in the rematch. We just saw Islam Makhachev, arguably the best mixed martial artist on the planet, win a fight with Ian Machado Garry that, in the eyes of one judge, turned entirely on the basis of one takedown. Part of the excitement of the sport, and part of why promoters roll the dice on prospects so often, is just how unpredictable fights can be.

Hernandez/Strickland was not one of those fights.

Sean Strickland is not traditionally a demolisher. He’s a point fighter. He jabs, he teeps, he throws one-twos and he keeps himself defensively sound. It’s where his success comes from. Which is why it was so disarming when he demolished Hernandez. Outlanded him 2:1, laughed off his attempts at grappling, busted his ribs with knees and finished him in two and a half rounds. It was the kind of fight you could have rerun one hundred times without getting a different result.

It was dark. It was depressing. It damned us to the timeline where Sean Strickland is a world champion again and Anthony Hernandez is fighting Robocop in a desperate attempt to stay in the top ten.

Which is really fucking funny. And I love Gregory Rodrigues! We’ve spent many paragraphs here together discussing my deep-seated appreciation for him and his many foibles. His deep well of judo skill he typically ignores in favor of bludgeoning people. His forward-pressure style that continues even when there’s a hole in his face big enough for an artery to slip out. His inexplicable use of “Robocop” as a nickname when it really seems like he meant “Terminator” but now it’s decades later and it’s too late to look back.

He’s fun! He’s fine! He’s never not a good time!

He also got knocked the fuck out by Jared Cannonier in the very recent past.

To be clear on this point: Jared, who turns 43 in March, only has one win in the last five fights and three and a half years of his life. It’s Robocop. Everyone else has made Jared look various shades of confused, old, or only partially conscious. The UFC tried to feed their oldest, most vulnerable top-ten-ranked Middleweight to their big brawling marketing machine and it failed. So how’d Gregocop get back here?

Well,

• He knocked out Jack Hermansson, who hadn’t had back to back wins since 2019 and was coming off a year and a half on the shelf

• He got a decision over Roman Kopylov, the man responsible for letting Paulo Costa back into the world, and who had once been choked out by, oh, Anthony Hernandez

• He knocked out Brunno Ferreira, a man one fight divorced from beating no less than Jackson McVey himself

And now it’s back to the top ten. Bo Nickal? Ikram Aliskerov? Never heard of ‘em. What’s that? Reinier de Ridder, a more logical step up, is fighting on this very card?

Fuck that. Put the striker in the top fucking ten.

I don’t think this is a great fight. Rodrigues is a very straightforward fighter who succeeds through power and looks visibly drained whenever a fight makes it past a second round; Hernandez is a cardio machine who takes people apart if they can’t stop him from chipping away at them. If Robocop can smash him with big bazooka punches then this will all look very silly, but it’s difficult to imagine this fight not being some permutation of Hernandez exhausting and battering an increasingly immobile Rodrigues. ANTHONY HERNANDEZ BY TKO.

CO-MAIN EVENT: A TOP TEN BOUT AT THE HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION
HEAVYWEIGHT: Serghei Spivac (18-6, #6) vs Vitor Petrino (14-2, NR)

Serghei Spivac versus Vitor Petrino for the number six spot in the Heavyweight division. Serghei Spivac is fighting Vitor Petrino, and at stake is the title of sixth-best Heavyweight in the world.

Serghei Spivac, who just lost a decision to Waldo Cortes-Acosta and got run through by Jailton Almeida, will compete in a mixed martial arts bout against Vitor Petrino, who dropped consecutive stoppage losses to Anthony Smith and Dustin Jacoby an entire weight class down from here less than two years ago, to be five men away from the Heavyweight Championship.

Serghei “The Polar Bear” Spivac, a man whose career best victory after twelve years of competition as a professional cage fighter is either Ante Delija, post-crisis Derrick Lewis, or domestic violence enthusiast Greg Hardy, will battle, on camera, for money, against Vitor Petrino, whose entire all-time Heavyweight record consists of wins over Thomas Petersen, who has a losing record with the company, Steven Asplund, who just barely scraped his way to 2-1 a couple weeks ago, and former NFL player Austen Lane, who got cut from the company after going 1-5 (1), to determine which man deserves to be ranked as the #6 Heavyweight on the planet Earth.

If you’re wondering why the UFC is going all-in on Josh Hokit: This is why. This is where we’re at. This is how far we have fallen.

You know what’s funny? In the blitz of fight announcements they made over the last week, one that flew under the radar was Alexander Volkov vs Rizvan Kuniev. Volkov went on a four-fight winning streak that included former titlist Sergei Pavlovich, and then he got screwed out of a decision against Ciryl Gane that the UFC swore they’d make up to him, and instead of a make-up fight they booked Volkov down the ladder against Jailton Almeida, and after he won that they booked him down the ladder again, this time with the aforementioned Waldo Cortes-Acosta, and now that Volkov’s won that, they’re booking him even further down the ladder against Kuniev, who is ranked #8.

To be clear: Alexander Volkov, the top contender in the Heavyweight division, is fighting over a worse position in the rankings than Vitor Petrino, the currently unranked man whose best victory is Thomas Petersen.

I don’t know who’s going to win this fight because none of it means anything. Sometimes Vitor is a wrecking machine and sometimes he charges headfirst into a grappler’s armpit. Sometimes Serghei remembers he’s a wrestler and sometimes he throws bad haymakers. We can call it SERGHEI SPIVAC BY SUBMISSION, but that’s not the point. The point is that sometimes to grow as a human being, to acknowledge your mistakes, shed your skin and become the person you feel like you could be when you’re in the shower in the morning, you have to burn the Heavyweight division to the ground, put its ashes in a box, bury that box in a field, and wait twenty years for it to blossom into a brand new Heavyweight division that isn’t terrible.

MAIN CARD: UNANNOUNCED AS OF A WEEK BEFOREHAND
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Reinier de Ridder (21-4, #9) vs Roman Dolidze (15-5, #15)

We touched on the failing fortunes of prominent Middleweights in the main event, but by gosh, no one has fallen so far as Reinier de Ridder. In 2022, RDR was the double-champion kingpin of ONE Championship: By 2024, he had been knocked out twice in a row (by the same guy!) and was fighting in the UAE to wait out his contract. By mid-2025, Reinier was 4-0 in the UFC, had derailed superprospect Bo Nickal and outlasted former champion Robert Whittaker, and was being theorized by many to be a solid counter to then-unbeatable top dog Khamzat Chimaev. Reinier was big, a great grappler and an extremely hard out, which made him a good matchup for Chimaev’s slightly gassy wrestling--as long as you weren’t already familiar with RDR’s career. If you’d followed him in ONE, you knew the fall was coming. Reinier was supposed to fight Anthony Hernandez, injuries led to Brendan Allen stepping in on short notice, and after one and a half solid rounds RDR’s year of hyperactivity caught up with him and he fell apart. Allen dismantled him on the ground, RDR threw in the towel between rounds, half a year later RDR was put opposite Caio Borralho and lost a close but clear fight, and just as quickly as he rose, Reinier de Ridder fell to Earth.

Except he’s also climbing? If you fall out of Middleweight so hard you end up in the Light Heavyweight division, did you fall upwards or simply collapse the ground and wind up in Hell? RDR (correctly) thinks 205 will be better for his body, and the UFC is trying to make that jump just a bit gentler on him by setting him up against Roman Dolidze, a man without a weight class. Everyone in the UFC got to know Roman for his Middleweight success, but he actually debuted in the company at 205 before dropping down in the hopes that his terrifying beef jerky muscles and weirdly effective offensive grappling would work better against smaller men. And it did! Kind of. Sometimes. For every real-life STF he pulled off on a Jack Hermansson, Roman got battered about by a Marvin Vettori. When it became clear he wasn’t getting to title contention anytime soon, Roman took a replacement-for-a-replacement-for-a-replacement berth against Anthony Smith at Light Heavyweight, and through winning he opened the doors to brand new opportunities! Which is fortunate, because he lost his last two fights at 185 in a row and he could really use a win.

He probably won’t get it. Roman succeeds by virtue of outlasting, out-toughing and out-grappling his opponents, but RDR’s ganglier, grapplier and--hopefully!--will have his body sorted without having to cut an extra twenty pounds. REINIER DE RIDDER BY DECISION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: MarQuel Mederos (11-1-1) vs Mason Jones (18-2 (1))

One fight ago, MarQuel Mederos lost to Chris “Taco” Padilla. It wasn’t the world’s most eventful bout, and Padilla got some scorn for missing weight, but it was clear and obvious enough that 100% of media scorecards had Padilla taking the decision, and that was without even taking into consideration that Mederos lost a point for gouging Padilla’s eye. This being mixed martial arts, this was, of course, meaningless. Two out of three judges scored it 28-28--meaning Mederos would have won a split decision, were it not for the deduction--and now Mederos is here on the main card, fighting Mason Jones, and Padilla’s down on the prelims where the UFC knows half as many people, at best, will be paying attention.

Which is fine for the UFC’s purposes, as Mederos is mostly here to, optimistically, lose. Mason Jones is a guy the UFC’s wanted to be a thing for awhile, now, as a prominent fighter from the UK, but the first time he was in the company they made the mistake of matching him up against a bunch of difficult motherfuckers. Mike Davis? Difficult. Ľudovít Klein? Super difficult! So when they brought Mason back last year they decided to go as far down the difficulty curve as it is humanly possible to travel, and had him fighting 2025-era Jeremy fucking Stephens. After Jones, shockingly, won that fight? The embattled Bolaji Oki. It’s only now that Jones is on a winning streak that they’re comfortable giving him guys like Axel Sola and Marquel Mederos.

But make no mistake, Mederos is here to put Jones over. MASON JONES BY DECISION.

WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT: Carli Judice (6-2) vs Jeisla Chaves (7-0)

Today, I am an enormous hypocrite. I have devoted so many paragraphs to complaining about how few opportunities women get to shine on the main card in the UFC. I had a whole research project about it last week numerically demonstrating how far removed women have become from the spotlight. I kvetch constantly about the lengths the matchmakers go to bury their female talent. And when I saw this fight on Marcel Dorff’s listing for the main card, my immediate response was “Really?”

Carli Judice is...okay? She’s okay! She can hit pretty hard when she lands cleanly and she has some solid counter-grappling. She is also six fights deep into her UFC tenure and this is the first time she will fight someone with a winning record in the company, except that someone is Jeisla Chaves and that record is 1-0. And said victory was a split decision over Yuneisy Duben, one of the precious few female fighters I have ever been willing to simply say did not belong here, as a fighter who made it to the Contender Series despite never fighting anyone with a single professional fight to their credit. Yuneisy still got into the UFC, and made her debut in 2025--against Carli Judice, who knocked her out in a single round.

Jeisla, to her credit, can say that unlike Yuneisy, she fought multiple women with past professional records on her way to DWCS. She cannot say any of those women had ever won a fight. Jeisla’s only fights against people with any wins, ever, have come under the UFC’s promotional auspices, and both times she scraped by with split decisions despite both women being, objectively, not very good at this.

And that’s why this is on the main card. Carli knocked a woman out once and the literal only way the UFC can market anyone anymore is with either outright bigotry or knockout clips, so they’re hoping Carli puts an shin upside Jeisla’s head and says something shitty about some random nationality. Luana Santos vs Karol Rosa was on the Apex prelims, but by god, there’s a chance this might get a knockout. CARLI JUDICE BY DECISION. Sorry.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Anthony Wint (7-0) vs Terrance Chatman (5-1)

or

HEAVYWEIGHT: Kennedy Nzechukwu (14-6-1) vs Shamil Gaziev (14-3)

So: As of this writing, it’s 2:26 AM on Tuesday, which means that a) My sleep schedule is terrible and b) There’s only three days before fight day. This card still isn’t finalized. According to the UFC’s unfinished event listing, Kennedy vs Shamil is the last main card bout. According to the schedule the UFC gave to ESPN--and Marcel’s report--it’s Wint vs Chatman. Instead of waiting to see how long it takes for the UFC to fix its shit, we’re going to talk about both of them in a brief discussion I’m naming Heavyweight Is Delivered To Us From The Eighth Circle of Hell.

One side of this equation is either Kennedy Nzechuwku or Anthony Wint. Kennedy is 8-6-1 in the UFC, having washed out of Light Heavyweight twice. Not only did he lose repeatedly, he was losing to dudes like Nicolae Negumereanu, who would be retired one year later, and Ovince St. Preux, who, uh, also retired one year later. But that’s okay, because Kennedy’s 2-0-1 at Heavyweight! His wins were Chris Barnett, who got cut one year later, and Łukasz Brzeski, who got cut one year later, and the last time we saw Kennedy he had a worst-of-the-year tier fight with Marcus Buchecha, who has yet to win a fight and generally just looks terrible, and Kennedy still only got a Draw out of it. Anthony Wint is a 5’11” Heavyweight. He’s never fought a legitimately successful fighter in his life. But he has multiple 30-second knockouts! He got them by running forward winging haymakers because up to about the top thirty at Heavyweight you can just do that, and if you’re sufficiently athletic, it has a good chance of working. Also, he just won his DWCS contract on the 11th, so this is his second fight in two weeks, because why not.

Your b-side choice here is either Shamil Gaziev or Terrance Chatman. Shamil was ranked! briefly. He got there by knocking out Martin Buday, which was nice, but he also got the stuffing beaten out of him by Jairzinho Rozenstruik and then the UFC released Rozenstruik and tried to pretend none of it ever happened and it didn’t matter because Gaziev was about to miss almost an entire year and then get knocked out in back-to-back fights because ‘being dense’ and ‘throwing punches’ eventually hits a wall when it comes to defining traits as a fighter. Terrance Chatman is 5-1 and he’s never beaten a fighter with a winning record. He got here by beating the 8-17 Juan “El Martillo” Torres. In fact: If your memory is good, you may remember a guy I’ve mentioned a couple times now, Myron “Lightskin Dynamite” Dennis. He’s a 22-14 journeyman and he’s been there to help a number of not-great fighters punch their tickets to the UFC. No less than Tuco Tokkos and Julius “Juice Box” Walker themselves stopped Myron. It’s a rite of passage for joining the big leagues. Myron beat Chatman. Terrance Chatman is demonstrably worse at this than Tuco Tokkos.

And yet he is here. They’re both here. Everyone is here, because Heavyweight needs as many fucking bodies as it can get as long as they’re cheap. If you’re Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and you’ve been around for a decade and you’re not going to win the title but you’re clearly too good to trust with prospect elevation duty, then fuck you, it doesn’t matter that you’re one of the fifteen best Heavyweights on the planet, we can replace you with someone who can’t beat Myron Dennis for $12k.

KENNEDY NZECHUKWU BY TKO and/or ANTHONY WINT BY TKO and I think both fights are going to be bad.

PRELIMS: WE’RE JUST...DOING THIS
FEATHERWEIGHT: Jamall Emmers (22-8) vs Lerryan Douglas (14-5)

I want to be angry on behalf of Jamall Emmers, because he’s on a winning streak for the first time in six and a half years after getting boned pretty badly by the judges and he probably deserves better, but this fight is, in total fairness, rad as hell. When Lerryan Douglas made his debut this year I wasn’t as sold on his prospects as a lot of other folks. His offense looked good, but it looked good the way offense does when it’s been trained on years of opponents incapable of defending it. For all we know, that might still be accurate! But his debut came against Julian Erosa, so it didn’t matter, because Lerryan smashed him in three and a half minutes. Jamall’s always had solid striking and real power, but he’s just as capable of being knocked out, as Nate Landwehr proved.

End of the day, even if he didn’t get my initial endorsement, LERRYAN DOUGLAS BY TKO is the call nowadays.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Chris Padilla (17-6-1) vs Nasrat Haqparast (18-6)

If Jamall Emmers probably deserves better, Chris Padilla and Nasrat Haqparast definitely deserve better. The UFC likes to have their commentators flog the idea that signing up for short-notice bouts is a great way to gain yourself an opportunity in the UFC, but not all opportunities are created equal, and the man they call Taco knows this better than most. Padilla jumped into the UFC on short notice against James Llontop, choked him out as a huge underdog, and is undefeated across 5 bouts--including his last one, which, as we mentioned, was an absolute robbery of a draw against MarQuel Mederos--and all that gets him is stuck on the prelims. Up until this past October, Nasrat Haqparast was on a five-fight winning streak that included two performance bonuses, one for dusting Jamie Mullarkey in two minutes, the other for a fight-of-the-night win over Esteban Ribovics. Funnily enough, both men proceeded to fight top lightweights after that. Esteban got a shot at Mateusz Gamrot; Nasrat tested Quillan Salkilld. Both of them got crushed. Esteban, after his crushing, was given a main card slot against a retiring Edson Barboza under a card with two title fights and some of the UFC’s biggest names. Nasrat is on the prelims of a card main evented by Robocop.

Do not forget that everything is marketing. CHRIS PADILLA BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Márcio Barbosa (18-2) vs Ryan Kuse (9-2)

Some days, I don’t feel like I need to say very much. Four months ago, when Márcio Barbosa made his UFC debut, I noted my personal fandom for him based on his strict policy of throwing angry Wanderlei Silva hooks all the time while still somehow being a capable all-arounder. I said he would stomp Dennis Buzukja and he did, taking him out in all of eighty seconds. Ryan Kuse is a sanitation worker who trains with Asim “President Awesome” Zaidi, the head of Karate Combat, and he got the call up to the UFC for beating the 7-9 Leandro Camargo. Do you remember Cameron Smotherman? The guy who lost three straight in the UFC and had a weight cut go so badly that he passed out in mid-stride and faceplanted seconds after leaving the scale, which the UFC denied had anything to do with weight-cutting?

He beat Kuse. MÁRCIO BARBOSA BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Gauge Young (11-3) vs Stan Dorsainvil (5-0)

This is the game, right here. It may sound silly, but genuinely: This fight is why things are bad right now. Gauge Young joined the UFC in 2025 as a short-notice replacement fighter against Evan Elder. Elder beat him, which put Elder on a three-fight winning streak. He got scratched from a September fight with a leg injury, recovered, and has yet to be booked again. In that time, Gauge, himself, ran up back to back wins. The first was against Maheshate, their once-upon-a-time big Chinese marketing prospect, and the second came against Thiago Moisés, an eight-year, sixteen-fight veteran of the company who’d shared the cage with everyone from Islam Makhachev to Jared Gordon. So they tried to book him against Kody Steele, a 1-1 fighter, whose only victory was against Road to UFC winner Dom Mar Fan, who hadn’t had a real, official UFC bout yet, and when Kody couldn’t make it, they replaced him with short-notice debutant Stan “The Drill” Dorsainvil, who has five professional fights, ever, all of which were against fellow people who haven’t really fought anybody.

Is Stan a good prospect? I don’t know, and anyone who says they do is lying to you. He can wrestle and he can hit pretty hard and he has yet to fight anyone who could really stop him from doing either of those things, because he has five professional fights. It doesn’t actually matter if Stan is good, just like it didn’t matter if Gauge was good. The point of the UFC is no longer to figure out who’s good, bad or even the best, but to use the athletic equivalent of seat filler to maintain a steady flow of Content until marketing figures out who they like this year. Upward momentum is granted, not earned, and the best you can do is spurn strategy and hope for viral moments, and the fact that meta-gaming the concept of winning fights is now a necessary tool for advancement in the sport is the most damning condemnation of its not-a-sport status as any I can think of. GAUGE YOUNG BY DECISION.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Wes Schultz (9-3) vs Jackson McVey (7-2)

I didn’t intentionally line things up so that rant would lead right into Wes Schultz vs Jackson McVey but it’s painfully appropriate. Wes Schultz got knocked silly by Damian Pinas and booked to fight again two months later because fighter safety is dead and buried, but his opponent was an Australian accustomed to fighting guys who aren’t very good, so Schultz tapped him out. Jackson McVey is another in the growing army of fighters that made it to the UFC despite having only ever competed against one person with a winning record, he proceeded to lose repeatedly, and then he rescued his career by choking out Sedriques Dumas. That loss made four straight winless bouts for Dumas, but don’t worry: The UFC re-signed him and we’ll be talking about him next month because everything is terrible.

Including this. Including everything about this. JACKSON MCVEY BY SUBMISSION.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Shanelle Dyer (7-1) vs Elise Reed (8-5)

Elise, I’m sorry, but we are long past the point where they see you as a utility player. Everyone you’ve beaten in the UFC was marked as not long for the world of mainstream sports; everyone who’s beaten you has gone on to better things. You are a gatekeeper for Women’s Strawweight, but the gate you are keeping is the one for general entry to the park. Shanelle Dyer was supposed to take the MMA world by storm after she went viral for headkicking poor Mariam Torchinava to back in 2024, but as it turns out, the PFL can only really take you so far, which is why they’re now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Whatever The Fuck Jake Paul Wants To Do. Shanelle got her DWCS shot, lost, and got signed anyway, and they dutifully had her destroy Ravena Oliveira, who is one of the worst fighters to ever get multiple shots in the company.

Shanelle’s bigger, younger, more athletic and more marketing-friendly than Elise, and more than any of that Elise, while very tough, is also kind of slow. SHANELLE DYER BY TKO.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 FROM THE XFINITY MOBILE ARENA IN PHILADELPHIA
EARLY PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | PRELIMS 4 PM / 7 PM | MAIN CARD 6 PM / 9 PM

There’s been a lot of rumbling about this card being kind of bad, and having templated it all out: Yeah, pretty much. It’s not great. But it’s in the tradition of how the UFC tended to book these cards. When they knew they had a strong headline up at the top of the card, they did not give a dang about anything else. Every MMA fan from the mid-2000s remembers GSP armbarring Matt Hughes and Chuck Liddell winning his long-awaited showdown with Wanderlei Silva: No one remembers the fight just before that was Eddie Sanchez vs Soa Palelei.

Here’s the thing, though. Underneath that fight, you had Lyoto Machida, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Rich Clementi (remember when he was almost a thing?) and Luiz Cané. The cards coasted on the value of their headliners, but they were constructed to impart that value to lesser-known but extremely serious prospects.

This card is trying to impart its value to Jose Ochoa (EDIT: not anymore!), Mansur Abdul-Malik, and Esteban Ribovics.

But we’ve got two title fights to get through first, and only one and a half of them bum me the fuck out, so it could be worse.

MAIN EVENT: FEMINISM, VOL. ONE
WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Islam Makhachev (28-1, Champion) vs Ian Machado Garry (17-1, #1)

The things that get you scorned in mixed martial arts in 2026 are outright hilarious.

Up until 2024, Ian Garry was the universally-acclaimed face of the future. He was exclusively attached to pay-per-views and the extremely rare network television broadcast, he was given a healthy diet of reasonable-but-not-insurmountable challenges on his way up the ladder, he was compared to Conor McGregor as many times as the UFC possibly could thanks to the many likenesses between them, up to and including Being Irish, and the internet liked him. He was young, he was talented, he was the next big thing.

At the end of 2024, Ian Garry lost a fight for the first time in his career. This is the jumping-off point for most fighter bandwagons, really. Fighters turning out to be mortal depresses fanbases, and if you doubt it, look at how Khamzat Chimaev fell from the scariest man in the sport to an afterthought thanks to a single coinflip split decision going against him. Sure, Ian lost against one of the best of the best in Shavkat Rakhmonov, but it was still a loss, and at the end of the day, losing kills your fanbase li--

Oh, I’m sorry. I am being informed that what pissed off Ian’s fanbase was the discovery that he loves his wife.

He wasn’t Ian Machado Garry when he got started in the UFC. Machado was his wife’s maiden name, and he adopted it because he wanted her son from her first marriage to not feel disconnected from their family. This baffled people. Changing names is what girls do, and fighters are supposed to be ultra-masculine, and within months you had multiple fighters, particularly perennial poop elemental Sean Strickland, cracking on Garry with the best jokes about cuckolding, homosexuality and emasculation 1996 had to offer.

In the press leading up to this fight, in one of the seemingly endless arrays of podcast interviews every fighter is now obligated to do, Ian made a comment about how the almost universally male leadership of the world has really fucked everything up, and if we turned leadership over to women for a change things would probably be a lot smoother. This has turned the majority of the discourse around this fight into the worst commentary on gender politics you have ever heard in your entire fucking life, and it leaves me fascinated by where we are right now in the moral arc of mixed martial arts.

Islam Makhachev, who generally does not give a shit about press, took time out of his schedule to talk shit about Ian’s feminism. Islam periodically trains with and is a close friend of Umar Nurmagomedov, who’s about two months removed from engaging in public denial of the Holocaust; that did not require any comment. We’re only a couple years removed from human dryer chute Strickland sitting at a press dais next to Mayra Bueno Silva and Raquel Pennington and using the UFC’s on-screen press time to discuss women’s MMA being worthless, and that barely got a peep. Adjudicated sex offenders are all over the UFC’s roster and the company just took a $30 million bath so it could get a four-hour photo-op with Donald Trump’s White House, but Ian Machado Garry is a vegan who thinks women are good, and it turns out that’s what it actually takes to get the UFC fanbase to hate you now.

It’s also just incredibly weird that this feels like it’s the only fucking thing to talk about when it comes to the story of this fight.

Like, the UFC just plain gave up. You have Islam Makhachev, possibly the greatest mixed martial artist on the planet, against Ian Machado Garry, his top contender and one of the most accomplished Welterweights in the world, and the UFC ran promo packages for it during last week’s fight night that were essentially just file footage of the Conor McGregor vs Khabib Nurmagomedov advertisements but with Islam and Ian added in. That’s what they’ve got. The best fighter of a generation against a huge threat to his legacy, 29 UFC bouts between them, and marketing dug deep into its Mind Palace and came up with “What if we just say it’s like Khabib vs Conor 2?” because they know fully well that they’ve done such a shit job of promoting these men that Islam, a two-division champion with victories over the champions of three weight classes, is simultaneously one of the biggest draws they have and still a drop in the bucket of mainstream awareness compared to fooling people into thinking this fight has fuck-all to do with Conor McGregor.

Which is a shame, because aside from how goddamn hard it is to grapple Ian effectively, aside from how mobile Ian is and how much of a size and range advantage he has, this fight is deeply intriguing because it represents something Islam’s legacy really needs: After four years of holding gold, it’s the first time Islam will ever get to defend a title against a top contender.

After he beat Charles Oliveira for the belt back in 2022, his first defense wasn’t a rematch or a bout against Dustin Poirier or Justin Gaethje, but a cross-weight class challenge against Featherweight king Alexander Volkanovski. After winning, Islam was supposed to fight still-#1 Oliveira, but a gash in training scratched him from the fight, and instead, we got an incredibly unnecessary, short-notice Volkanovski rematch. By mid-2024 Arman Tsarukyan was the top contender and Gaethje had knocked out Poirier, but the UFC didn’t like either of those ideas, so they booked Islam against Poirier instead, who had fallen halfway down the ladder. Islam was booked against Arman to kick off 2025, but that went squirrelly the night before the pay-per-view and Islam wound up destroying the #10-ranked Renato Moicano instead.

None of this is Islam’s fault. He didn’t bust Oliveira’s eyebrow, he didn’t make the UFC give him Poirier, he didn’t make Arman fuck up his weight cut. Islam’s done everything he can, given the cards dealt to him by fate and the matchmakers that, even as we speak, are conducting arcane rituals below the surface of the Earth to figure out how to get Paddy Pimblett back into title contention. But there’s a thing about success: The more of it you have, the more scrutiny your legacy starts to receive. Anderson Silva is still the man most people think of as the ideal champion, and he’s still held to task for fucking around too much in multiple title fights. Jon Jones is indisputably the most accomplished Light Heavyweight in MMA history, but between all his drug busts, his close scrape with Dominick Reyes and his refusal to take a rematch, his record is as much controversy as content. Fedor Emelianenko, still held by many as the best Heavyweight to ever do it, only actually defended his title three times in fourteen fights, and spent more of his prime battling professional wrestlers and engaging in freakshow fights than he did taking on top contenders.

When you’re the best in the world, every single choice you make matters. People are going to dissect your career for decades to come. When your definitive victories are last-minute replacements and Moicanos, you need every Ian Machado Garry you can get, no matter how good you are.

But Islam is very, very good. Everyone expected him to outwrestle Jack Della Maddalena; very few expected Islam to outstrike him, too. Jack’s legs had been kicked apart before the fight was halfway through. Islam learned a lot of lessons from Khabib, but I’m not sure any were as valuable as the awareness that having no fear of the grappling game means being able to really commit when it’s time to fuck someone up on the feet. He floored Oliveira, he kicked Volkanovski in the face, and he went punch for punch with Poirier. He’s proven his bonafides.

Which might be the biggest threat to his success, here. Islam hasn’t spent a lot of his career dealing with bigger men, and when he has, it’s been folks like Dan Hooker that can be taken down and submitted by a stiff breeze. Shavkat struggled to get Ian down. Belal Muhammad struggled to get Ian down. He’s proven absurdly difficult to control in grappling situations, and that, combined with Ian having damn near half a foot of leverage, makes this potentially very interesting. Ian’s not a Della Maddalena, he’s not going to leave himself in striking distance while he waits for Islam to pick his legs apart because his striking requires close proximity. He’s got the range and the footwork to control their engagements, and with the right gameplan and the right takedown defense, he can force Islam to rush him if he wants to have any hope of getting his takedown game going.

It is, however, Islam Makhachev we’re talking about. He trains with the best there has ever been at rushing takedowns. If Ian winning this fight means pitching a perfect game against one of the best clinch grapplers in the history of mixed martial arts, Islam just has to hit more than he misses. I am not betting against that likelihood. ISLAM MAKHACHEV BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: FEMINISM, VOL. TWO
WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Mackenzie Dern (16-5, Champion) vs Gillian Robertson (17-8, #5)

We’ve been writing about this fight for awhile without directly referring to it.

Two weeks ago, I tried to quantify it, finishing some math that good buddy, Pagoda columnist and android kidney superhero Jess Hudnall started.

Wanna hear something fun? This is the 25th UFC held this year, and presuming it doesn’t face any last-minute cancellations, by the time it’s over, there will have been 140 main-card fights broadcast in 2026. Seven of those main-card slots went to women. That’s five percent.

Last week, I tried to encapsulate it.

I have this persistent feeling that we’re seeing the slow winding down of women’s MMA. It’s not like it’s conspiracizing or catastrophizing to say the UFC would do it: They already did it, right in front of your face. Women’s Featherweight was a real division with real fighters who really competed at their chosen weight class, but the UFC never bothered to fill it, and once Amanda Nunes retired, instead of trying to promote anyone to fill the void, they let the division wither and die on the vine. They never announced anything, they never put out a press release, there was no commemorative video package set to “Leave the Memories Alone” with footage of Megan Anderson getting choked out. They just pushed the fights down the card, and started booking them less and less, until one day they vanished altogether.

Luckily, nothing like that is happening right now.

I wanted to see just how accurate that worry was, so much to the deep chagrin of my English student brain, I did a little more math. The first women’s main event in UFC history--the first women’s fight period, after plans for Erica Montoya vs Shelby Walker in 2005 fell through--was Ronda Rousey vs Liz Carmouche back on February 23, 2013. Despite the new, revised version of history wherein the UFC took to gender equality in the sport on the spot, we still had aways to go before it was to any extent normalized. But if you go through the logbook, and you count out how many main events women actually got over the years, you can see a funny little pattern form.

• 2013: 1

• 2014: 1

• 2015: 5

• 2016: 6

• 2017: 5

• 2018: 2

• 2019: 5

• 2020: 4

• 2021: 4

• 2022: 5

• 2023: 5

• 2024: 2

• 2025: 1

We’re eight and a half months into 2026. Cards have been announced through mid-September. There hasn’t been a single women’s main event yet this year. I had some hope that Noche UFC 4 on September 12 would finally break the drought--they announced Alexa Grasso vs Manon Fiorot, it’s a top contendership match by default, both are former title contenders, one’s a former champion, and both women scored incredible knockouts in their last fights. It would’ve been an excellent way to finally get women in the main event.

The actual main event of Noche UFC 4 got announced on August 4. It’s Yair Rodríguez, who has one fight in the last two and a half years, against Jean Silva, who got clocked by Diego Lopes one fight ago.

This is the only women’s title fight of 2026 thus far. Kayla Harrison won the Bantamweight belt in June of 2025, and between neck injuries and waiting on Amanda Nunes, she’s been champion for 427 days and counting without a defense. Valentina Shevchenko dominated all-time great Zhang Weili last November, and despite having Fiorot, Erin Blanchfield, and #1 contender Natália Silva on an eight-fight winning streak all waiting and ready to go, Fiorot’s fighting Graso, Blanchfield’s fighting Jasmine Jasudavicius, and Silva’s fighting nobody.

A ten-year campaign to make Mackenzie Dern a star, one that saw the UFC paying her before she had fought a single mixed martial arts bout, finally came to fruition last October when, despite having losses against half of her division’s top five, Mackenzie got the call to fight for the vacant Strawweight title against Virna Jandiroba, the one and only top contender she had, conveniently, already beaten once before. It was cynical, it was obvious, and it was effective. They caught the car. Mackenzie Dern: UFC World Champion. Congratulations, boys, you finally got the big giant marketing star you’ve been salivating over for a decade. What’re you gonna do with her now?

Why, you’re going to sit her on the shelf for ten straight months and then make her the co-main event, obviously.

And you’re conveniently going to book all of the top contenders who’ve already beaten her before into competitive matchups with other people. Amanda Lemos just failed prospect duty against Alexia Thainara last week. Yan Xiaonan, despite being #4, is facing the barely-ranked Denise Gomes at the end of the month.

But Gillian Robertson can make it to the show.

She’s earned her way here. I would never say she hasn’t. Gillian’s quietly one of the longest-tenured fighters in the UFC--she actually started back in 2017 as part of The Ultimate Fighter 26 (jesus christ), the season that birthed Women’s Flyweight and gave us Nicco Montaño, the essentially unbeatable forever-answer to the “who’s the worst UFC champion of all time?” trivia question--and after a rocky start up at 125, her career resurgence as a Strawweight contender has been a joy to watch. Flyweights tossed her around and made her miserable; Strawweights, by and large, have gotten strangled. Since making the switch at the start of 2023 Gillian’s 6-1, the only blemish coming against Tabatha Ricci, who looked like a sure thing once upon a time.

Other than that, it’s been dominance. She just about broke Piera Rodriguez’s arm, she pounded out Polyana Viana, she outworked Luana Pinheiro and retired both Michelle Waterson-Gomez and Marina Rodriguez, and this past March she fought what was more or less a title eliminator against the aforementioned Amanda Lemos and finally got that seat at the top she’s always wanted.

Except most of those seats were in the dark. Only two of those seven Strawweight fights made it off the prelims--and both of them were in the Apex. Gillian’s victory over Luana Pinheiro was gently cradled right inbetween Mansur Abdul-Malik vs Duško Todorović and Gaston Bolaños vs Cortavious “Are You Not Entertained?” Romious, and her last fight--the fight that made her a world title contender--was an Apex co-main event, right beneath Kevin Vallejos knocking out Josh Emmett.

It’s funny: I spent so much of Gillian’s ascent through the division complaining about their repeated refusal to put Gillian, a Canadian from Canada who reps the Canadian flag, on any UFC card in Canada, ever, despite frequently being booked to fight within weeks of one, that I neglected to complain about none of her fights ever making the main broadcast. But that’s women’s MMA, right? Just like we said up top. It gets booked into the background because the UFC doesn’t think anyone wants to watch it, and after refusing to invest in it for so long that even their hand-picked chosen savior of the division can’t get a main event for her first title defense, why on Earth would we expect them to care enough to build a title challenger?

After all, she’s here to lose.

You didn’t think it was a coincidence that they picked her, did you? Gillian’s a grappler-type Pokemon. She succeeds through her jiu-jitsu. In ten years of professional competition, she’s never scored a knockout on the feet. I don’t think she’s even gotten a knockdown. Her entire gameplan lives and dies by her ability to get her opponents on the ground and simulate murdering them. Mackenzie’s one of the best grapplers in the history of women’s mixed martial arts. She once nearly hit a kimura on Tecia Pennington while hanging horizontally in the air by way of a single foot on the fence. Over the course of years, much like we just said about Islam, Mackenzie’s even been able to build an effective striking game out of complete lack of fear she has about being taken down. If she’s wildly punching you and you shoot a double to stop her, all you have done is given her the chance to do the shit she’s actually good at.

Last week I said Quillan Salkilld was going to destroy Mateusz Gamrot, and I was picking Gamrot anyway, because that’s what my heart wanted. I think this is a really bad matchup for Gillian. She’s a great grappler in her own right, I’ve loved watching her just bread-and-butter her way through the division, but I think Mackenzie’s jiu-jitsu is another level above hers, and Gillian’s striking has never been effective enough that I see it changing the way this bout goes. I think Mackenzie’s going to outwork her on the feet, I think Mackenzie’s going to outplay her on the ground, and I think we’ll see Gillian’s first submission loss in eight years.

But that’s not what I want. I want Gillian to chuck the apple cart off the Florida coast. I want her chip-away boxing to wind up being more effective than Mackenzie expects. I want her solid, conservative grappling game to defuse Mackenzie’s sub attempts. I want Mackenzie to get worn down on the ground and I want GILLIAN ROBERTSON BY SUBMISSION.

And then you can do the stupid fucking rematch in Canada.

MAIN CARD: GIVING UP
FLYWEIGHT: Charles Johnson (19-9) vs Jose Ochoa (9-2)Eduardo Chapolin (15-2)

Congratulations, Charles! You’re in the featured bout on a numbered show with two title fights! Did they give you a main card berth when you were on a four-fight winning streak and looked like a serious prospect? Nope! They had you curtain-jerk the prelims at the Apex. Did they bump you back up to the main card after you knocked out Lone’er Kavanagh? Of course not! That spot was reserved for Salsa Boy. When DID they finally give you a featured spot? Why, it was your last fight, when you were a giant underdog against Asu Almabayev in the middle of Azerbaijan and you got turned into a human pretzel. So why, do you suppose, are they putting you in your highest-profile UFC slot ever, despite coming off a two-and-a-half round submission loss where you got punched in the head dozens of times all of 49 days ago?

Why, indeed. Why would they be trying to trade you out for a 25 year-old on a Contender Series-tier contract with a near-total finishing rate? He’s smaller than you, he is less successful than you, he lost to Kavanagh, unlike you, and the best win of his career is either Clayton Carpenter or Cody Durden, and brother, neither of those make for great news. But he’s cheaper and younger and not yet ruled out of reaching the top. Charles is 8-7 in the UFC. He’s had multiple shots and unfortunately biffed them all. Jose is 2-2. He has room to grow into the easily-paid Peruvian punching machine of their dreams. All he has to do is beat a guy who’s outperformed him in several head-to-head matchups while also possessing a sizable advantage in size, range, and technique.

In other words: Charles, if you lose this one, I’m giving up on you for good. CHARLES JOHNSON BY DECISION. UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon as I was editing this for publishing, Ochoa got pulled and now this is a 130-pound catchweight fight between Charles and Eduardo Chapolin, the LFA champion and a man who got choked out of The Ultimate Fighter 33 (jesus christ) in the first round. Flip a coin at your leisure from here on out.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Mansur Abdul-Malik (9-1-1) vs Dustin Stoltzfus (16-8)

The UFC keeps trying to get Mansur Abul-Malik in the prospect conversation, and things just keep going wrong. When they brought him in through DWCS in 2024 he was the exact story we’ve repeated hundreds of times over the course of our long watch: Undefeated, knocks everyone out, never fought anyone with a winning record, doomed to an extremely foreseeable future fall. They booked him against the softest targets they could find, but good ol’ Cody Brundage failed to produce a highlight-reel stoppage because Mansur headbutted the crap out of him and the fight was eventually ruled a Draw for particularly dumb reasons. This past March the UFC finally threw Mansur in the cage with Yousri Belgaroui, his first competitor to have more UFC wins than losses, by which I mean he was 1-0, and Mansur got knocked the fuck out.

So do you try to keep Mansur vital? Do you give him another test? Of course not! You have him fight Dustin Stoltzfus, who is 3-7, has been knocked out repeatedly, hasn’t won a fight in almost two years, is traditionally a grappler who poses very little threat on the feet, and was last seen losing a fight to 2025-level Kelvin Gastelum. It feels like shit every time I reduce a fight down to “fighter y is here to lose to fighter x.” It makes me think of Harry Hunsucker, of all people. Harry was a big ol’ dude who devoted his life to studying martial arts, and the UFC gave him a DWCS shot in 2020 and he got the shit beaten out of him, but they brought him in anyway, because they needed a late replacement to get the shit beaten out of them. He proceeded to stick around for a year and a half and three fights, all of which involved getting more shit beaten out of him, and they lasted a grand total of just under four minutes. An entire life of studying the arts you find fascinating and participating in the sport you love, and your only utility to the uppermost reaches of the sport was serving as a really convenient way for the UFC to go “hey, we need that guy who always gets the shit beaten out of him.”

I hope you don’t get the shit beaten out of you, Dustin. It’d be a lot more gratifying if you won. MANSUR ABDUL-MALIK BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Edson Barboza (24-14) vs Esteban Ribovics (15-3)

Speaking of people the UFC will not stop trying to get over: We are well and truly stuck with Esteban Ribovics. And, like, it could be worse. He’s not terrible. He has some very fun fights! He is also not going to make it in this division. He only barely won a split decision against Daniel Zellhuber, who has spent the subsequent two years losing repeatedly. Esteban only barely lost a split decision against Nasrat Haqparast, who has, himself, been stuck at the periphery of Lightweight since 2017. But it was this past April’s attempt to jump Esteban all the way from a one-fight winning streak and nowhere near ranked to the top fucking ten against Mateusz Gamrot that truly gave away the UFC’s game, and it blew up in their faces, as Gamrot proceeded to ragdoll Ribovics and choke him out in two rounds--which is even more damning now that Charles Oliveira and Quillan Salkilld have proven, pretty definitively, that Gamrot’s never making it to the top of the Lightweight ladder, either.

But does that mean we stop trying? Of fucking course not. Not when we have 40 year-old Edson Barboza, on a three-fight losing streak, 2 for his last 7, coming off a knockout loss and openly talking about the likelihood that his career is over and it’s time to retire. Does a 32-fight veteran who provided some of the most memorable knockouts in the history of the sport get a good send-off? No, a handful of people still remember his name and that means he is philosophically and ethically obligated to go out there and get starched by whatever unproven prospect the UFC is inexplicably attached to this week so their past marketing efforts don’t go to waste. They did it with Lerone Murphy back in 2024 just in case Edson was done, they did it with Jalin Turner at the end of 2025 should he decide not to come back, and by god, we need to wash the taste of all of that filthy wrestling out of our mouths by letting Esteban kick a man until he falls over so we can pretend he has a shot at being a divisional contender again.

There is no retirement plan in mixed martial arts. Edson, if I see you in BKFC, I will be very, very sad. ESTEBAN RIBOVICS BY TKO.

PRELIMS: INEXPLICABLY, WHERE THE PROSPECTS LIVE
WELTERWEIGHT: Chidi Njokuani (25-12 (1)) vs Joel Álvarez (23-4)

You know what the UFC likes? Tall people. Are you a pair of 6’3” Welterweights, a division once ruled by short king Matt Serra? Then the UFC wants you, so long as you will promise to hit people a lot and hopefully not lose to any stinky grapplers. Joel, at least, has only fallen victim to their wiles. Six and a half years in, the only people who’ve beaten him have been capable of grounding and controlling him. Is this because Arman Tsarukyan and Yaroslav Amosov are exceptionally good? Definitely. Is it because between them Joel’s fighting guys like Marc Diakiese and the ghost of Vicente Luque? Probably also a factor. But that’s still a step up from Chidi, who is very, very good when he can beat up on Jared Gooden, but got choked out in a minute flat by Jake Matthews and liberally battered by Carlos Leal. If you are a tall boy and you do tall boy striking and you get outwrestled, that’s fine, they’re not going to hold that against you, because wrestling is illegal and the bouncers should’ve stopped the wrestlers from entering the octagon in the first place. But if you get outpunched? By a short? You must be disassembled.

All of this is to say I am not enormously invested in this fight, but generally-speaking, Chidi vs someone who is just as big as he is but also knows how submission holds work seems like a bad night for him. JOEL ÁLVAREZ BY SUBMISSION. Also, it’s super cool and not at all annoying that Amosov choked Joel out and Joel’s already booked again while Amosov is twiddling his thumbs.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Jalin Turner (15-9) vs Kauê Fernandes (11-2)

This match-up is absolutely fucking fascinating, because both of its component parts could be really, really good, and despite having plenty of fights with the company, we have no way of presently knowing. We knew, in the past tense, that Jalin Turner was a competitive Lightweight: But for the minds of a single judge he would’ve won split decisions against Mateusz Gamrot and Dan Hooker and wound up near title contention years ago. In our version of reality he lost, his confidence broke and he ultimately retired after a 1-for-5 skid. He un-retired this past December and smashed Edson Barboza in two and a half minutes, and that’s great, but it’s also Edson Barboza, who, as we’ve already discussed, is basically done, so just how good Jalin’s doing these days remains a question mark. Kauê Fernandes is in a much weirder position. He’s four fights into his UFC tenure, and outside of kicking that run off by dropping a split decision to Marc Diakiese, he’s on a three-fight winning streak. But every one of those wins is kind of fucked up. He knocked out Mohammad Yahya, but Yahya very visibly did not belong there and kept getting booked anyway because the UAE liked him. He beat Guram Kutateladze, who at one point was a serious Lightweight contender, but by the time Kauê got to him Guram’s body and career had fallen apart, he looked exhausted and immobile, and he got cut immediately afterward. Kauê was supposed to fight Farès Ziam, which would’ve been a great test, but after Ziam’s grandmother died he pulled out and got replaced by Harry Hardwick, a Cage Warriors Featherweight making a short-notice debut at a higher weight class who also seemed to have no idea what leg kicks were and got disassembled in three and a half minutes.

So we still haven’t gotten to see Fernandes get tested, just as we haven’t seen a full accounting of how Turner’s doing after his retirement. Both men need to prove they can handle offensive pressure coming back at them, and their styles are both built on moving forward all the time, so they’ll probably get the chance. Still think we’ll see JALIN TURNER BY DECISION, though.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Donte Johnson (8-0) vs Eric McConico (11-4-1)

I gotta be honest: This is one of those fights my eyes just refuse to focus on. Just a few fights ago Donte Johnson was on DWCS as a Heavyweight, and then he choked out Sedriques Dumas, which should have earned him my undying loyalty, but then he won the barest split decision against Cody Brundage and my interest waned. Which is funny, because, hey, you know who else only barely got past divisional journeyman Cody Brundage by split decision? Eric McConico! Sure, he gets knocked out a lot, but he can beat Cody and Rodolfo Vieira, so who’s to say if he’s good or bad? Me. You. Our lying eyes. There are two Middleweight divisions. One of them is populated by fighters who, however frustrating, are rounded competitors who’ve demonstrated the ability to hang and potentially contend. The other is a swirling vortex of bodies and names all fighting to consume each other in the hopes that one of them, one day, will get the opportunity to lose to Brendan Allen on an Apex show, which will be the highlight of their career.

But don’t worry, the duality’s only temporary! Eventually it’ll just be the vortex. Until then, DONTE JOHNSON BY DECISION.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Vicente Luque (24-12-1) vs Tresean Gore (6-4)

Thinking about Vicente Luque reminded me of just how close we came to a reality where Vicente Luque and Nick Diaz had a professional mixed martial arts fight in 2024. However dumb, dark and decrepit our timeline might be, at least, at least, it isn’t the one where Vicente Luque and Nick Diaz had a professional mixed martial arts fight in 2024. Instead, Luque got bounced out of Welterweight, went up to 185 pounds, and proceeded to choke out Kelvin Gastelum, the living embodiment of unrealized potential. Tresean Gore is still here because there’s always someone there to bail him out. He was a finalist on The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), but he had to be replaced in the final. Instead of cutting him, the UFC signed up to have the UNFINISHED ULTIMATE FIGHTER BUSINESS angle, which was ruined when he promptly lost twice in a row. But instead of getting fired, he beat Josh Fremd and Antonio Trócoli, both of whom lost their way out of the company. And then Gore lost two more in a row and massively blew a weight cut, so that could’ve been that! But instead he came in as a massive underdog against Azamat Bekoev and choked him out in the third round.

We are just spinning in these circles over and over until someone sets us free. I value Welterweight more than I do Middleweight, so VICENTE LUQUE BY TKO it is.

EARLY PRELIMS: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MAGNY
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Rafael Tobias (14-2) vs Lucas Fernando (13-3)

Here’s a fun one for you. Remember Azamat Bekoev, our friend from the last paragraph that couldn’t hack it against Tresean Gore? How about Diyar Nurgozhay, last week’s Light Heavyweight prospect that got trashed in two rounds by the 17-11 Brendson Ribeiro? What if there was a pair of men that had lost to each of them? What if the UFC signed both of them and put more of the future of the sport on their shoulders? What if Light Heavyweight has to burn through bodies to survive? What if it doesn’t matter how capable those bodies are so long as they throw more punches than they do takedowns? Did you know that of the 46 fighters signed off Contender Series bouts last season, a grand total of four, or 8.7%, were women? Fortunately, there’s space for Lucas Fernando.

I just do not have the joy in me for this, so I flipped a coin, and the coin said LUCAS FERNANDO BY TKO.

WELTERWEIGHT: Neil Magny (31-14) vs Ramiz Brahimaj (13-6)

There’s a really acute sense of tragedy to this fight. Neil Magny was supposed to be a big deal, man. He was a giant Welterweight before 6’3” Lightweights became common; he was a cardio king when fighters still struggled to finish three active rounds; he was a good, chip-away striker with a surprisingly underrated grappling game. Hell, he’s still fine! He wadded Mike Malott up and threw him in the damn garbage two and a half years ago! But his dreams of making it to the top of the mountain died a little more every time one of his winning streaks ended, and now it’s 2026, and he just turned 39, and he has double-digit losses, and the UFC is pushing Malott anyway because they can make more money off of him than Magny, and it’s better to let him fight other coulda-been-a-contenders like Ramiz Brahimaj instead, because they’ve already let Magny get crushed by all the Welterweights they currently care about marketing.

I wish things had been different, Neil. I hope you can still keep doing this long enough to invest in an index fund. NEIL MAGNY BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Jeremiah Wells (13-4-1) vs Myktybek Orolbai (16-2-1)

Alright, this kinda sucks. Myktybek Orolbai has been killing it. He’s 5-1 and his only loss was a war of a split decision down at Lightweight, he’s undefeated at his proper home in the Welterweight division, and some of those wins are really fucking good. Jack Hermansson, the man who beat Joe Pyfer and damn near beat Sean Strickland? Orolbai knocked him out in less than three minutes. Chris Curtis, the Schrodinger’s contender of Middleweight that gave Brendan Allen fits? Orolbai pitched a shut-out against him. Remember two weeks ago when the UFC organized an entire event around coronating Uroš Medić as Welterweight’s big new ranked knockout artist? Myktybek Orolbai tapped him out in two rounds. He’s very, very good, he’s on a three-fight winning streak and he deserves a spotlight. Which is why he is curtain-jerking the prelims against a man with one fight in the last two and a half years and one win in the last three and a half. Every fight is a risk, and the UFC is so disinterested in Orolbai that they’re willing to risk him against an unknown veteran with zero upside who’s turning 40 in October as the very first fight on the early preliminary section of a card they didn’t even bother putting together a real featured bout for.

But, of course: He’s a grappler, so. MYKTYBEK OROLBAI BY DECISION.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 FROM THE COLDEST COLD OF THE APEX
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM

I hope you enjoyed your month and a half off from Apex duty, because we’re back and we’re back so fucking hard that as of this writing we’re less than a week out from this event, there are only eleven fights slated for it, no one knows what the bout order is, and fifteen of the twenty-two people on it are either coming off a loss or making their debut. But Darren Elkins is back, so that’s what matters.

MAIN EVENT: THE GOOD SON
LIGHTWEIGHT: Mateusz Gamrot (26-4 (1), #8) vs Quillan Salkilld (12-1, #12)

Wake up, everyone, it’s time to try to kill Mateusz Gamrot again.

At this point, this is Gamrot’s job. Has he earned his spot as one of the best Lightweights on the planet? Not a shred of doubt about it. But he is, above all else, a wrestler, and that means the UFC will always be one loss away from plotting his demise, and at this point in his career Gamrot’s got more than one unfortunate loss and said losses are starting to overtake his wins.

I mean, not numerically. Numerically, he’s doing gangbusters. But realistically, his best win in the last four years was Rafael Fiziev, and that happened because Fiziev’s knee quit the fight seven minutes in. Over those four years he’s beaten Rafael dos Anjos, who, much as I love him, is aging into a relic, Ľudovít Klein, who really could have been something but the UFC kept him on matchmaking ice until he got eaten alive by Tofiq Musayev, and Esteban Ribovics, which was about as blatant an attempt to get Gamrot out of the picture in favor of a marketing favorite as there’s yet been.

Between them he lost a coinflip of a decision to Dan Hooker, who has spent his subsequent time getting repeatedly murdered, and last October Gamrot got the short-notice fill-in shot at the top against Charles Oliveira only to find out Oliveira is really fucking good. He got dominated, he got choked out, and with that loss, I think the UFC’s just kind of done with him. Gamrot could still run up the scoreboard and make himself impossible to ignore, but as a grappler with one non-injury finish in the last half-decade, management would be much happier if he simply went away.

Esteban couldn’t pull it off. Quillan Salkilld has a much better chance. At least, they’re really hoping he does.

It’s no secret the UFC has been taking a lot of money from the Australian government to promote more events down their way, and in an attempt to make it worth Australia’s while, the company keeps trying to push their Oceanic fighters up the card. Tom Nolan went from Viacheslav Borshchev and DWCS loser Charlie Campbell to a berth in the Lightweight top fifteen. Steve Erceg became a fixture of the Flyweight main event scene despite losing every one of them. Navajo Stirling just got bumped from barely-ranked to the top five thanks to a short-notice fight against a man who’s almost 44. The UFC still employs Junior Tafa.

They want successful marketing darlings for the region. They want to get more of that Australian grant money. But they want their Oceaniac manpunchers to actually punch men. They want finishes. That is the only goddamn thing the UFC cares about. By that metric, Quillan’s everything they could ask for.

Four finishes in five UFC fights. Three violent knockouts, one submission, and just one decision. That’s a fantastic highlight reel for any weight class, but Lightweight is one of the hardest to consistently net finishes in. Being able to punch and headkick and choke your way to Lightweight stardom is worth its weight in gold.

Unfortunately you gotta do it against competition that impresses people, and the UFC has been soft-pedaling Quillan just a touch too much for him to catch fire naturally. The man he submitted, Jamie Mullarkey, was a 6-6 veteran who’d spent most of the last three years getting knocked out repeatedly. That headkick knockout came against perpetual gatekeeper Nasrat Haqparast. And that big right-cross punchout that put Quillan on the map? Why, that was over Anshul Jubli, a man who once lost a UFC fight because his opponent began barking like a dog and he got confused.

Even the fight that got him ranked was a setup. After four straight wins, the UFC--on a card in Australia, naturally--gave Salkilld a bout with Beneil Dariush, a former contender who, in the present, is nearing 40, is 1 for his last 5, and had showed up to his last fight tired and overweight and gotten himself knocked out in sixteen seconds.

Quillan crushing him in one round wasn’t a surprise, either. They want Quillan to succeed. They want a reliable Oceanic knockout artist at the top. They tried, repeatedly, with Dan Hooker, and now he’s on prospect duty and it’s Quillan’s time to shine. And, sure: Gamrot represents a challenge he hasn’t had to face before. Quillan beat Dariush’s ghost, but that ghost still took him down twice, and Beneil may have been a better technical wrestler than Gamrot, but he isn’t half as athletic anymore, nor a tenth as tenacious.

But the matchmakers aren’t stupid, either. Gamrot’s one of the best grinders in the sport, but between Jalin Turner and Dan Hooker, he has a pattern of struggling against tall, lanky strikers. His style is dependent on being able to rush down his opponents and crowd them to the ground, and the more range he has to rush through, and the harder he can get hit while he’s doing it, the less successful he’s been. Quillan’s just as tall as Hooker and just as rangy as Turner, and thus far, he’s been able to consistently find his targets.

And I absolutely cannot stop myself from rooting for wrestling to ruin everyone’s plans again. In my head, if I’m letting my inner analyst pilot the spaceship, Sakilld’s gonna salkill Gamrot. Different levels of competition or no, Gamrot’s trouble dealing with range and Salkilld’s ability to heap on damage really, really fast form a terrible combination. But you don’t explore space with math or science, you do it by pure heart, and a willingness to ignore the safety of the rules that govern the universe. MATEUSZ GAMROT BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: ON FUCKING PLUTO
LIGHTWEIGHT: Billy Quarantillo (18-7) vs Diego Ferreira (19-7)

This is ordinarily where I say “yeah, we’re not doing this,” but I can’t say that this week, because that would presuppose that we already know what This is.

We don’t know for sure if this is the co-main event. The UFC has announced no bout order whatsoever. The official card website (as of this writing on Sunday) doesn’t even have the prelims listed as a separate entity. But Marcel Dorff is still the most reliable card reporter in the game, and he says this is the main card order he’s been told, though the prelims aren’t set.

So, in theory, this is the co-main event of this UFC Fight Night. Not the top ten-ranked Women’s Strawweight bout between Amanda Lemos, a former title contender with a definitive victory over current champion Mackenzie Dern, and Alexia Thainara, the young, rising contender on a three-fight winning streak who retired major marketing star Molly McCann. Why, that would require us to market a woman, and heaven fucking forfend we do that for more than two women at a time, if even that.

No, that fight is apparently randomly thrown on the main card under Darren Elkins (PRE-PUBLISHING UPDATE: Now technically more important than Darren Elkins!), and the co-main event is--apparently--Billy Quarantillo vs Diego Ferreira. Billy Quarantillo is 6-5 and very close to turning 38. His best win in 7 years under contract came against Alexander Hernandez. Edson Barboza, a title contender from more than a decade ago now almost unanimously agreed to be tragically washed up at 2 for his last 7, has exactly one stoppage victory in the last five years: It’s Billy Quarantillo. Diego Ferreira has been in the UFC since the Summer of 2014, and you can make him sound very impressive by pointing out the way he once submitted Anthony Pettis, but that was already almost seven goddamn years ago. He turns 42 this January. Both men are on two-fight losing streaks. Both men are at the absolute periphery of the weight class.

And this is our co-main event, I guess. So, let me restate: If this is what we’re doing, then yeah, we’re not doing this.

I have this persistent feeling that we’re seeing the slow winding down of women’s MMA. It’s not like it’s conspiracizing or catastrophizing to say the UFC woulkd do it: They already did it, right in front of your face. Women’s Featherweight was a real division with real fighters who really competed at their chosen weight class, but the UFC never bothered to fill it, and once Amanda Nunes retired, instead of trying to promote anyone to fill the void, they let the division wither and die on the vine. They never announced anything, they never put out a press release, there was no commemorative video package set to “Leave the Memories Alone” with footage of Megan Anderson getting choked out. They just pushed the fights down the card, and started booking them less and less, until one day they vanished altogether.

Luckily, nothing like that is happening right now.

We’re just getting Billy Quarantillo vs Diego Ferreira co-main events because that’s what’s best for the sport.

I hope I have to rewrite this at the last minute because Marcel had the unbelievably rare miss and they change their minds at the eleventh hour (PRE-PUBLISHING UPDATE: Nope). I hope, but I doubt. I think we’re getting this and I think we’ll be lucky if we get a single women’s main event this year.

As for this actual fight, I say this with all possible respect to both of these men: Not even the UFC cares. It’s the unfinalized co-main event of an unfinished Apex card put on as a throwaway the week before a numbered event. You are both veterans of the sport and you, too, deserve better. BILLY QUARANTILLO BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: SOMEHOW EVEN MORE INSULTING
WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Amanda Lemos (15-6-1, #8) vs Alexia Thainara (14-1, #12)

Hey, look at that: It’s the co-main event. My focus on numbers and career comparisons and “____ is x for their last y” statements has to be carefully metered, because sometimes, if you don’t look close enough, they will lie to you. Amanda Lemos is 2 for her last 6. Subjectively, that’s a terrible record. Objectively, every one of those losses--hall, all of her losses since mid-2017--came against world champions or #1 contenders. Losing fights to Virna Jandiroba, Gillian Robertson and Tatiana Suarez is nothing to feel ashamed of. Hell, as we discussed earlier, she beat Mackenzie Dern all of two and a half years ago. Damn near killed her in the second round, too. If Amanda had beaten Gillian this past March, there’s a solid chance she’d be getting that shot at Dern next week. But she didn’t, and she’s not, and that means she’s playing gatekeeper.

It is entirely accurate to say Alexia Thainara is one of the two best prospects Strawweight has right now. Hasn’t lost a fight since her rookie days back in 2019, currently riding a three-fight win streak, the last time we saw her she actually avenged that old loss because old foe Bruna Brasil happened to also be in the UFC. It’s great! It’s also another case of having to look past the numbers. Bruna Brasil is 3-5 in the UFC. Alexia’s wins before that were Loma Lookboonmee, who has existed at the periphery of the division for years, and Molly McCann, who was about to retire as a 7-7 journeywoman who just couldn’t stop getting tapped out. Winning is better than losing! Hell, the lines are thin and grey. Loma beat Denise Gomes and Denise has a shot at the top five later this month. But it shows the lack of elite competition Alexia’s faced.

That doesn’t have to doom her. She’s well-rounded, she’s capable, and she’s also more than a decade younger than Amanda. If Lemos is aging out, Alexia is entirely capable of taking advantage of the dust in her bones. But I don’t think Lemos is quite finished yet, and I don’t think Alexia’s going to challenge her enough in the grappling or striking to get her on the floor. AMANDA LEMOS BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Ty Miller (7-0 (1)) vs Billy Ray Goff (9-4)

We’re gonna play a game, you and I. Neither of these men are debuting. Ty Miller made his debut last January. This is Billy Ray Goff’s fourth fight in the UFC. If you can name any of their previous fights off the top of your head, stop reading for a second and post it before you move on. Literally any of them. One of those opponents is about to hit a double-digit record in the UFC next week!

Yeah. It’s hard for me, too. That double-digit opponent was Ramiz Brahimaj, who choked Goff out in one round more than a year ago. What’s even funnier: The fight before that, Goff lost a decision against Trey Waters. Trey went on to not get booked for almost a year and a half, after which he got knocked out by Sam Patterson and was promptly cut from the company despite being 2-1. So, as usual, Trey, who won, is gone, but Goff, who lost--and then lost again!--is still here. Ty Miller’s only UFC opponent, for the record? Adam Fugitt, who was 10-5, 2-3 in the company, and had been viciously stopped in all three of his losses. But Fugitt was kept around just long enough for Miller to starch him! Because the UFC needs people they can reliably trust to lose or their marketing plans will fall apart.

Billy: This is why you’re here. Please prove them wrong and fuck up their plans. That said, TY MILLER BY TKO.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Darren Elkins (29-12) vs Yadier del Valle (10-1)

Darren Elkins! We are still doing Darren Elkins. The last time Darren Elkins beat a man with more wins than losses in the UFC it was Dennis Bermudez and it was 20goddamn17. I remember watching Cub Swanson wheelkick Darren Elkins to death and thinking ‘that should probably be it for both of these guys, honestly,’ and that was already five years ago, and Cub retired this past April, but Darren is still here. You know the way we’ve regularly discussed how bad it is to be known primarily for your toughness in fightsports, because it means more than winning, you are renowned for getting the shit kicked out of you on a regular basis? Darren has had this reputation for thirteen fucking years. He’s going to be 43 in May. The last time we saw him was already almost a year and a half ago and that was just so he could get completely demolished by Julian Erosa in one round, and Julian Erosa is also a journeyman in his late thirties who loses frequently.

But Yadier del Valle was a Contender Series guy, and they really liked the way he was choking out everyone he faced, and after watching him cut through Connor Matthews and Isaac Dulgarian in one round apiece the matchmakers were salivating about the idea of seeing him rise in the ranks as the rare grappling finishing machine. But they tried to Pimblett him, and they paid for it. He was matched up with Jordan Leavitt, a canny grappler with a tendency to wilt against bigger, better grapplers like Pimblett and Chase Hooper, but the matchmakers and the betting odds both overlooked that del Valle was neither bigger nor better than Leavitt, and despite being a -400 favorite he lost. So the UFC is jumping the entire roster and pulling Darren fuckin’ Elkins out of mothballs to make sure del Valle gets the win.

And I absolutely refuse to stop myself from rooting for comedy over common sense. DARREN ELKINS BY SUBMISSION.

PRELIMS: LOWERED EXPECTATIONS
HEAVYWEIGHT: Steven Asplund (7-2) vs Guilherme Pat (6-1)

You know, there was a brief moment when Steven Asplund looked like he had prospect potential. In total fairness: Being a Heavyweight, having a basic understanding of throwing in combinations and being able to do so for more than five minutes already places you above most of the sport. But he fell victim to the great migration of failed Light Heavyweights to the biggest of big boy divisions, and Vitor Petrino--a man whose previous greatest achievement was giving Anthony Smith his final career victory--managed to outlast Asplund and steal his place as the large punchman du jour. Guilherme Pat is already on his third UFC fight in less than a year with the company, and those three fights have taken him through a win over Allen Frye Jr., with just one bout ever against anyone with a winning record, and a loss against Thomas Petersen, who himself has repeatedly proven to be particularly middling.

So you’d better goddamn win this one. STEVEN ASPLUND BY TKO.

WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT: Juliana Miller (4-4) vs Ravena Oliveira (7-4-1)

Sometimes the act of rooting for a fighter crosses the boundary from meme to reality. Do I actually like Juliana Miller, or do I like the irony of rooting for Juliana Miller despite the statistical likelihood that she will badly lose any fight she’s in? Does it adjust the math at all when she’s up against Ravena Oliveira, who, generally-speaking, also loses her fights very, very badly? We make a lot of jokes here about the things that don’t matter, but this is Juliana, who peaked in 2022 by winning The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) and has mostly lost since, and Ravena, who’s 0-3 and two of those losses were at Strawweight. Is it more correct to say this truly, genuinely doesn’t matter, or more correct to say the existence of this fight proves that evaluating fights based on whether or not they matter is a flawed concept because every fight matters to the people who are fighting it?

Philosophy cannot get us out of dealing with this. Fortunately, while I may not know if my appreciation for Juliana is genuine or ironic, whichever it may be, it is real. JULIANA MILLER BY SUBMISSION.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Louie Sutherland (11-5) vs José Montanha da Silva (6-1)

Because fight databases get confused and José Montanha da Silva fights under that name rather than his real name, some folks got him mixed up with the other Brazilian Heavyweight named Montanha, who only has one win in the last decade. Don’t worry, we’re not that hard up! We got the good Montanha. You know, the one who’s only had three bouts in his life against people who’d fought at all before, and one of them is 1-1 and the other is 3-2, and the third is Richard “Boss Baby” Jacobi, who is a respectable 10-3-1. Boss Baby beat Montanha easily, but only because he didn’t get into the UFC after Austen Lane--Austen Lane--knocked him out in one round on the Contender Series. So don’t worry! It’s just a guy who was worse than a guy who was worse than Austen Lane against a Louie Sutherland who’s more than a dozen fights into his career with a similarly awful-looking record but he just beat former top contender Tai Tuivasa so who’s to say if Heavyweight is actually bad or if we all just need to shut up and accept the inevitability of the heat death of the universe.

Everything: It’s bad. LOUIE SUTHERLAND BY DECISION.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Diyar Nurgozhay (11-2) vs Bruno Lopes (14-3)

Remember a couple weeks ago when we were in Abu Dhabi and we discussed the complete and utter destruction of the Light Heavyweight division, and one piece of that conversation was a man named Brendson Ribeiro? The 2-6 guy who just kept getting booked to lose, over and over and over again? Well, if you count the Contender Series, he actually beat three people under the UFC’s corporate banner. Bruno Lopes and Diyar Nurgozhay are two of them. Brendson didn’t just beat both of these men, he finished them. He starched Lopes on DWCS in one round and he submitted Diyar in two. Bonus points: Diyar missed the 205-pound weight limit by almost five pounds. This is a contest between two Light Heavyweights who are both 1-2 and both worse at fighting than Brendson goddamn Ribeiro and we have no choice but to accept that this is the best we can collectively do.

BRUNO LOPES BY SUBMISSION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Miles Johns (15-5 (1)) vs Jessie Rosas (8-1)

If you’ve been reading these for any real length of time, you’re already very familiar with my feelings on Raul Rosas Jr. and the way the UFC tried to usher him into the upper ranks of the sport with a series of carefully-curated matchups. Suppose Raul had a brother named Jessie. Suppose Jessie didn’t beat a single person with a winning record until just this past June, and suppose that record was 23-11. Suppose Jessie got a UFC contract anyway, and suppose that the UFC decided Miles Johns, who is coincidentally on a three-fight losing streak, was the right man to welcome him to the company, for some strange reason. How do you think I would feel about that, and who do you think I would pick?

Thank you for knowing me so well. MILES JOHNS BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Manoel Sousa (14-1) vs Richie Miranda (13-1)

This is a rad fight between two legitimately good Lightweight prospects who both deserve a shot at the spotlight, and aside from it being in the sucking void of the Apex, I don’t have a bad thing to say about it. Manoel’s a really good all-arounder who carved out a solid run in the PFL, has only ever lost against Archie Colgan, who just got a title shot at Usman Nurmagomedov, and already hopped into the UFC this year by blasting Bolaji Oki out on his feet. Richie Miranda has spent almost his entire career growing up in the Legacy Fighting Alliance, one of the few regional promotions left that’s actually pretty goddamn legitimate, and even held its Lightweight title for the last year. He’s more grappling-focused, but he’s solid and dangerous enough to snatch a goddamn bulldog choke with it in the present day, which just should not happen.

I inch towards MANOEL SOUSA BY DECISION, but both of these guys belong on this roster and I hate how pleasantly unusual that feels in this era of the sport.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Carol Foro (9-1) vs GiGi Canuto (7-1)

This fight got added on Tuesday evening, and by ‘added’ I mean it was reported by Brazilian journalist Leo Guimaraes. The UFC didn’t acknowledge it until Wednesday, presumably because GiGi Canuto was on this season of The Ultimate Fighter 34 (jesus christ) up until this week, when, I am told, she got elbowed to death on the ground after exhausting herself in the first round. It feels like it should mess with the format of an everyone-competes-for-a-contract tournament if people who lose midway through the season are getting promoted to the big show before the little show is even over, but on the other hand, caring about this would require things to matter, which, we are aware, they do not. Besides, this fight is 90% for Carol Foro, a Muay Thai knockout artist the UFC’s had signed since last September, but they keep trying to book her and the fights keep falling apart, so what’s better than throwing her in on four days’ notice against a woman who got elbowed in the face until she stopped moving a few months ago during the taping of a reality show.

Sports: They’re good for you. CAROL FORO BY TKO.

Welcome to August. After an incredibly lame month, we are getting back up to speed with some things that are at least a little interesting. Also, Islam Makhachev and Cris Cyborg’s retirement fight. Will it all be great? Probably not. Will it be better than July? Let’s fucking hope so.

THIS MONTH’S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

• UFC Fight Night: Medić vs. Rodriguez, August 1

• UFC Fight Night: Gamrot vs Salkilld, August 8

• UFC 330: Makhachev vs Machado Garry, August 15

• UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs Rodrigues, August 22

• UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs Song, August 29

• PFL Charlotte: Battle vs Rosta, August 7

• PFL Tampa: Cyborg vs Vieira, August 20

• ONE Samurai 2, August 8

• ONE Fight Night 46: Hemesberger vs Diachkova, August 14

• Rizin 54: Koike vs Akimoto, August 11

IS THERE ANY NEWS

There’s this prevailing sensibility in mixed martial arts that companies only seek out cross-promotion when they’re in dire straits. The UFC famously sent Chuck Liddell over to Pride for their 2003 Middleweight tournament only to wheel around and decry Pride’s desires to cross-promote after the TUF boom as pathetic and unnecessary. Bellator and Rizin began co-promoting towards the end of Bellator’s life, and when the Professional Fighters League bought Bellator out, they felt co-promotion was beneath them and served only to dilute their brand.

It’s three years later, and you definitely shouldn’t read anything into how business is going for the PFL here, but they’ve announced the proud return of the co-promotional deal with Rizin. It actually started a couple months ago, with Rizin lending their former Bantamweight champ Naoki Inoue to the PFL for a fight in Brussels, and that experience went well enough for everyone involved that they’ve decided to make it official. The two companies announced a formal, recurring talent exchange similar to the Bellator x Rizin cards of yesteryear, and as a show of good faith, they’re kicking it off with one of the single biggest fights they could make: The main event of Super Rizin 5 on September 10 will see Rizin’s Featherweight phenom Razhabali Shaydullaev facing top PFL 145er A.J. McKee Jr. in a winner-takes-all title match for both the Rizin and PFL belts.

It’s a great idea. It’s a huge step! It’s slightly compromised by Shaydullaev having very publicly signed a management deal with Ali Abdelaziz last year and announced his hopes of moving to the UFC once his Rizin contract ends in 2027. Would it be kind of a bummer if the biggest co-promotional event MMA has seen in years ends with a double-champion taking all of his hype to the UFC? Yeah, kinda! Is it still cool as hell that it’s happening? Absolutely.

So, hey: You know what happened after I wrote that? You know what happened one day before the end of the month? The PFL merged with Jake Paul’s MVP MMA, by which I mean MVP bought out the PFL and it is going to gradually cease to exist as a brand because despite being around for almost a decade its entire identity is still less notable than MVP’s after exactly one event. This just broke on the 30th so it’s going to be developing for some time yet, but it’s hard not to have some real cynical, unfortunate feelings about it.

Let’s call a spade a spade, here: The PFL has not been a grand success. It’s stayed afloat for nine years, and in a world like MMA that’s a genuine accomplishment, but for how hard it has positioned itself as a competitor to the UFC it’s never reached real popularity and most of its gambles have not paid off. ESPN, Francis Ngannou, acquiring Bellator, ditching the tournament format--none of it has stuck. When their financiers more or less took over the company at the turn of the year they got an awful lot quieter about their big, expansive plans for the future, and that was not at all a surprise. The PFL folding itself into MVP is not a surprise.

And it doesn’t, necessarily, have to be bad. MVP MMA 1 was an extremely uneven card, but their instincts weren’t exactly terrible. They had a strong nostalgia headliner in Rousey/Carano, a big legitimacy source in Ngannou, a young, vital prospect in Salahdine Parnasse, a heavyweight bullshit session thanks to Robelis Despaigne and Junior dos Santos, a solid backbone with fighters like Phumi Nkuta, Adriano Moraes and Jason Jackson, and a giant, popular trainwreck in Mike Perry vs Nate Diaz. For a first stab, it could have gone a lot worse. But it could’ve gone a lot better, too. A lot of the event was inherently opportunistic, and now most of those opportunities are gone. Rousey and Carano are back to being retired. Parnasse and Despaigne got snatched up by the UFC. Ngannou’s wherever Ngannou is. There’s no way to know if MVP has more left in the tank. Buying out the PFL and simply importing their roster is a quick answer to that problem, and being able to throw their fights on Netflix is a potentially huge step for the sport--so long as MVP can make people care about Dakota Ditcheva and Vadim Nemkov in ways the PFL failed to do.

But mostly? Christ alive, it sucks to ponder the reality of the entire American MMA landscape being held by Dana White and Jake Paul. If there’s one unequivocal negative to all of this, it’s how much harder Scott Coker’s life just became. $50 million in your pocket and a wide-open B-league to rebuild is a solid starting point. If the entire PFL roster just got locked down by a company that can dangle a potential timeslot on Netflix in front of a fighter’s face, I have no idea what Coker can do to compete.

I’ve spent years begging for someone to take up the opportunity presented by the state of the B-leagues. I fucking hate that it’s Jake Paul. I hope the sport survives the next five years. The merger closes on January 1, and thus begins our new, terrible future.

I really hate writing these, but not as much as I hate how often I have to write these. Anthony Smith, longtime UFC veteran, multiple-time main eventer, one-time championship contender and constant on-air analyst, was arrested on July 27th. It’s a domestic violence case, so if that’s going to bother you, rest assured that it’s pretty gross and you can move onto the next story. Otherwise: According to the police report, he was kicked out of a bar concert over a fight, when his wife refused to leave with him he threatened to kill her and forced her into his car, and, allegedly, he tried to hit her with the car after she hopped out of it.

The history of fighters having domestic violence incidents is as long as the history of combat sports and it never stops being deeply depressing. I don’t have anything smart to say about it save that I wish they weren’t joined at the fucking hip and I hope everyone involved gets help.

In less depressing/more funny legal news, hey: Remember the giant boondoggle ONE Championship went through this past April, with their biggest kickboxing fight ever in Rodtang vs Takeru 2 becoming an eleventh-hour legal drama wherein Rodtang accused ONE Of defrauding him and hiding his contract and ONE sued their own main-eventer right before the fight for breaching said contract and it all ended with everyone walking away unsatisfied?

Yeah, Rodtang re-signed with ONE on July 23. On his twenty-ninth birthday. And then he published a statement through his Facebook that was most definitely written by him in which he took all the blame and described ONE as a great company that never did anything wrong and pays him more than everyone says they do. I’m glad we all went through that together.

This isn’t exactly news, but bear with me. On July 25, Mike Davis fought at the UFC’s Abu Dhabi show and got wrestled into paste by Nurullo Aliev. This was not enormously unexpected, nor was Davis going on Twitter and having one of those old-school, mid-2000s meltdowns about how wrestling is gay and you should get fired if all you do is wrestle. Again: None of that is a surprise, up to and including when Davis apologizing to Aliev a few hours later. But there was a bit from the middle of his twitter rant that I think bears a closer look.

Im not bashing the @ufc
by anymeans.
But listen,
I have been ridiculed and demoted in a way for my fight against ziam. I was told that they didnt even want to resign me because I “pulled guard”.....
I’m not even joking.

It took me so long to get a fight because they had to push so hard to even get me a new contract.

Then I was told, I have to fight this kid the way I fought mason jones or sodiq Yusuf to keep my job.

You would have to be either incredibly credulous or not paying attention to miss that the UFC is putting its thumb on the scale and pressuring its fighters to compete in fan-friendly ways, which explains why all of the UFC’s commentary teams are perpetually baffled by the concept, but it is, like so many things, an unspoken phenomenon. You do not talk about it, the UFC does not acknowledge it, and everyone goes on pretending the sport is legitimate. But I do remember a certain angry red CEO recording a video in his backyard screaming about how EliteXC telling Seth Petruzelli to ‘make it exciting’ and not grapple against Kimbo Slice was, as he repeated very loudly, “fucking illegal.”

It should probably be a conversation that Mike Davis casually dropped in an entirely unrelated thread of tweets that the UFC froze him out for a year and then, once he was desperate, ordered him to fight to their specific liking if he wanted his job back. It should probably be a conversation that Mike Davis said this in relation to how it’s totally bullshit that someone beat him by spamming takedowns, rather than in relation to how unbelievably unethical it is to run the world’s biggest fight promotion that way.

Neither of those conversations are going to happen. But they really fucking should.

WHAT HAPPENED IN JULY

ONE Friday Fights 161 started things off on July 10, and they crammed most of the MMA into the early portion of the card. Former champ and 41 year-old retiree Eduard Folayang came back to give it one more shot against young, talented Shozo Isojima, and, contain your shock, Isojima knocked him out in one round. Strawweight champion Joshua Pacio also fought a rematch against Mansur Malachiev, whom he’d beaten by decision in 2023; in the present day Pacio choked him out in four and a half minutes, securing his second title defense in the process. Min Sung Kang also knocked out Yusei Iwakura in a rookie MMA fight that technically went higher on the card than the title because ONE’s format now is bizarre. There was a lot of kickboxing afterward. If you’re a diehard Jaradchai Maxjandee fan: Congratulations! He won.

One day later we got UFC 329: McGregor vs Holloway 2, which was a lot, in so, so many ways. Your very long card started with early prelims: Alessandro Costa choked out Cody Durden, Ryan Gandra effortlessly smashed Zach Reese, Farid Basharat outpointed John Garza, Damian Pinas knocked out César Almeida in the middle of Joe Rogan talking about how Damian Pinas wasn’t going to just knock out César Almeida, and Wang Cong took a decision over Tracy Cortez despite losing a point for illegally kneeing the crap out of her. On your regular prelims, Luke Riley knocked out Kai Kamaka III, Adrian Yañez punched out Cody Garbrandt in about two and a half minutes, Gable Steveson made his UFC debut by knocking out Elisha Ellison, and Robert Whittaker made his Light Heavyweight debut by breaking Nikita Krylov’s jaw. On your main card, King Green survived Terrance McKinney’s two and a half minutes of terror before knocking him out in the first, Brandon Royval denied Lone’er Kavanagh’s contendership dreams by choking him out, Mario Bautista won a close fight with Cory Sandhagen, and Paddy Pimblett continued to benefit from all of his opponents fighting like idiots, choking out a Benoît Saint Denis who decided to dive headfirst directly into the submission specialist’s waiting arms and get slept in under a minute. But all eyes were on the main event, as the UFC had spent the entire goddamn year hyping the return of Conor McGregor, who was definitely not on drugs, definitely taking all of this seriously, and definitely in the best fighting shape of his entire life. He promptly ran across the cage, threw a flying kick, ripped his ACL and meniscus apart in the first five seconds of the bout, and lost an injury stoppage sixty-nine seconds into the bout. His projected return is July 2027, so one year from now, we will do all of this again.

ONE Fight Night 45 kicked off the 17th, and Ayaka Miura lost, which means everything is stupid and I hate it. Victoria Souza beat her, and Ruslan Satiev got a decision over Sanzhar Zakirov, and Lee Seung Cheol got a decision over Bokang Masunyane, and Anastasia Nikolakakos got a decision over Jihin Radzuan, and Antonio Cesar got a decision over Lito Adiwang, and I am intentionally writing this in as boring and repetitive a fashion as possible because that’s what looking to ONE for MMA is like now. This is it. None of it means anything. For god’s sake, they have like ten fucking fighters under contract between 265 and 185 pounds. You cannot rise in the rankings by winning decisions because the rankings don’t exist. I am begging Chatri Sityodtong to put all of us out of his misery.

On the topic of misery, one day later, it was time for UFC Fight Night: du Plessis vs Usman. Critics are calling it one of the least necessary nights of fights in years. Does the phrase “Dione Barbosa chokes out Anna Melisano” mean anything to you? How about “RJ Harris knocks out Alvin “Goozie” Hines” or “Ezra Elliott has a successful debut” or jesus fucking christ how would you even know if I was making any of these up. This wasn’t even an Apex card, man. This was a road show. Jose Miguel Delgado vs Austin Bashi was a prelim headliner for a road show. The main card for your road show was Tommy McMillen knocking out Alberto Montes after three rounds of struggle, Fatima Kline dominating Tabatha Ricci, Chase Hooper missing weight but still choking out an overmatched Mitch Ramirez, and Christian Leroy Duncan needing a decision to best a 42 year-old Jared Cannonier. And your main event? Kamaru Usman going to 0-2 at Middleweight after inexplicably getting a title eliminator with former champion Dricus du Plessis that was mostly just Usman getting dribbled around the cage for twenty-five minutes.

But not to be outdone, that same day, the PFL brought you PFL Austin: Eblen vs Kasanganay 2. That’s right! Not only was it a card where only four out of eighteen fighters rate a Wikipedia page and your approval of the main card depends on how much you care about Caolán Loughran, Lewis McGrillen or Joey Ruquet--all of them lost, for the record, at the hands of Julio Arce, Rafael do Nascimento and Jesus Pinedo respectively--but the main event was an abrupt interim title for a division that doesn’t really need one AND it was a rematch. Johnny Eblen punched out Impa Kasanganay and now he’s the interim PFL Middleweight Champion, which is definitely a real belt.

The long triple-event weekend ended with Rizin Landmark 15. Rizin’s been on a tear of making their Landmark cards booked as big and splashy as their regular cards, so it’s both a little disappointing and a little refreshing that this brought them back down to their usual developmental pace--hell, more of the card were either rookies or journeymen than prospects. But that was fun, as it so often is with Rizin, and you got highlights like Johnny Case crushing Tenya Yoshimura in three minutes, or Yrysbek Tilenov taking out wrestling star Shinobu Ota, or, in my personal favorite, the first couple fights of Rizin’s tournament to fill the vacant throne at Women’s Atomweight, with Park Si-Woo beating Moeri Suda and Saori Oshima tapping Lee Ye-ji with a kneebar. Some folks will remember the card for national antihero icon Kyohei “Kenka Bancho” Hagiwara getting utterly destroyed by Karshyga Dautbek; most folks will remember it for Danny Sabatello defending his Bantamweight title by not just finally getting a finish in his knockout over Jinnosuke Kashimura, but for trying to Mario stomp him and having to be pushed away by the ref.

And the UFC wound down its month in Abu Dhabi with UFC Fight Night: Ankalaev vs Guskov on the 25th. I dunno, man. It wasn’t great, either. Abdul Hussein choked out Cody Gibson, Nurullo Aliev wrestled Mike Davis so hard he had a twitter meltdown that exposed the UFC forcing fighters to stand up for their money, Magomed Tuchalov somehow failed to finish Brendson Ribeiro and even lost a damn round, Axel Sola pretty effortlessly choked out Ismael Bonfim, Sam Patterson knocked out poor Santiago Ponznibbio, Muhammad Saidov kicked Dustin Jacoby to death, and Valter Walker hit an honest to god calf slicer on Thomas Petersen, which continues to force one to ask why the hell they’re not pushing him to the moon. Up top, Abubakar Vagaev won a fun back and forth with Saygid Izagakhmaev, Rizvan Kuniev stopped Tyrell Fortune in the third, Magomed Zanukov got a decision over Damian Rzepecki, and Ramazan Temirov finally came back from his steroid bust by knocking Steve Erceg out in one round. But the main event, which was supposed to be Magomed Ankalaev vs Khalil Rountree Jr., got swapped out at the last minute, and Bogdan Guskov got tagged in despite being barely top ten and extremely not ready, and the result was a slow fight where Guskov was constantly trying not to engage and Ankalaev was annoyedly potshotting him with very little difficulty, and ultimately Ank just started taking the Bogman down and pounding on him and the ref called a mercy rule stoppage.

ONE Friday Fights 164 came on the last day of the month, and to be honest, it’s not even over yet as I am writing this, but the there are only two MMA fights on the card and one of them was “African Spartan” Philemon Britus Jeb, coming off a victory over an 0-0 debutant, against Kevin Perdomo--Perdomo won--and the other was ONE 145-pound champ Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu losing his title to Elbek Alyshov after a second-round knockout. It was fun while it lasted, Enkh.

But the 31st also gave us PFL New York: Nurmagomedov vs Colgan. On one hand, the card broke my heart by seeing Raufeon Stots lose a close split against Lazaro Dayron and Montana De La Rosa, whom I still root for, dropping her own split against Tatiana Postarnakova. On the other, Moustapha Diakhate crushed the 2-0 Darryl “The Sacred Beast” Walker in a fight that was inexplicably on the main card, Amru Magomedov pounded out Angel Alvarez, Dakota Ditcheva pieced up Denise Kielholtz to an easy decision, and Usman Nurmagomedov retained his Lightweight title after knocking out the undefeated Archie Colgan in one round.

WHAT’S COMING IN AUGUST

We’re starting bright and early on the 1st with UFC Fight Night: Medić vs. Rodriguez. The UFC’s in Serbia, so they’ve booked every goddamn Serbian or Serbian-adjacent fighter they can. What, Jan Błachowicz and Mateusz Rębecki are Polish? Fuck it, it’s close enough. Oban Elliott’s a goddamn Welshman and he’s on the card, who cares. Hailey Cowan is fighting! Mark Vologdin is fighting! I am going to tell you that main card fights include Miloš Janičić vs Noah Gugnon, Vlasto Čepo vs Gilbert Urbina and Duško Todorović vs Robert Valentin, and you will have no idea if I am making any of it up, and my friend, I could not make it up if I tried. Aleksandar Rakić is trying out Heavyweight against Marcin Tybura, Jan’s fighting Navajo Stirling, and your main event, I swear, is Uroš Medić vs Daniel Rodriguez.

On the 7th, the PFL’s slow march towards its own demise continues with PFL Charlotte: Battle vs Rosta. Look, man: It’s fucking rough out there. It’s rough in the b-leagues. This is a show in an arena that seats almost 9,000 and its main card includes Lewis McGrillen--who just got choked out less than a month ago!--against Brandon Lewis, Valentin Moldavsky vs Bruno Cappelozza, Josh Silveira vs Aaron Jeffrey, and a main event featuring Bryan Battle, who is 0-1 in the PFL, against Dalton Rosta, who is 2-2 and on a two-fight losing streak. That’s the main event! That’s the best we can do right now. No wonder they’re selling.

But surely, things are better in the UFC! One day later you go back to the god damned Apex for UFC Fight Night: Gamrot vs Salkilld. As of this writing, this card is eight days away (I waited as long as I could!) and it still isn’t finalized. There are only eleven fights and there’s no bout order yet. Is Amanda Lemos vs Alexia Thainara the co-main event? Is it Diego Ferreira vs Billy Quarantillo? Or what about the returning Darren Elkins, for some reason, and Yadier del Valle? Louie Sutherland is having a Heavyweight fight with José Montanha, who has been fighting for a decade and somehow only just beat his first person with a winning record last August, so that’s dandy. Your main event is Mateusz Gamrot vs Quillan Salkilld, in the UFC’s eternal attempts to get Gamrot out of their hair.

That day also brings ONE Samurai 2, their second swing at their big new premiere-grade card. The first ONE Samurai card? 15 fights, several top MMA fights, one MMA title fight, and three kickboxing title fights concluding in the huge Rodtang/Takeru rematch. Samurai 2? Eight days out we have ten fights booked, there are only three MMA fights, two of them are rookie bouts, the only one that isn’t is Keito Yamakita vs Koyuru Tanoue--no hate, it should be fun--but zero title fights and a headliner between Masaaki Noiri and Liu Mengyang.

On the 11th--not a typo, Rizin’s putting on some weekday cards for once--we get Rizin 54: Koike vs Akimoto. Rizin’s throwing a bunch of its weird shit at this point. Rookie bouts? Check. Former contenders like Yuki Ito and Joji Goto fighting middle-eastern men with half their experience who are still favored to beat them? Check. The start of a Heavyweight tournament that features four men with bad records but not the winner of last year’s Heavyweight tournament who beat at least one of them? Check. Patchy Mix desperately trying to prove he still has some fight left in him despite getting stopped by Kyoma Akimoto just a few months ago? Check. Former Featherweight champ Kleber Koike Erbst trying to get back on the road to regaining his belt again by fighting the aforementioned Akimoto? You better believe that’s a check.

On August 14, it’s ONE Fight Night 46, and as is always the case I struggle to stay afloat in this world. There are two MMA bouts, one is an atomweight clash featuring Natalie Salcedo vs Magdalena Czaban and the other is Jhanlo Mark Sangiao vs Marcos Aurelio, and Nico Carrillo has a kickboxing bout and the main event is Stella Hemetsberger defending the Strawweight Muay Thai title against Natalia Diachkova. If you like it, have fun.

And one day later it’s UFC 330: Makhachev vs Machado Garry. This has a very solid main event and co-main event: In the latter, Mackenzie Dern defends the UFC Strawweight Championship against Gillian Robertson, and in the former, Islam Makhachev defends the Welterweight title against Ian Machado Garry. Those fights? Pretty cool. Everything else? Pretty lame. Jeremiah Wells is 1 for 3, but he’s fighting Myktybek Orolbai. Jalin Turner, fresh off his return, is up against Kauê Fernandes. Neil Magny vs Ramiz Brahimaj? Donte Johnson vs Eric McConico? Fuckin’ Vicente Luque vs Tresean Gore? It’s not great, my friends.

On the 22nd we go back to the PFL for PFL Tampa: Cyborg vs Vieira. Granted we’re grading the PFL on a curve, but it’s hard not to wonder if it’s a better card. Javid Basharat is making his PFL debut against Movsar Ibragimov, Marcirley Alves, fresh off his war with Naoki Inoue, takes on Gustavo Oliveira, top contender Magomed Magomedov faces Daniel Marcos after he was inexplicably cut by the UFC, Taila Santos is up against Sabrinna de Sousa, Gadzhi Rabadanov faces PFL Europe champion Jakub Kaszuba, and in your main event, after twenty-one years, Cris Cyborg is finally retiring with one last Featherweight title fight against fellow UFC cast-off Ketlen Vieira.

That same day, the UFC is in Sacramento for UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs Rodrigues. As a general rule, 170 pounds is a quality demarcator for a card. The more fights taking place under 170, the better it’ll probably be. The more fights you get over it, the more you should watch out. As of now, half of this card is big boys, and those fights include Wesley Schultz vs Jackson McVey, Kennedy Nzechukwu vs Shamil Gaziev, Serghei Spivac vs Vitor Petrino and Roman Dolidze vs Reinier de Ridder, so it’s unfortunate alllll the way down. Anthony Hernandez vs Gregory Rodrigues is a good main event, at least.

And we end the month back in Shanghai on the 29th for UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs Song. It’s--I mean, it’s a UFC China card. Aoriqileng is on it again, and so is Kai Asakura, but this time against each other. Sumudaerji is having a rematch with Alex Perez from the last time they fought in Shanghai. Julia Polastri is facing Xiong Jingnan. Junior Tafa is back, again, somehow, impossibly. Yan Xiaonan is fighting for the first time in a year and a half against Denise Gomes. Umar Nurmagomedov is going to face Song Yadong in the main event, to determine who has any chance of being relevant in the title picture.

CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Tom Aspinall - 15-3 (1), Either 1, 2 or 0 Defenses Depending On How You Look At It

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 he made his first undisputed one against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on October 26--and, because this division is fucking cursed, it ended in a No Contest after Gane poked him in both of his eyes at once. The UFC has decided this is mostly Tom’s fault, which has nothing at all to do with Tom’s dad talking about how he shouldn’t sign a new contract. A rematch has been vowed, but Tom had to get eye surgery to regain his sight and the UFC doesn’t want to wait when there’s marketing to be done, so Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira fought for an interim title at the godforsaken White House.

Interim Heavyweight Champion

Ciryl Gane - 14-2 (1), 0 Defenses

Five years ago, the UFC ran into issues with their undisputed Heavyweight champion and chose to end-run around them by putting an interim title on Ciryl Gane. It is 2026, and nothing has changed. With Tom out thanks to Ciryl’s fingertips piercing his eyeballs, Ciryl was rewarded with a big fight against Alex Pereira for the interim belt--again--at the UFC’s big, terrible White House super-event, in the not-so-subtle hopes that the UFC’s continuing attempts to put all their eggs in the Alex Pereira basket would pay off in the form of their first-ever three-division champion. Instead, Ciryl beat the crap out of him. At 205 pounds, Alex was a monster; at 265 he was slower, smaller and no longer possessed the biggest guns in the cage. Ciryl boxed him up and knocked him out in the second round, but in the process of getting the stoppage he dropped elbows on a fallen, shaky Pereira that hit the back of his head, over which Pereira is attempting to a) have the fight’s result reversed and b ) have referee Herb Dean fired. Ciryl Gane, meanwhile, continues to profit from everyone else’s misery. He’s the interim champ again, which means either he’s going to face Tom in a rematch when Tom’s healthy, or the UFC’s going to stop pretending and strip Tom and Ciryl will ascend to the Heavyweight throne on a trail of eyeballs and brainstems.

Light Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Carlos Ulberg - 14-1, 0 Defenses

It’s so hard not to skip to the punchline on this one. Carlos Ulberg’s combat sports career is more mixed than MMA alone would lead one to believe. He started as a mixed martial artist all the way back in 2011, but after winning his debut fight, he decided to give fighting a break for almost half a decade. Then it was boxing, and then it was MMA again, and then it was kickboxing, and for a brief period of time it was both at once. The rise of Israel Adesanya led the UFC on an all-out talent search for big, credible strikers from Oceania, and that is how despite being just 3-0 as a mixed martial artist, Carlos wound up on the Contender Series in 2020, and just a few months later, in March of 2021, he was debuting in the UFC. They hyped him, they gave him a spot on the pay-per-view prelims, they booked him against the 1-1 Kennedy Nzechukwu and despite having half his experience Ulberg was the heavy betting favorite, because everyone knew they wanted him on top. Which was unfortunate, because Kennedy knocked him out in two rounds. Carlos described the loss as the most important moment of his career--half for the lesson of the loss itself, half for the $50,000 bonus that gave him his first taste of actual profit as a professional. He vowed to take his career more seriously, he vowed to prepare for his fights as though every one mattered rather than simply being happy to be in the UFC, and four years later, he was the top contender for the Light Heavyweight crown. A testament to determination and a good mindset? Absolutely! But also a bit of a testament to the careful cultivation and protection of a prospect. Carlos did his job and beat everyone the UFC put in front of him, but the people put in front of him tended to be carefully picked. At one point he beat a genuine prospect in Nicolae Negumereanu, and the UFC followed it up by giving him Ihor Potieria, the man Nicolae had just knocked out in his previous fight. Stiff prospects like Aleksandar Rakić and Azamat Murzakanov flew past in the background, but Da Woon Jung and Alonzo Menifield had to be destroyed. The UFC spent a year and a half trying on three separate occasions to book Ulberg against Dominick Reyes, and by the time they finally got there, it was, somehow, impossibly, a title eliminator. But Ulberg won, just as he’d won every fight since his meeting with Kennedy Nzechukwu, and he proceeded to his title fight with Jiří Procházka for the championship Alex Pereira had left behind to try his hand at the Heavyweight division. It was fun, it was fast, it was dramatic and it was definitive. In just a hair under four minutes, Jiří was flat on the canvas and Carlos Ulberg, five years after his debut, was the Light Heavyweight champion of the world. He also very visibly tore his ACL in half right in the middle of the fight and could barely move. If Jiří had simply backed away, hacked a few leg kicks and kept his distance, the fight would’ve been stopped between rounds, but he chose to engage and got flattened by a left hook counter for his troubles, and the result was a brand new titleholder who proceeded directly to the emergency room after the fight and had knee surgery less than a week later. For the third time in six title reigns, the new champion has an injury so bad it will prevent them from defending their title for at least the rest of the year. Will we get an interim title? Will yet another champion have to give up the gold? Will Paulo fucking Costa wind up technically a 205-pound champion? Stay tuned.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Sean Strickland - 31-7, 0 Defenses

After all of that time, we are back where we were. When Sean Strickland got his first shot at the UFC Middleweight Championship back in 2023, it was under particularly thin circumstances. Strickland had just come off back-to-back losses against Alex Pereira and Jared Cannonier, his title prospects seemed slim, and a short-notice victory over the then-unheralded Nassourdine Imavov and one-fight UFC veteran Abus Magomedov seemed unlikely to get Strickland anywhere. But then Dricus du Plessis wanted another month to prepare for Israel Adesanya, and the UFC wanted to keep their pay-per-view main event, and suddenly, Sean Strickland was beating one of the sport’s biggest stars and becoming its top Middleweight. It was a stellar performance, it was a career-defining victory, and it was one of the shortest title reigns in UFC history, as just four months later Strickland lost the belt to du Plessis in his first defense. But it was a split decision, so his argument for a rematch was sound, and after a pretty dubious win over Paulo Costa, Strickland got du Plessis back in the cage, where he vowed vengeance, justice, and a return to greatness. Dricus beat him 50-45. It would be a full year before Strickland returned, and in that time, the Middleweight division had changed shape. Nassourdine Imavov was in pole position. Israel Adesanya was a shadow of his former self. Anthony Hernandez was the fastest-rising contender in the class. And Strickland’s nemesis Dricus du Plessis had lost his title to Khamzat Chimaev. On February 21, 2026, on the back of a bunch of bigot bullshit that was growing ever-more tired by the day, Sean returned to the cage and walked right through Hernandez, not just beating him but knocking him out in the third round, and just like that, Imavov’s work didn’t matter, Dricus beating Sean twice didn’t matter. The UFC has its favorites, and Sean got the shot. Khamzat, as he did, hadn’t fought in nine months, and had been busying himself making threats about moving to Light Heavyweight and chasing a superfight with Alex Pereira, who had, himself, already moved up to Heavyweight altogether. Chimaev swore he would outwrestle Sean, smash him, and move on with his life. And for one round, he looked completely correct. After the first, suddenly, Strickland evened things up. Khamzat was never able to assert his wrestling game again, so the rest of the title fight became a boxing match, and in that sense, it was surprisingly even, with Khamzat arguably landing the bigger punches but Strickland landing at a higher clip, and the scorecards were split right down the middle. But the coinflip went Sean’s way. For the second time, Sean Strickland is a world champion, and we are all bastards for it. A rematch seems almost inevitable, but Sean has a shoulder injury to rehabilitate, so we’ll see what the future holds.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Islam Makhachev - 28-1, 0 Defenses

The prophecy has been fulfilled. Khabib Nurmagomedov was considered by many to be the greatest Lightweight of all time, but in the later stages of his career he began to repeatedly reference his lifetime friend and training partner Islam Makhachev as not just his successor, but the man who would break the mold he’d left behind. And the fanbase was more than willing to buy another Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov protege coming in and wrecking shop--until he got knocked out by Adriano Martins. Khabib’s aura of invulnerability came from the simple, so-obvious-more-people-should-try-it factor of simply never losing a damn fight. When Islam got torched in under two minutes by a man that couldn’t beat Donald Cerrone, that aura vanished. A lot of folks still thought he could be a champion, but most felt the greatest-of-all-time lane was closed to him. It turns out there’s another way to regain that sense of unbeatable awe, though: Just don’t lose for so goddamn long people forget it ever happened. In the ten full years since that Martins bout, Islam has not lost a single fight. Most of the time, he hasn’t even lost a round. He worked his way up the Lightweight ladder and began to rack up incredible achievements. He tore through top prospects with virtually no effort, he choked out one of the best MMA grapplers ever in Charles Oliveira, he outlasted and later knocked out one of the two men with a claim to the all-time Featherweight crown in Alexander Volkanovski, he choked out Dustin Poirier and he broke the Lightweight title defense record after stomping Renato Moicano. And then he traded in his record-breaking reign to challenge for Welterweight gold. Jumping divisions is always difficult, but the 15-pound leap from Lightweight to Welterweight is a mountain, and no Lightweight champion had ever managed it. Even BJ Penn, the canonical first man to hold gold at both, had to do it in reverse: He failed at both of his attempts to win Lightweight gold and shocked the world by abruptly taking it at Welterweight instead, and it would be five more years before he finally got his shit together and won a title in the division that made him famous. His subsequent attempts all ended in defeat, half because Matt Hughes and Georges St-Pierre were both great and half because BJ was just a Lightweight. Even though Islam was Islam and widely agreed to be a monster in the cage, Jack Della Maddalena had won the Welterweight title with some of the cleanest boxing the UFC had seen, and his championship victory over wrestler Belal Muhammad had people convinced that Islam, at best, would struggle. They met in the main event of UFC 322 on November 15, 2025, and there was absolutely no struggle. Islam kicked Jack’s leg to pieces, landed some surprisingly big punches, and took the fight to the ground almost at will, and by the time the fight ended, it felt like Jack never had a chance. The shadow has been stepped out of. Islam Makhachev is a two-division champion. And now he has a brand new horde of contenders beating down his door. He’ll try to notch his first defense against Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330 on August 15.

Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Justin Gaethje - 28-5, 0 Defenses

This has been a long, long time coming. Justin Gaethje has been right on the edge of the top for so long he banked two half-championships on his way up the mountain. Back in 2016, before the UFC even signed him, he was the champion of the World Series of Fighting--now known as the Professional Fighters League, much to our collective sadness--and was widely considered one of the best Lightweights in the world before ever setting foot in the Octagon. Back in 2020 he fought Tony Ferguson, then arguably the scariest Lightweight in the world, and beat him so horrifically that his career never recovered, and that netted Gaethje his first interim belt, which he promptly lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov in the latter’s retirement bout. Back in 2022, Gaethje got his second shot at the undisputed title against Charles Oliveira and he wound up strangled in three and a half minutes. Three and a half years after that, Gaethje was still right there at the precipice of the top, Ilia Topuria needed a break from the sport, and the UFC needed an aging veteran to propel their marketing star Paddy Pimblett to the top, and at UFC 324 on January 24, 2026, they threw Paddy’s big party and Justin crashed it. The UFC will tell you the fight was close, and it was in the sense that it went the whole way and one judge only gave Justin three rounds, but Paddy got brutally beaten and dropped repeatedly. With their desired player having failed his final exam, the UFC booked Gaethje into the main event of their big, terrible White House card against the finally-returning Ilia Topuria, who vowed to put Gaethje out within two rounds and resume his journey to a Welterweight showdown with Islam Makhachev. Instead, the two men had a goddamn war, with both hurting each other repeatedly and Topuria, arguably, giving away a TKO victory in the second round after crumpling Gaethje with bodyshots and choosing to roll for an armbar rather than pound him out. Gaethje broke Topuria’s face and left him nearly blind, and by the end of the fourth round, Topuria had nothing left and his corner threw in the towel. It took ten years, two interim belts and two failed shots, but finally, Justin Gaethje is the champion of the world. Which makes whatever happens next really fucking weird. They could run a Topuria rematch, but the ending was definitive and Topuria never defended the belt in the first place. They could have Gaethje fight rematches with Oliveira or Max Holloway, both of whom stopped him in the recent past, but Gaethje is hesitant about them and Holloway is booked against Conor McGregor. I’m sure they would LOVE it if Conor won so he could fight Gaethje instead, but that seems drastically unlikely. Arman Tsarukyan is, as ever, the #1 contender, but we know the UFC doesn’t care about that. My guess: Paddy Pimblett rematch.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 28-4, 1 Defense

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’ve been Movsar Evloev, but the UFC was busy trying to get 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 wasn’t done yet, so Noche UFC 3 got moved to the most Mexican of places, Las Vegas, in October, and Alex’s manager said he had an eye injury that needs time to heal, so he took the rest of 2025 off. Good news, though: That left time for the UFC to get new contenders going. Lerone Murphy wound up fighting and knocking out Pico! Aljamain Sterling beat Brian Ortega! Hell, Movsar Evloev is still right there! The UFC looked at all of them and gave them all the finger. At UFC 325 on January 31, fresh off his title victory over Diego Lopes, Alexander Volkanovski had his first title defense against Diego Lopes. Unsurprisingly, the guy who beat Diego Lopes beat Diego Lopes again. The UFC had Evloev and Murphy fight in March and Evloev won a contentious decision, and now Jean Silva is lobbying as hard as possible for the fight, so we’ll see who gets it.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Petr Yan - 20-5, 0 Defenses

Petr Yan’s road to the top has been incredibly circuitous. When Yan initially won the Bantamweight title back in 2020, no one was particularly surprised. He’d been one of the best in the world for years, he’d put together a six-fight winning streak on his road to the title shot, and the UFC had fed aging legend Urijah Faber to him in an attempt to make him a known quantity. Felling an even greater legend in José Aldo and taking the belt felt like an entirely expected passing of the torch, and a long reign as the division’s standardbearer seemed all but assured. And then, as they so often do, things went wrong. In quite possibly the most infamous title change in UFC history, Yan became the first champion to ever lose his title by disqualification after drilling Aljamain Sterling in the face with an illegal knee. Yan’s team cried foul and the world turned on Sterling, but when they had their rematch a year later, Sterling beat him by decision and that was that. But it was a split decision, and it was close, so the UFC gave Yan another theoretical title eliminator with Sean O’Malley, and this time the world was almost unanimously convinced Yan won--except for two of the three judges, who split in O’Malley’s favor. To top it off, Yan’s attempt to stay in the contendership conversation ran into the brick wall that was the rising Merab Dvalishvili, who handed him the most one-sided loss of his entire life. In the space of two years, Petr Yan went from being perceived as a generational champion to 1 for his last 5 and seemingly eliminated from contendership. After a year off to cope with injuries, reassess his career and figure out how to turn things around, Yan proceeded to take the path that most commonly leads to success: Just fucking beating everyone. He battered Song Yadong, he outpunched Deiveson Figueiredo, he won an exceedingly weirdly-booked matchup with Marcus McGhee, and suddenly, he was on a winning streak and right back in contendership. It might have taken him longer to get an actual title fight were it not for Merab Dvalishvili being a crazy person. Merab was on the greatest championship run the division had ever seen, and after clearing out most of his to contenders and recording a blistering three defenses in a single year, he announced his intention to break a UFC record and cement himself as the greatest 135-pounder of all time by recording a fourth--just two months after the last one--and Petr Yan was available and ready. The world saw the fight as a foregone conclusion, given how one-sided their first match had been, and the world was wrong. Yan put on the best performance of his career, not just battering Merab but outwrestling him, and in one of the best career comebacks we’ve seen, almost five years after he’d given it away, Petr Yan got his title back. He’s on top of the world again, and in all likelihood, the rubber match with Merab will be next. But it’s gonna have to wait until the second half of the year, because Yan’s having back surgery.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Van - 17-2, 1 Defense

It would be disrespectful as hell to Joshua Van to say that no one saw this coming, as many people perceived it as a possibility, but I don’t think anyone saw it coming like this. Van was the Flyweight champion of the Fury Fighting Championships when the UFC came calling, as a 21 year-old regional titleholder with a penchant for collecting knockouts despite fighting at 125 pounds so thoroughly ticks all of their boxes that Van couldn’t have been a more perfect fit without also having a history of racist tweets, and his Contender Series debut was set for August of 2023. But the UFC needed someone to fill in against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, so Van got called up to the big show early and proceeded to justify their faith by beating Zhalgas, and then beating the man he was originally slated to Contend against, and then facing off with Legacy Fighting Alliance champ Felipe Bunes and handing him the first TKO loss of his entire career. In the space of six months, Van went from a little-known regional fighter to a borderline-ranked Flyweight in the UFC. And then he got atomized by Charles Johnson. It was the second loss of Van’s career, the first time he’d ever been knocked out, and the snapping of an eight-fight winning streak, and in many cases, that would’ve permanently ended his momentum. But Van was smart enough to learn from his mistakes, and the UFC was invested enough in him to bring him back up to speed with a gentle hand, and eleven months later he was on a four-fight winning streak again and had successfully made his way to the top ten after knocking out Bruno Silva, which left him in the perfect position to take advantage of an abrupt opportunity. Top contender Brandon Royval had just lost his opponent and needed a replacement, and Van was game to fight for the second time in three weeks if it meant a shot at the belt. It was a close bout, and if Van hadn’t knocked Royval down at the end of the third round he may well have lost, but he did, so he didn’t, and suddenly the prospect was next in line for the title. All but one month of Joshua Van’s UFC career took place during Alexandre Pantoja’s reign as the Flyweight king. His streak was monstrous and he was a sizable favorite coming into his defense against Van, but many were waiting to see if Van’s boxing could defuse Pantoja’s aggression. As it turns out: We’re gonna have to wait a bit longer. Twenty-six seconds into the bout Pantoja busted his own arm on the mat after a head kick gone awry. So Van’s the champion, but it’s under some real weird circumstances, and it means a number of people are immediately gunning for him. Alexandre Pantoja presumably has a rematch as soon as he’s back, but Tatsuro Taira just pounded Brandon Moreno out and got his crack at Van at UFC 327 on April 11. It was an amazing fight, but ultimately, Van got the knockout in the final round.

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--actually, this got delayed so much it’s only now finally booked for UFC 324 on January 24, 2026--maybe never? A couple weeks before the superfight Kayla had to pull out for apparently fairly major neck surgery. No word on when she’ll be back or what on Earth happens now.

Women’s Flyweight, 125 lbs

Valentina Shevchenko - 26-4-1, 2 Defenses

After almost two years of suffering, we have gone back to the start. At the end of 2022 Valentina Shevchenko was so thoroughly ensconced as The Greatest Women’s Flyweight that a sizable segment of the fanbase had built an honest-to-god antipathy for her over it. Sure, she won, all the time, and sure, her only losses in almost a decade and a half came to the greatest of all time in Amanda Nunes, and sure, Shevchenko arguably won their second fight, but familiarity breeds contempt, and after watching the purported greatest struggle with a split decision to Taila Santos that could easily have gone the other way, too, a big chunk of the mixed martial world was ready to move on from Val. And then, unexpectedly, it did. Valentina was a -900 favorite when Alexa Grasso shocked the world, choked her out, and took her title away on March 4, 2023. An instant rematch was obligatory, given Val’s long history on top, so half a year later they ran it back at Noche UFC in 2023, and, awkwardly, it ended in a draw. If the rematch had been obligatory, the threematch was mandatory, but a hand injury on Val’s part and the UFC’s desire to put an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter behind their promotion meant a full twelve months passed before they got back in the cage. That’s a long goddamn time, and it left a lot of air, and that air was filled by doubt. Alexa won the first fight, after all--but she was on her way to losing a decision before Valentina made a costly mistake, threw one of her trademark nowhere-close-to-landing spinning back kicks, and got immediately jumped on and choked out for her troubles. Alexa didn’t lose the second fight--but based on the scorecards, she should have, and would have, were it not for one judge handing her a completely indefensible 10-8 in the final round. When the third fight came on September 14, 2024, it was seen as Alexa’s chance to cement her legacy: Either she was the superior fighter and the herald of a new generation for Women’s Flyweight, or the whole thing was just a weird episode. Unfortunately for Alexa, it was the latter. Valentina dominated her. She outstruck her and outwrestled her with almost comical ease, the fight was a complete shutout, and despite their series being now tied at 1-1-1, no one has any doubts about the winner, nor any desire to see them fight again. Once again, much to the internet’s chagrin, Valentina Shevchenko is a champion. 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 was a long-awaited champion vs champion affair against Zhang Weili at UFC 322 on November 15, 2025. After years of watching Zhang dominate her competition, the world felt she had genuine double-champ potential and could be the woman to unseat Valentina. As it turned out: Not even close. Val dominated her in every aspect of the game, Zhang got completely shut out, and her Flyweight hopes are dead in the water. Valentina has multiple title defenses again and is now tied with Amanda Nunes and Anderson Silva for the fourth-most wins in title fights in UFC history. We’ll have to see who they give to her next, but Natália Silva feels like a safe bet.

Women’s Strawweight, 115 lbs

Mackenzie Dern - 16-5, 0 Defenses

On a long enough timeline, the house always wins. Mackenzie Dern signed with the UFC as a 5-0 fighter all the way back in 2018 and they’ve been trying to get a belt on her ever since. She came into mixed martial arts with a pre-existing pedigree as one of the more decorated women in the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Gi championships, no-gi championships, pan-Am championships, Asian open championships, world championships, ADCC championships, she took them all. And the UFC marketed her as a grappling champion who was bringing some of the best submission offense in the sport to the Strawweight division! But they also marketed her as an extremely conventionally attractive woman who frequently wore bathing suits. It was one of the touchiest things to comment on with her career: Where other women would have to struggle for their matchmaking and featured spots, Mackenzie’s opportunities kept coming, and they were almost always on the main broadcast and, on multiple occasions, in the main event slots women almost never received. And she needed them, because despite being legitimately quite good, she just wasn’t great. She could make it into the top fifteen, and sometimes even brush the top ten, but every time they tried to get Mackenzie into title contention, she’d falter. It was Amanda Ribas in 2019, it was Marina Rodriguez in 2021, and between 2022 and 2024, Mackenzie had the worst run of her life, winning only one out of four bouts, getting shut down by Yan Xiaonan and Amanda Lemos, and taking the first stoppage loss of her career after being knocked out by Jéssica Andrade. She managed to get her way back up the ladder again by outgrappling Loopy Godinez and submitting a struggling Amanda Ribas in a six-years-belated rematch, but with so many losses to top contenders, her path to the title still seemed closed. Then a funny thing happened: Zhang Weili gave up the Strawweight belt to move up to Flyweight and challenge Valentina Shevchenko. Suddenly, the door was wide open. And conveniently, the UFC had booked all the women who beat Mackenzie into other matches, leaving Mackenzie with just one contender left--and it was Virna Jandiroba, a career grappler whom Mackenzie had already beaten back in 2020. The two met at UFC 321 on October 25, and after seven years of effort, the UFC finally got its way. Mackenzie beat Virna again, fair and square, in a close and hard-fought but ultimately clear decision. She is, at last, the Strawweight Champion of the World. And she’s in the exceptionally weird position of being a newly-minted champion that has very recently lost to several of her own top contenders. One would think, Zhang Weili having been soundly thwomped by Valentina Shevchenko in her bid for 125-pound supremacy, she would be back at Strawweight to reclaim her crown. Instead she’s MIA and Mackenzie will defend her title against Gillian Robertson at UFC 330 on August 15.

NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Luiz Gustavo - 16-4, 0 Defenses

Sunrise, sunset. Luiz Gustavo is not new to Rizin. He made his debut all the way back in 2018, when he was an undefeated, 8-0 22 year-old who’d only barely started fighting real competition down in Katana Fight. Rizin threw him straight into a main event in the hopes of completing the ascension of their rising star Yusuke Yachi, who’d just capped off a six-fight winning streak that included torch-passing matches with Japanese legends like Satoru Kitaoka and Takanori Gomi. Gustavo was supposed to be Yachi’s victim. Instead he knocked Yachi out in two rounds. Suddenly, Gustavo was the star and the man folks had flagged as Rizin’s next big Lightweight champion. He proceeded to go 1-3 over the next year, which culminated in the first knockout loss of his life against Patricky Pitbull and, ultimately, an almost three-year hiatus while the world struggled with COVID. When Rizin tried to get back to its wholly-international ways in 2022, they had Yusuke Yachi waiting for a rematch, and once again, Gustavo knocked him dead in two rounds. In two years Luiz had a winning streak and a shot at longtime champion Roberto “Satoshi” de Souza, and the world expected a classic striker-vs-grappler clash. Satoshi shocked him with a right hand and knocked him out in twenty seconds. Having lost his shot, and followed it with an unsuccessful bout against Shunta Nomura, Gustavo’s hopes for the top of the heap were so distant that Rizin booked him into a fight with living legend Kazushi Sakuraba’s son, the 2-1 Taisei. Gustavo punched him out in seven and a half minutes. Barely two months later, Rizin needed a challenger to stand opposite Ilkhom Nazimov, the man who had unseated Satoshi during their big New Year’s Eve special, and Luiz was available. Once again, the world underestimated him, and once again, they were wrong. Luiz punched Nazimov out in two minutes to finally take his title home.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Razhabali Shaydullaev - 18-0, 3 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 was Shaydullaev making his first defense against Viktor Kolesnik at Rizin 51 on September 28: He knocked Kolesnik out in just thirty-three seconds. His successful murders got him the main event of 2025’s Japanese New Year’s MMA special, where Rizin secretly hoped their big national star Mikuru Asakura would get the job done; Shaydullaev chain-suplexed him, grounded him, and laid an unconscionable amount of ground and pound on him in one of those Japan-likes-to-let-its-heroes-die moments before the ref finally called the fight in just shy of three minutes. Shaydullaev’s the best guy in the company, and now there’s a question of what’s left for him to do. For now, inexplicably, the answer was carrying the murder of the 5-2 Yuta Kubo at Rizin Landmark 13 on April 11, which is wild because they already fought at the end of 2024 and Shaydullaev destroyed him in seven and a half minutes. Try to control your shock: This time it only took Shaydullaev four. He’s the centerpiece of the Rizin/PFL crosspromotion, now: He’ll face the PFL’s top Featherweight, A.J. McKee, in the main event of Super Rizin 5, with the winner taking home the Featherweight title for both companies.

Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Danny Sabatello - 19-4-1, 2 Defenses

When Naoki Inoue won Rizin’s Bantamweight title I wrote that Rizin was one step closer to its dream of an all-Japanese championship roster, and it’s fitting that as gaijin once again take over the majority of the championship belts in the biggest organization in Japan, Danny goddamn Sabatello is one of the men to do it. Sabatello has been dogged by a reputation as a grinding wrestler without a ton to offer since 2020, when he got the call to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series, won, and was notably not offered a contract on the grounds of Boring Grappler. He made the move to late-stage Bellator instead, where he attempted to establish himself as their own personal Chael Sonnen: An indefatigable wrestling machine whose mouth ran just as hard as his double-legs. But it never quite caught on. The talk seemed a bit forced, the wrestling wasn’t that fun to watch, and all his 1980s wrestling promos about the bums in Bellator’s Bantamweight Grand Prix ended with an elimination at the hands of Raufeon Stots. Sabatello swore he’d won and that he’d get revenge; instead he ended his Bellator tenure getting choked out by Magomed Magomedov, decisioned again by Stots, and losing out on a shot at the PFL after going to a draw with Lazaro Dayron, who would’ve won the decision were it not for a point deduction. It was a bit of a shock when Sabatello signed with Rizin in 2025, but it seemed to have paid off when he scored his first knockout in six years during his debut against Shinobu Ota and swore he’d reinvent himself as Japan’s new American superstar. Then he went back to wrestling. It was still enough to get him his shot at Inoue’s belt at 2025’s New Year’s special, and despite the common wisdom of judging favoritism, a very close split decision went Danny’s way. It took three years longer than he intended, but Danny Sabatello is holding gold. Now we see if he can, in fact, become Big In Japan. His first title defense was against Joji Goto at Rizin Landmark 13 on April 11, and, unsurprisingly, he wrestled Goto to a broad decision. After a lot of public threats from Rizin CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara about terminating his contract if he didn’t stop winning by decision, because, in their heart of hearts, every MMA promoter is Dana White, Danny gave the boss what he wanted by knocking the fuck out of Jinnosuke Kashimura on July 18. It’s seeming likely a rematch with Naoki Inoue will be next.

Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Makoto Takahashi - 23-5-1 (1), 0 Defenses

Oh, buddy, Rizin has wanted this one for years. Anytime a fighter with an above-average winning rate successfully gets their name replaced with a nickname it means the marketing power is strong with them, and within one fight in Rizin, no one called him Takahashi anymore. Japanese MMA is perpetually desperate for young national stars, and they knew almost immediately that Makoto Shinryu was their guy. By July of 2023 Shinryu was already 16-1-1 despite having just turned 23, he was the most-hyped male prospect in the country, and he was uniquely positioned to take over the world, as Rizin and Bellator were in the middle of their historical co-promotion days, and Bellator was inaugurating its Flyweight title with a match between Shinryu and top dog Kyoji Horiguchi. It ended with Kyoji unintentionally poking Makoto in the eye in twenty-five seconds. It took half a year to get the rematch together, and this time it was for Rizin’s Flyweight title, and Kyoji choked Shinryu out in two rounds. This marked the beginning of Shinryu’s career hitting speedbumps, as after almost seven years of constant victory, it’d be two years before he managed back-to-back wins again. Hiromasa Ougikubo, Jose Torres and Yuki Motoya all turned Shinryu away by decision, the last of which knocked him out of the Flyweight Grand Prix to fill the throne Horiguchi abdicated to return to the UFC. Ougikubo ultimately won the tournament and the title, but wins over Hiroya Kondo and Nkazimulo Zulu were enough for Rizin’s brass to put Shinryu right back in the title conversation, because, well, that’s what they wanted in the first place. They were right, too. Three years after his first failed attempt at grasping gold, Shinryu took Ougikubo the distance and took his belt home. There may have been detours along the way, but he’s got the title everyone felt he was destined for. Now we get to watch him try to keep it.

Rizin Women’s Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

VACANT - The source of life and death

The world has long wondered who or what could beat Seika Izawa, and as it turns out, the answer is childbirth. At Rizin Landmark 13 on April 12, 2026, Seika took to the ring and announced her pregnancy and, accordingly, her hiatus from the sport. After four straight years as the undisputed best Atomweight in the world, the queen has abdicated the throne. She vowed to one day return and take back the belt from whichever unlucky woman gets it in her absence, but obviously there’s no timeline for said return, nor should there be. All eyes now turn to the rest of Rizin’s Atomweight division, which is, like, four people. Ayaka Hamasaki’s back in Rizin, but she got armbarred pretty easily by the debuting Natasha Kuziutina. Moeri Suda and Saori Oshima are always around on loan from DEEP. I’m sure they’d love to belt up RENA, but she spends half of her time closer to Strawweight. It’s a loss for mixed martial arts, we are all happy for Seika and wish her well, and god bless Rizin, which can never, ever have a full complement of champions.

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs

ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs

VACANT - The inevitable end of hubris

We were always destined to end here. ONE’s heavier title belts have always been more suggestion than reality. All three have seen at most five champions apiece in their decade-plus of existence--in Light Heavyweight’s case it’s just four, which makes sense, as after ten goddamn years there have been exactly five Light Heavyweight title fights. The belt-padding era began in earnest when ONE made Reinier de Ridder the double-champion over a division that barely existed, and when he fell on hard times with ONE management, they one-upped him by having Heavyweight champion Anatoly Malykhin drop to 225 and 205 thereafter just to beat him out of the company entirely. Over the past two years there was exactly one championship fight across all three weight classes, and it saw Oumar “Reug Reug” Kane take Malykhin’s Heavyweight title away, and it was a portent of the future that Marcus Buchecha won #1 contendership on that same night and opted to leave the company rather than fight for its title. Kane and Malykhin wouldn’t have their scheduled rematch until May 15, 2026, when Malykhin got his revenge by knocking out an exhausted Kane in the fourth round. Having won back his belt, he retired immediately, and in so doing rendered 1/3 of ONE’s MMA championships vacant. I’d bet we will, eventually, see another Heavyweight champion in ONE; I doubt we’ll ever see the other two belts again.

ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs

Christian Lee - 18-4 (1), 0 Defenses

ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs

Christian Lee - 18-4 (1), 1 Defense

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, 2024--and it ended in a No Contest after two rounds thanks to Christian unintentionally gouging Rasulov’s eye. They ran it back almost a full year later at ONE 173 on November 16, 2025, and this time Lee knocked him out in the second round, marking Lee’s first win in three years.

ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Tang Kai - 20-4, 2 Defenses

Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China’s WBK (after investigating, we THINK it’s World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz “Ong Bak” Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai’s weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai’s Dragon Gym and Phuket’s legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It’s worked out quite well: He hasn’t lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China’s Rebel FC got ONE’s attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he’s held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare, and 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 cut Abdullaev anyway rather than give him another shot. After almost another year and a half of inactivity Tang Kai finally defended his title on May 15, this time knocking out Shamil Gasanov.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

Elbek Alyshov - 10-0, 0 Defenses

You know, Bantamweight was one of ONE’s best divisions. The higher weight classes were always troubled, but Bantamweight thrived with activity and Kim Soo-chul, Martin Nguyen, John Lineker--hell, Bibiano Fernandes, one of the best fighters to never take a shot at the UFC, remains the all-time greatest, champion in ONE history. But things ain’t what they used to be. Bibi alone had eleven title fights in five years. Since 2022, there have now been five Bantamweight title fights altogether. John Lineker took it from Bibi, the scale took it away from him, Fabrício Andrade picked the bones and waited almost two full years to defend the title once, and in his second attempt in 2025, Mongolian wrestler Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu choked it out of him. By then, Elbek Alyshov was already waiting, but waiting was something he’d gotten used to. He turned pro back in 2017, realized he wasn’t ready, and bumped back down to the amateur scene, only re-emerging three years later as a finished product after winning the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation Junior Championship. He made a name for himself as a standout in Moscow’s regional fight scene, but had to take another three-year hiatus from the sport after chronic health conditions grounded him. He finally joined ONE in 2025, rattled off two submission wins in two months, and had to sit and wait for another eight months before finally getting his shot at the top of the mountain. He didn’t waste it. Alyshov knocked Baatarkhuu flat in a round and a half to take the Bantamweight title home. Now he waits to see if ONE can book him more than once a year.

ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs

Avazbek Kholmirzaev - 16-2, 0 Defenses

There’s a certain kind of tragedy in winning a championship during what certainly seems to be the waning days of a promotion’s time with mixed martial arts. Avazbek Kholmirzaev is by no means new to ONE, his title victory came a whole eleven fights into his time on their roster, but he spent a great deal of that time nigh-unto invisible. He got his start in his native country’s Uzbekistan MMA Association, but like so many of his countrymen, the successes that built his career came from the bigger, more popular Alash Pride FC, Kazakhstan’s biggest promotion, which is large, well-populated, and also the kind of bullshit record-padding organization that books main events between promising prospects and 5-11 guys who mysteriously always lose within three minutes. But he was on the positive side of the equation, and he knocked people out with spinning kicks, so ONE scouted him for their expansion across the East and he proved to be a natural fit--for the prelims. Avazbek almost never left the first few fights of the cards he was booked on, right up to his championship-opportunity-earning victory over no less than the 11-10 Jeremy Miado this past December curtain-jerking an Amazon Prime card, and an unkind man would probably intimate that his shot at Yuya Wakamatsu’s Flyweight Championship was an attempt to get Yuya a win, being as it was ONE’s big Ariake Arena show in Tokyo and they were attempting to showcase as much of their Japanese talent as possible. It was going well for Yuya right up until he ate a spinning elbow to the dome and went down in a heap just moments before the second round was about to end. Avazbek is a champion and he should be duly proud, and now we’re just left to see what being an MMA champion in ONE means in 2026.

ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Pacio - 24-5, 2 Defenses

It’s been a difficult couple of years for Joshua Pacio. “The Passion” stands as a true veteran of ONE Championship, having made his debut--and his first, unsuccessful attempt at winning the Strawweight title--all the way back in 2016. Pacio established himself as both a fan favorite and a solid promotional favorite for the company, and when he lost his second bid for the title against Yosuke Saruta in 2019, ONE, in a trick they’d become very friendly with over the years, gave him an instant rematch anyway. Pacio knocked Saruta out in the rematch and became easily the greatest 125-pound champion in ONE history, ultimately defending the title three times--including a trilogy match against Saruta. By 2022, Pacio was a crown jewel for ONE’s lineup. Which is when he promptly got wrestled into paste by UFC cast-off Jarred Brooks. Rather than having him defend the title, ONE booked Brooks into grappling matches, and in the meantime Pacio fought and defeated undefeated prospect Mansur Malachiev to earn himself a rematch. Multiple delays ensued, but on March 1, the Brooks/Pacio rematch finally came. Fifty-six seconds in, Pacio attempted a standing kimura on Brooks, who hoisted him off the ground, suplexed him, and knocked him out. Unfortunately, this was a problem. Under ONE’s ruleset, slams that land headfirst are illegal. ONE has been regularly criticized for this--less for the rule itself as for ONE’s tendency to selectively enforce the rule, using it to benefit fighters they would like to succeed. ONE, of course, denies this vehemently. However you draw your own conclusions, at the end of the day Jarred Brooks was disqualified, and thus, by DQ, Joshua Pacio is now a three-time Strawweight champion. He almost immediately announced he has torn his ACL and 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, of course, challenged for the 135-pound title next. Pacio vs Wakamatsu happened at ONE 173 on November 16 and ended in Pacio getting smashed in six minutes. Thankfully, he secured his first win in a year and a half, and his second title defense, after choking out Mansur Malachiev on July 10.

ONE Women’s Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

VACANT - The planting ground for broken dreams

On June 23, Denice Zamboanga vacated the Atomweight title after she had a baby. On one hand: Mazel tov. On the other, for those keeping track, this means Stamp Fairtex was the champion, then she got hurt, then Denice won the interim belt a year and a half ago, then Stamp fell out of their unification bout with an injury so ONE promoted Denice to undisputed champion, and that was more than a year ago, and now it’s ended with the belt going to nobody. There has been one championship fight in the last three fucking years and it was for an interim belt and one of the women in said fight hadn’t recorded a win since January of 2021. I am once again pleading with ONE: Just stop doing MMA. Let my people go.

PFL Heavyweight Championship, 265 lbs

Vadim Nemkov - 19-2 (1), 0 Defenses

When the PFL announced that it was going to crown a standing Heavyweight champion, they had a raft of interesting options. Oleg Popov, their 2025 tournament champion, had a strong argument. Denis Goltsov, 2024 champion and the only man in almost ten years to beat Popov, could’ve called dibs. Hell, the PFL still technically has Francis Ngannou, the best Heavyweight on the planet, under contract. They, of course, did not choose any of those men. They chose Renan Ferreira, the 2023 tournament champion whose only fight in almost two years was a TKO loss to Ngannou, and Vadim Nemkov, Bellator’s best Light Heavyweight. Nemkov, a Fedor protégé, hadn’t lost since 2016, when he got himself punched out by Jiří Procházka and narrowly edged out by Karl Albrektsson, and it’s a testament to both his skills and the world’s dim view of the Heavyweight division that when the PFL acquired Bellator and Nemkov announced he was leaving 205 for the 265-pound world, instead of the expected fretting about how a 6’1” man would contend in the world of the big boys, more or less everyone said “Yeah, that’s fine.” And lo: It was. Nemkov choked out 2021 PFL champ Bruno Cappelozza, and then he choked out the ever-pained Timothy Johnson, and when he fought Renan Ferreira at PFL Champions Series 4 on December 13, 2025, shockingly, he choked him out, too. Nemkov’s now the only major Heavyweight champion in American MMA outside of the UFC. Hopefully it pays off.

PFL Light Heavyweight Championship, 205 lbs

Corey Anderson - 20-6 (1), 0 Defenses

One of the best Light Heavyweights in the world isn’t in the UFC, and they have only themselves to blame. Corey Anderson was the precise kind of fighter the UFC wanted when they first got ahold of him in 2014: Big, young, athletic, talented, undefeated. He had all the makings of a future champion, and his victory on The Ultimate Fighter 19 (jesus christ) cemented him as a prospect to watch. Unfortunately, he had also barely been in the sport for a year and only had four professional fights to his name. In short order he’d suffered his first loss, and a couple years later, a pair of back-to-back knockouts in 2017 sent him to the realm of afterthoughts. But a recommitment to his wrestling style, an extremely well-aged victory over Glover Teixeira, and a devastating knockout over Johnny Walker got Anderson back in the title picture, and in 2020, he fought Jan Błachowicz to determine the #1 contender to the soon-to-be-vacated belt. They’d done battle once, five years prior, and Corey had won a clear decision. This time, Jan flattened him in three minutes. Despite his top-ten ranking and the four consecutive fights he’d just won, the UFC decided to dump Corey, sending him from main event to unemployment in a week. Corey went straight to Bellator and proceeded to become one of its best stars, and he would have become the first man in America to beat Vadim Nemkov had they not banged their heads together and ended the fight prematurely. Corey lost the rematch, but he became the last man to hold Bellator’s Light Heavyweight title after beating Karl Moore, and on October 3, Corey had a champion vs champion match against the PFL’s 205-pound tournament champion, Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov. Corey had pounded him out in Bellator four years prior, and while he didn’t get the stoppage in the present, he did get the win, and in so doing he became the inaugural PFL Light Heavyweight Champion. What that actually means going forward, we’ll have to see.

PFL Middleweight Championship, 185 lbs

Costello van Steenis - 18-3, 1 Defense

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 he became the second man to defend one after knocking out Fabian Edwards on March 20.

Interim PFL Middleweight Championship

Johnny Eblen - 18-1, 0 Defenses

Yeah, I dunno, man. This is kind of silly. So, as you read above, Johnny Eblen lost an upset last-minute fight against Costello van Steenis in 2025, and it cost him his chance to be the inaugural Middleweight Champion of the PFL. They could have booked an instant rematch, but instead they decided to build the tension by having Costello battle 2025 PFL Tournament Champion Fabian Edwards, and Eblen fight, uh, the unranked UFC cast-off Bryan Battle. Unsurprisingly, both men won their fights with ease. Costello and Johnny were to have their almost-a-year-later rematch on July 18, but two weeks before fight night, van Steenis injured himself training and fell out of the fight. Instead, Eblen met Impa Kasanganay--in what was ALSO a rematch of a 2024 contest that Eblen won--for an interim title. Eblen trounced Impa and knocked him out in the third round, and now he has his own shiny PFL belt and can sit and twiddle his thumbs until Costello’s ready to roll.

PFL Welterweight Championship, 170 lbs

Thad Jean - 12-0, 0 Defenses

One of the least necessary championship snarls in the world has been resolved, but not without one last bit of comedy. Ramazan Kuramagomedov was the PFL’s first Welterweight champion, but he retired in the cage seconds after winning the belt, and there was very little doubt about who they wanted carrying their banner in his stead. Thad Jean is one of the precious few fighters the PFL can legitimately call a home-grown star. He was only 4-0 when they picked him up for their development Challenger Series as a Haitian-American prospect turned regional veteran, and a year and a half later he had four straight PFL preliminary wins, two of them by horrifically violent knockout. They put him in as a dark horse contender in their last-ever tournament in 2025, and in a bracket that included three Bellator champions, one Pancrase champion and multiple title contenders, Thad Jean was the last man standing, having knocked out Russian champion Mukhamed Berkhamov and taken decisions over Jason Jackson and Logan Storley on his way to the throne. On July 25 Thad was supposed to face Shamil Musaev, the man Kuramagomedov beat, for the vacant belt, but Musaev fell out at the last minute and was replaced by Ernesto “Starboy” Rodriguez, a much lower-profile challenger. Which has somewhat clouded the fight, as no one expected anything from Starboy and he damn near killed Thad. The two had a war, with both getting knocked down, both having success on the floor and both almost finishing the other, but ultimately, Thad got the ground-and-pound TKO in the third and with it, the belt. Presumably, he’ll be waiting for Musaev to come back.

PFL Lightweight Championship, 155 lbs

Usman Nurmagomedov - 22-0 (1), 2 Defenses

The Nurmagomedov family is trying to run the sport, and Usman is their B-league beachhead, but that assault has proven to be an awful lot rockier than the rest. As the kid brother of Umar and the cousin of Khabib, Usman had great expectations thrust upon him very early in his career, and he dealt with them the way regional talents with great camps traditionally do: Squashing severely overmatched competition until you get a contract from one of the big companies. Bellator won the Usman bidding war and brought him over in 2021, and he proved to be one of the breakout stars of their final days, blitzing his way up the Lightweight ranks, knocking off several contenders and ultimately beating Patricky Pitbull to win the 155-pound championship and securing his reign by retiring former star and UFC champ Benson Henderson. It was 2023, and even though Bellator’s upcoming death was clear, Usman was a name and widely considered one of the best Lightweights in the world. Unfortunately, then, things got weird. He was a massive, -2200 favorite to beat Brent Primus in the waning days of Bellator, and he did--and it became the first non-win of his career after failing a drug test for something that was never disclosed. He carried Bellator’s title over into its new life as a colony of the PFL, and he immediately ran into controversy after barely scraping a majority decision off of Irish superprospect Paul Hughes. The world wanted a rematch for the inaugural PFL Lightweight Championship fight, and on October 3, at the PFL’s big Dubai show, they got it--and this time, it waws even closer, with media scorecards split right down the middle. This, by itself, is not that unusual, nor is one fighter winning a controversial decision unusual. It is unusual when the decision is not only unanimous, but one judge scores the entire fight as a 50-45 shut-out. So Usman’s last two wins were dubious, and his future as part of the PFL depends on how they treat their own championship, but for now, he is the damn champion. He notched his first title defense by choking out Alfie Davis on February 7, and he scored his second after easily knocking out Archie Colgan on July 31.

PFL Women’s Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Cris Cyborg - 29-2 (1), 1 Defense

Are you noticing how all of the inaugural PFL champions are just Bellator’s champions? Funny, that. Cris Cyborg is the greatest Women’s Featherweight of all time, and we all just kind of have to deal with that, because Women’s Featherweight has only barely ever existed. Strikeforce set the standard back in 2006 because Gina Carano was one of their biggest stars, and that star lasted right up until 2009, when they attempted to put a belt on her and failed because Cris Cyborg punched the shit out of her. In the following sixteen years Cyborg’s only lost one mixed martial arts fight, and it took Amanda Nunes, the greatest Women’s mixed martial artist of all time, to do it. Aside from that one loss, she’s run the table. She was the Strikeforce Featherweight Champion until it closed, and then she was Invicta’s Featherweight Champion until they let the UFC have her, and then she was the UFC’s Featherweight Champion until Amanda dropped her, and Cyborg promptly went to Bellator and won their title, too. When the PFL brought her over in the Bellator buyout, they set her up for an interpromotional superfight against Larissa Pacheco, a two-time PFL tournament winner and the only woman who’d ever beaten Kayla Harrison. On one hand, Pacheco’s one of just six women to ever make it to the final bell with Cyborg. On the other, she lost 4-1. In the ultimate act of promotional cowardice, the PFL promoted Cyborg to champion status three days before her appearance at the PFL Champions Series on December 13, 2025, meaning her fight with Sara Collins was, technically, a title defense. It was as one-sided as you’d expect. In theory, this is great! The biggest female fighter outside the UFC has a belt and the PFL is bringing back a division the UFC threw in the garbage. In practice, Cyborg didn’t even get out of her post-fight interview without noting that after her next fight she’s going to retire from MMA in favor of focusing on her boxing career. Unless she changes her mind--again--her swan song will come against UFC cast-off Ketlen Vieira on August 22.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 FROM THE BELGRADE ARENA IN BELGRADE, SERBIA
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 7 AM PDT / 10 AM EDT | MAIN CARD 10 AM / 1 PM | EARLY START TIME WARNING

There was a time when I would have really enjoyed the phrase “UFC Serbia” as a testament to the growth and universal appeal of mixed martial arts. To some extent, that kind of self-identification with the product is how we wound up in this particularly terrible present day for the sport, but when Pride died the UFC became the sole global face of mixed martial arts, and expanding the sport internationally meant falling in line. People used to talk about MMA joining the Olympics, man. People used to wonder what the future of MMA as a fully globalized industry would look like--interpromotional title fights, grand prix tournaments across national borders, a world cup of combat sports!

We’re here. We made it. It turns out the face of international mixed martial arts is Uroš Medić vs Daniel Rodriguez as a main event.

MAIN EVENT: SPORT AS A SECONDARY FACTOR
WELTERWEIGHT: Uroš Medić (13-3, #14) vs Daniel Rodriguez (20-5, #15)

This is it. This is the end of our long, dark month of terrible main events. We survived the Conor McGregor comeback tour, we shrugged our way through Kamaru Usman’s Middleweight title eliminator, we stared in disbelief as Bogdan Guskov got a shot at the top of the 205-pound ladder. Next week, we’re free. Next week we emerge from our cocoon of bad fights into a long string of genuinely good main events. Mateusz Gamrot vs Quillan Salkilld! Anthony Hernandez vs Gregory Rodrigues! Umar Nurmagomedov vs Song Yadong! The UFC finally signed Salahdine Parnasse and he’s main eventing in Paris against Dan Hooker! Our first actual title fight in two goddamn months, and it’s Islam Makhachev vs Ian Machado Garry!

It’s a legitimately great run. It’s the kind of cleansing string of cards that makes you feel motivated to watch this sport, for all of the terrible things it chooses to do to the world and to you, as a fan, for caring about it.

But that’s next week.

This week, you have to survive Main Event Uroš Medić.

Is he on a winning streak? Sure! Granted, two of them were Muslim Salikhov and Gilbert Urbina--more on that later--but he knocked out Geoff Neal! Geoff Neal matters, right? Why, I remember Geoff Neal being nigh-unto a contender once upon a time!

That time was four years ago. In the last four years Neal is 1 for 5 and said win was Rafael dos Anjos, who was fighting on his honest-to-god 40th birthday, which made it especially funny when his knee collapsed ninety seconds into the fight. By the transitive property, Uroš is a ranked fighter because Rafael dos Anjos doesn’t have any cartilage left in his kneecaps.

Before that, Medić was a good-but-not-great competitor. He tried his hand at Lightweight, he went 1-2 and the weight cut kept killing him, so he moved up to Welterweight and promptly went 2-2. But those two pick-offs were Matthew Semelsberger, who got cut shortly after on a losing record, and Tim Means, who was, also, past 40. Mytykbek Orolbai tapped Uroš easily and Punahele Soriano punched his head into the third row in thirty-one seconds.

Hell, Punahele’s on a four-fight winning streak. If we still believed in the UFC’s line about the best rising to the top, he’d be here. He is not here. He isn’t booked at all right now, actually.

But Uroš is Serbian, and we’re in Serbia, so by god, let the man in. Who do we have to fight him? Well, fortunately, Daniel Rodriguez just got out of a Mexican prison.

Just to be clear, that’s not some dumb joke. Daniel’s been plagued by problems maintaining momentum thanks to poorly-timed losses and a history of hand injuries, so when he finally ran up a three-fight winning streak last year that culminated in a win over Kevin Holland only to drop off the face of the Earth again, everyone--by which I mean the incredibly small handful of people still plugged into mixed martial arts enough to know or care about Daniel Rodriguez--wondered if he was having contract issues or if he’d busted his hand up again.

Nope! Mexican prison. He got busted crossing the border to Tijuana with an ounce of weed in his backpack, got stuck in prison for eight months, and only narrowly avoided a six-year sentence over it. At one point he was going to be fighting for a top ten berth in one of the sport’s best divisions and then he left an 11th-grader’s sandwich bag worth of reefer in his car and that was most of a year of his life gone, because we are still, collectively, really fucking weird about marijuana*.

_{*In full disclosure: I am not cool enough to smoke weed.}

Only a few months ago D-Rod said the UFC sent him a contract to fight Leon Edwards for International Fight Week. I wonder if being in a main event in Serbia instead carries any kind of comfort. I wonder if knowing the UFC values him so much that they’d shunt him towards hopefully putting over their biggest Serbian fighter in Serbia makes him feel any better about his professional comeback.

I dunno. I do know I still don’t really believe all that strongly in Uroš Medić. He hits like a fucking truck, there’s no way to doubt that unless you’re covering your eyes and screaming every time he fights, which, in all fairness, is a fully acceptable way to survive being a mixed martial arts fan in 2026. But his best work comes against people who are willing to trade recklessly, and Daniel’s always been good, to a fault, at keeping his distance, flicking jabs, and slowing the pace of a fight all the way down if it means he doesn’t catch a fist upside the head.

As always, though: That was a year ago. Is another long layoff, this time in prison, going to mess with his head? Is nearing 40 going to take a toll on his defensive speed? Will Uroš feel the power of Serbia surging through his veins?

Are you emotionally invested in the answer? You should not be. The main event of this show is Uroš Medić vs Daniel Rodriguez. That is a main event in the UFC. This is the first time in a longi time that I have more to say about a co-main than its main, and if I am going to make fun of the Professional Fighters League for Main Event Salamat Isbulaev, I can at least be fair enough to know this sucks ass, too. DANIEL RODRIGUEZ BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH, PART 2
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Jan Błachowicz (29-11-2, #4) vs Navajo Stirling (10-0, #15)

Last week, in discussing Magomed Ankalaev’s top-ranked 205-pound main event, we prepared ourselves for this.

But last week, Khalil Rountree Jr. got injured. This left the UFC in a pickle. Fortunately, Jan Błachowicz and Bogdan Guskov were scheduled for a fight on the UFC’s card in Serbia next week, in an attempt to get Jan out of the rankings once and for allrun back the majority draw they went to last December, but that means Jan was fresh and available. It even made perfect sense as a fight. Jan’s the #4-ranked man in the division, he’s a former world champion, and he and Ankalaev also have unfinished business--back in 2022 they fought for the then-vacant title and it ended in a controversial split draw.

The two highest-ranked available fighters, and they’re both former champions and multiple-time main event talents, and they have a built-in backstory to finish. It’s rare that the universe gives you a better replacement fight than the original would’ve been, but the gods of combat smiled on the UFC and sent them a gift.

So anyway, Jan’s fighting the unranked Navajo Stirling next week. Ank’s got Bogdan.

Well, thank god they made the right decision, because Magomed Ankalaev vs Bogdan Guskov was a terrible fight that served only to remind the world that a) there are levels to this and b) Light Heavyweight is at its lowest possible point. It was the kind of fight that made the commentary team begin nervously discussing the way that, sure, Magomed is completely outclassing the opponent deemed an acceptable challenge for him, but is he, the undisputed #1 contender, winning impressively enough to justify getting a shot at the title?

You know. The prestigious Light Heavyweight title, whose champion is out until sometime next year and whose next logical top contender is Paulo Costa, a man whose only Light Heavyweight bout before 2026 was a decision loss to Marvin Vettori, who is, notably, not a Light Heavyweight. Did Magomed Ankalaev, who beat Alex Pereira and hasn’t lost to anyone but him in nearly a decade, do enough to justify being in the contendership discussion alongside such luminaries of the sport as Literally Fucking No One Because We Don’t Have Any Contenders Left Please God Can One Of Our Contender Series Wage Slaves Do Something To Separate Themselves From The Pack And Save Us From The Wreckage We’ve Made Of What Was Once The Most Popular Division In The Sport?

Oh, hey, Navajo Stirling. You heard us call your name.

Last week we played the “look at how we got here” game with Bogdan Guskov, and Navajo’s even less visible, so we’re going to go even deeper. We’re not just talking about his UFC tenure, this is The Full Navajo Stirling Story.

• Debuts in his native New Zealand with a decision victory over fellow debutant James Craughwell, who eventually retires at 0-3; despite being between two 0-0 guys this fight is for the Shuriken Fight Series Heavyweight Championship

• Defends his title by knocking out the 15-13-2 (1) Kevin Filtial, who has one victory in the last seven years and it came against Ben Schneider, a 3-29-1 Welsh fighter who mysteriously loses almost all of his fights by TKO within 90 seconds

• Stops Stu “Tumbleweed” Dare, a 9-8 Heavyweight out of Tasmania

• Becomes a two-division champion after winning the HEX Light Heavyweight title against Sam Kei, who promptly retires at 8-9

• Wins his UFC contract on the Contender Series after knocking out Phillip “The Doctor” Latu, who is 6-1 at the time; Latu is now 7-5, including somehow losing a decision--a decision--against Greg Hardy

• Makes his official UFC debut with a decision over Tuco Tokkos, who is cut from the UFC a year and a half later after going 1-3

• Earns another decision victory over Ivan Erslan, who is cut from the UFC a year later after going 1-3, with that one win being, of course, Tuco Tokkos; this is demoted to the prelims

• Gets a decision over Rodolfo Bellato, which makes Rodolfo officially 1-1-1 (1) in the UFC; as of March, he now has two wins; you better believe this was a fuckin’ prelim

• Knocks out Bruno Lopes, who is 1-2 in the UFC and was once denied a Contender Series contract after getting knocked out by Brendson Ribeiro, who, as of last week, is 2-6; this fight is even LOWER on the prelims

• Outlasts Ion Cuțelaba, who is 9-11-1 in the UFC and has never beaten a ranked opponent, marking Navajo’s first main-broadcast fight since his debut a year and a half earlier

• Gets picked on short notice to fight the former world champion for the #4 spot in the division.

You may assume that I am here to tell you what a terrible thing it is that this is the route you now take to reach the top of the Light Heavyweight division. You may assume that I am going to say Jan Błachowicz deserves better. And you’re absolutely right! Both of those things are true. But, also, here’s every fight Jan has had since Navajo started his professional MMA career in September of 2022:

• Goes to a split draw with Magomed Ankalaev (which Ank should 100% have won) for the vacant Light Heavyweight title, leaving the belt unclaimed

• Loses a split decision to Alex Pereira in the latter’s 205-pound debut

• Spends almost two years on the shelf with a shoulder injury

• Comes back in 2025 and loses a unanimous decision to Carlos Ulberg

• Goes to a majority draw with Bogdan Guskov

• Turns 43

• Tears his meniscus and goes right back on the shelf for half a year

I need you to understand: This is the fourth-best Light Heavyweight in the UFC, and he deserves that distinction, and he also hasn’t won a fight in more than four years. Jan is one of the best men in this weight class in the world, and he’s also 43 and has spent most of the last five years of his career recovering from injuries.

Up until one fight ago, you could defend Jan by pointing out that he was fighting the absolute best of the best in the sport. Ankalaev, Pereira and Ulberg are the last three men to hold the Light Heavyweight Championship, and Jan wasn’t just competitive with them, some folks had him outright beating all three on the scorecards. We’re one Ron McCarthy coinflip away from living in the reality where the Alex Pereira era never came to pass because Jan almost strangled it in its crib.

But that Bogdan Guskov fight? That was rough on its own terms, let alone re-examined after watching Guskov look completely, utterly lost in the cage against Ankalaev. And that was Jan before tearing his meniscus at 43 and having to make a combat sports comeback within the same calendar year against an undefeated man in his twenties who is also taller, rangier, and pretty defensively sound.

I don’t think the UFC is wrong to invest in Navajo. He is, by the standards of Light Heavyweight, pretty darn good. He doesn’t make many silly mistakes, he controls his weapons, and he knows how to wait for his chances. He’s a rock-solid prospect. He’s also not going to save the division. Nothing that is currently happening is going to save the division. There is, arguably, no saving this fucking division. The UFC is bending over backwards to find a way, any way, to keep from booking another Magomed Ankalaev title fight, and if you think they wouldn’t bounce Navajo all the way to top contendership should he knock Jan out, you have not been paying attention to the way they do business now.

And that’s the problem. They put all their eggs in the Alex Pereira basket and when he hatched into a beautiful failure of a Heavyweight, they had nothing left. They spent years kneecapping Ankalaev. They got Jiří Procházka murdered in three straight title fights. They overpushed Jamahal Hill and were subsequently stunned by his sudden lust for imploding his own leg tendons. They slow-rolled Azamat Murzakanov and now after one loss he’s already done. They jumped the gun on Guskov and now no one will take him seriously as a contender.

And their best plan--their original plan, the thing they actually intended to do--was have Ankalaev fight Khalil Rountree Jr., a man with 0 wins over active Light Heavyweights in the last four years, and have Jan fight an immediate rematch with Guskov, a fight no one was asking for, and have Navajo fight a fight against (blank), because he just beat Ion barely a month ago and they hadn’t figured out what to do with him yet.

Because they don’t have a plan.

Some divisions do! They parked the entire Heavyweight division for Alex Pereira! They froze multiple contenders to put Sean Strickland in the driver’s seat at Middleweight! Christ, they spent years arranging the dominos necessary to belt up Mackenzie Dern. With Pereira gone, there is no plan for Light Heavyweight. There’s no anointed prospect, there’s no up-and-coming star, there aren’t even many international prospects waiting in the wings. Middleweights are moving up to Light Heavyweight to try to take over the division again because it is ripe for the taking. But there’s no promotional aid package coming for anybody. They’re just throwing darts and hoping to God that one of them somehow sticks.

This will, probably, stick. I have appreciated Jan for a very long time, but unfortunately, I have appreciated Jan for a very long time. I would absolutely love to see him come out and batter Navajo’s legs and wear him down until he can’t avoid one of those big Jan Błachowicz hooks anymore, but after watching him struggle against Bogdan, who I genuinely believe is worse at fighting than Navajo, and knowing that he’s coming back from a serious leg injury and will almost certainly be even more diminished than he has been the last couple of times we’ve seen him, I think this is just about the end of the road.

Prove me wrong, Jan. I need one more run. NAVAJO STIRLING BY DECISION.

MAIN CARD: THE EXODUS
HEAVYWEIGHT: Aleksandar Rakić (14-6, #13 at Light Heavyweight) vs Marcin Tybura (27-11, #12 at Heavyweight)

I used to believe in you, Aleksandar. I thought you were gonna be a damn champion one day. You had the tools, you had the power, you were big as heck for 205 pounds and you could maintain a fighting pace for fifteen minutes, and by jove, that puts you ahead of the game. But then you got signed to fight Jan, and you twiddled your thumbs for a year waiting, and when you got there the gods of humor and hubris ripped your ACL in half in mid-fight, and since then everything’s been fucked. You were gone for two whole years, you looked solid against Jiří Procházka for a round before you got flattened, you had nothing for Magomed Ankalaev and Azamat Murzakanov knocked you out in one round with a fucking jab. The Light Heavyweight world cast you out, and you are leading the charge up to the Heavyweight division in the hopes of reinvigorating your career, because if there’s one thing leg ligaments love, it’s deciding to make them support even more weight than they did when you were healthy.

Don’t you look so smug over there, Marcin, you’re in trouble, too. You’ve been one of the UFC’s most reliable gatekeepers--maybe we have to forgive you for letting Augusto Sakai through, but we forgave Anderson Silva for losing to Daiju Takase, everyone gets one mulligan--and you will always have our eternal gratitude for putting a stop to the rise of Greg Hardy. But the fact remains that you have been doing an unfortunate job lately. You beat Mick Parkin! That’s good! But you let Ante Delija blast through you in two minutes, and then, when we needed you to show some signs of improvement, you let Tyrell goddamn Fortune take your spot in the top ten. Being an unstoppably grinding wrestleboxing meat wall is your entire reason for being, and you let a guy who needed a doctor’s stoppage to beat Demoreo Dennis take the crown from you. Now you’re trying to hold the door against the Light Heavyweight invasion. Ciryl did it! Now it’s your goddamn turn.

I think Aleksandar is a lot faster than Marcin. I think he has more tools in his belt. I also think putting on more weight and trying to compete at a higher weight class at this stage in his physical progression is a really difficult path. But above all: I think Heavyweight is Bad. ALEKSANDAR RAKIĆ BY TKO.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Duško Todorović (13-6) vs Robert Valentin (11-6 (1))

Really roll that fight around on your tongue. Main Card Robert Valentin. In the past three years, these two men combine for a truly outstanding UFC record of 2-6. They’ve both been stopped twice and they’ve both lost a decision. And their sole wins? Eleven months ago Duško knocked out José Medina, who was released one fight later for being 0-4 in the company, and this past April Robert saved his contract by choking out Julien Leblanc, who was making his UFC debut thanks to his truly incredible victory on the Quebecois regional circuit over the 6-10 Ryan “The Lion” Rohovich. That is how deep they had to dig to find people who could feasibly lose a fight to either of these men. “But Duško has other UFC wins,” you plaintively cry from the alcove where I told you I kept the Amontillado. And you’re right! He does! He has three whole other wins! The most recent one was almost four years ago, and the three of them put together were just 3-14 in the UFC, and brother, you don’t want to know who the three poor motherfuckers were that they beat, and also, no one can hear you.

However, and this may shock you: Duško Todorović is Serbian. Sorry, everyone else. Nothing to be done. Gotta sell those Serbian tickets, and if that means Duško Todorović and Robert Valentin get a big bright spot on the main card, that’s what’s best for the sport. Wanna hear something fun? This is the 25th UFC held this year, and presuming it doesn’t face any last-minute cancellations, by the time it’s over, there will have been 140 main-card fights broadcast in 2026. Seven of those main-card slots went to women. That’s five percent. It is so worth it to the UFC to make sure there’s broadcast space for folks like Duško Todorović and Vlasto Čepo to secure those lucrative government grantsinternational audiences, but heaven forfend you have lady parts, because there’s definitely never been any money in women fighting in mixed martial arts.

This fight is bad and neither of these guys have done much to prove they belong here but we’re just gonna keep on trucking, I guess. DUŠKO TODOROVIĆ BY TKO.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Vlasto Čepo (14-3) vs Gilbert Urbina (7-4)

Do you even need me to say anything? Do we need to talk about this fight? Are context clues enough for you to know why the UFC booked a debuting Serbian fighter against a guy with half as many wins and yet more losses than him? Can I just communicate my feelings through pictures?

No? I need to be a professional? Why the fuck! Why do I have to give a shit about this more than they do.

Here’s your cypher: Vlasto Čepo is Pretty Good, he’s been fighting in OKTAGON and doing a bang-up job of it, he’s Serbian as fuck and he’s finished everyone he’s ever beaten, most of them by knockout. Gilbert Urbina managed to lose The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ) twice (jesus christ). He has won exactly one fight not just in the UFC but in the last five+ years of his life, and that was against Orion Cosce, who seemingly retired from shame on the spot because that was in mid-2023 and he still hasn’t fought again. Otherwise it’s been a half-decade of getting knocked out or choked out, over and over. Which is why he’s still under contract. They’ve been waiting for a Vlasto Čepo to book him against.

Congratulations, matchmakers. Your day has come. VLASTO ČEPO BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Miloš Janičić (19-3) vs Noah Gugnon (9-2)

One of these men fights out of Serbia. One of them fights out of France. You may be able to subtly guess which is which! It’s a sign of where the sport is right now that Janičić is simultaneously a genuinely promising Lightweight prospect and he’s spent more of the last three years on kickboxing, bareknuckle boxing and my personal favorite, the Dirty Boxing Championship promotion that runs out of sweaty rooms in Miami and has the goddamn Schmo as an interviewer, than he has on MMA. This is how you make money as a regional fighter now. You go to fucking DBX. Noah Gugnon has been beating folks up in France’s ARES FC, and he was born in the year 2000, and that should be illegal and I do not appreciate it. Do not tell me a fighter born in the year 2000 is closing in on thirty, because I assure you, I cannot do math.

I dunno, man. I like Janičić’s offense and the way he lances forward into his jabs and straights, it’s very Whittakery, and I like how Gugnon drives forward and gets real aggressive on the ground, but Janičić also has some trouble getting outwrestled, and Gugnon also keeps his head bolt-upright way too often, and I cannot help seeing both men getting hurt badly by the time they get anywhere close to the Lightweight ladder.

But we’re not actually there yet, so whee! NOAH GUGNON BY DECISION.

PRELIMS: THE LAST STAND OF COWAN
LIGHTWEIGHT: Ľudovít Klein (24-5-1) vs Tofiq Musayev (23-6)

Ľudovít Klein continues to exist as an example of just how bizarre the path to success is in the UFC today. He was a steady, reliable winner as a Lightweight prospect, but despite going three years and seven fights without a loss (albeit one slightly embarrassing draw against Jai Herbert) he was no closer to a ranking, or a ranked fight, than any of his managerially-favored peers. Then, suddenly, they threw him in there on relatively short notice with Mateusz Gamrot, one of the ten best Lightweights on the goddamn planet. Klein lost, so now it’s back to back to the prelim mines forever. One fight ago it was scraping out a decision over Mateusz Rębecki; now it’s battling Tofiq Musayev, former Rizin and Bellator veteran turned currently 50/50 fighter in the UFC. Myktybek Orolbai ruined his much-ballyhooed debut after submitting him in one round, but Musayev managed to take his own decision--the first victory by decision he’d earned in six and a half years--after beating on-again off-again marketing darling Ignacio Bahamondes. Who is, coincidentally, the man Klein pissed off the UFC by beating almost three years ago to the day.

I still like Musayev, but I think the UFC’s going to continue to be a very tough run for him. ĽUDOVÍT KLEIN BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Oban Elliott (12-4) vs Michael Oliveira (9-0)

Oban, buddy, I think they’re tired of you. We’re barely two years removed from Oban’s debut as a big Contender Series prospect out of the UK, and it went well, in the sense that he beat several folks with losing UFC records, and then he kept getting injured and struggling to get a visa (which is clearly his problem and has nothing to do with America), and then he dropped two fights in a row, and now his fortunate son status has been revoked and he’s on the DWCS welcoming committee. Michael Oliveira is your new Brazilian knockout guy. A year and a half ago he was in the Legacy Fighting Alliance beating a 13-11-2 guy named Aldo Pereira, then he was winning on the contract mill show by destroying Victor Valenzuela, who wound up signed to the company anyway. Oliveira is trained by our old Strikeforce buddy Rafael “Feijão” Cavalcante, and it shows, because he really likes big, angry punches and does not appear to be sufficiently concerned with pacing himself.

Oliveira also has this style of defense that centers entirely around moving his head just barely enough to avoid punches, which is going to work incredibly well right up until the moment it very violently does not. Fortunately, that probably won’t be tonight. MICHAEL OLIVEIRA BY TKO.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Mark Vologdin (12-4-2) vs Borislav Nikolić (16-2)

Remember back in April, when I introduced you to Mark Vologdin, the 5’3” Bantamweight who the UFC signed despite losing his DWCS fight because his entire fighting style can be summarized by that Simpsons gif of Bart walking forward while constantly windmilling his hands? Good news! He’s still here. I said he’d lost his debut match against John Castañeda, and he would have, were it not for John getting docked a point over errant groin shots. Funnily enough, even with the deduction most of the media still thought Castañeda won, but that’s just not how this works. Vologdin was supposed to meet in a prospect-filtering fight with fellow struggler Josias Musasa here, but Josias couldn’t make it, so instead it’s Borislav Nikolić, who is--try to be surprised--a Serbian guy who stops almost everyone he beats. He’s half a foot taller, he hits a lot harder, and primarily, I just don’t think Mark Vologdin is great at this.

And I normally love my short guys! Just not this one. BORISLAV NIKOLIĆ BY TKO.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Dennis Buzukja (12-6) vs Bogdan Grad (15-4)

Speaking of fights featuring people who are inexplicably still here, there’s this, which will probably be a lot of fun. Bogdan Grad is an adherent of the modern-day meta whereby winning excitingly is more important than fighting well, and consequently he needed two chances to win on the Contender Series and he’s on a two-fight losing streak that could, with one more fall, very easily get him fired. Dennis Buzukja got signed as a replacement for a replacement for another replacement, he’s a whole 1-4 in the company, and he would’ve been released already had his losses not been separated by a knockout over the incredibly unfortunate Connor Matthews.

Buzukja’s solid, but aside from being in unfriendly territory he’s also been booked into this fight despite being just under three and a half months separated from getting completely, utterly, limp-on-the-ground knocked out by Márcio Barbosa. In the old days, he wouldn’t even have been cleared to spar until about two weeks ago. They know what they are doing. BOGDAN GRAD BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Mateusz Rębecki (20-5) vs Kyle Prepolec (18-10)

How many times do you think we can write about people who probably shouldn’t be here? Spoiler: This isn’t the last time on this card. Kyle Prepolec was hired as a last-minute replacement to keep Benoît Saint Denis on a card in Quebec, meaning Kyle punched his ticket to a UFC contract by defeating no less than the 25-33 Gustavo “Show Man” Wurlitzer, and now he’s 0-2 in the company and he’s gotten completely fucked up in both fights and the second was a brutal mauling at the hands of the aging Drew Dober, but that, too, was in Canada, so it made sense to put the Canadian in. Now he’s in Serbia fighting a guy whose name I have to copy-paste because it’s easier than finding the character map and manually keying in the combination to make the ę, which I have only just today discovered has a Polish name that honest-to-god translates as “e with a little tail” and I don’t know if there’s any inherent purpose in life but that’s the kind of factoid that makes me glad to still be living it. Kyle, they want to kill you. I’m sorry. Mateusz is their big brawler and he’s on a losing streak and someone in matchmaking thinks Poland and Serbia are close enough together that this is fine and you are here to be destroyed.

I hope Quebec welcomes you home. MATEUSZ RĘBECKI BY TKO.

WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Nina Milošević (8-1) vs Hailey Cowan (7-5)

Hailey Cowan, it’s now or never. It’s very hard to imagine now, but four years ago the UFC put a surprising amount of hype behind Hailey after she won her Contender Series contract. It would be very easy to be cynical and say they only cared about her because she’s a blonde American lady from Texas and they have no idea how to market any female fighters who aren’t generically photogenic to American audiences. Very, very easy. Even easier now, because in the last four years Hailey’s fought three times and she’s lost every one of them. She lost her debut by decision, she spent two years on the shelf, she got choked out by noted kickboxer Nora Cornolle, she went back on ice for another year, she got knocked out by Alice Pereira this past April, and even though it’s barely four months later they’re cutting bait and shipping her off to Serbia to get eaten alive. Because that’s what’s going to happen, right? I mean, Nina Milošević is 8-1! She’s the Serbian champion in Serbia! She hasn’t lost a fight since her rookie outing! All of this is true. It is also true that Nina and Hailey both have exactly the same number of career victories against women with winning records, and that number is Two, and you only get that far if you are willing to think of “2-1” as a winning record. I watched Nina’s tape and I’ll tell you, man, it isn’t great. Neither of them are great. Hailey still looks lost a lot of the time and Nina tends to throw punches like she’s swimming, and I want to tell you neither of them belong here, but is that even true anymore? Miesha Tate is still a ranked Women’s Bantamweight and she has one ranked win in the last decade. Bia Mesquita is the most exciting prospect in the division and one fight ago Melissa Mullins had her basically dead on her feet, but gave away the bout taking the half-conscious world champion grappler to the ground only to react in Pikachu shock when she got armbarred seconds later. Joselyne Edwards is the only new, genuinely-cultivated contender Bantamweight has had in years, and she isn’t even two years removed from constantly missing weight and being unable to stop Ailín Pérez.

I don’t know if I can say the bar is too high for anyone anymore. Throw all the talent into a pool. Invest real time and money in them. See what happens. Hailey, this is your chance. HAILEY COWAN BY DECISION.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Jovan Leka (13-2) vs Alexander Poppeck (21-5 (1))

Like this! This is a perfect continuation for that conversation we were just having, because Heavyweight and Women’s Bantamweight are, inherently, the same division. Legendary champion and international celebrity who left the company? Check. Current champion sidelined with injury issues the UFC really doesn’t want to talk about? Double check. Former champion the company wants to bury? You better fuckin’ believe that’s a check. Thrown-together matchups? Buddy, one of these Heavyweights isn’t even a Heavyweight. Jovan Leka is! He’s a 6’5” meatbrick whose primary skills are Wrestling, Kind Of and Being Dense. I strongly encourage you to go watch the footage of his last fight against Danilo Suzart--the iron-brained will remember him as the guy Waldo Cortes-Acosta nuked on the Contender Series back in 2022--and observe, as Jovan looks visibly confused by Suzart walking at him throwing giant winging overhands again and again until the moment it clicks in Leka’s head that he is half a foot larger and can simply push the other man over and choke him. Poppeck, funnily enough, is also a former DWCS guy--he’s the one who got pounded out by Jamahal Hill way back in 2019 and in so doing helped steer us onto the dark, terrible course into which we now have no escape. He’s been fighting as a constant favorite in OKTAGON as a 205-pounder and he’s actually visibly mobile and has a couple legitimately solid wins and he’s content to take his time attacking and defending and once he’s back at his home weight class I think he might have some work to do.

Here, I think he’s gonna get smothered by the actual Heavyweight in this Heavyweight bout. JOVAN LEKA BY DECISION.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Marina Spasić (7-1) vs Stephanie Luciano (7-2-1)

There’s been some level of attempt to get Marina Spasić some debut hype, here, but I’m not feeling it. The sentence “the best Women’s Strawweight in the Balkans” is one of those things that’s so utterly specific that it feels like an insult more than an endorsement, and when you look at her record and watch her tape and see her struggling with women who are only barely staying afloat in the sport, or watch her need two and a half rounds to dispatch Samara Santos, who is 12-11-1, has never beaten anyone with a winning record and whose opponents have a truly, genuinely incredible combined record of 16-60, you begin to realize why I both focus on numbers as a way of evaluating where someone’s been in the sport and fully recognize just how useless they can be. After all, I loved Jingnan Xiong, and it took her three rounds to knock out Santos, too. Is struggling with Samara Santos an equivalent exchange to Stephanie Luciano losing a split decision to Sam Hughes? What’s a 50-50 on the regional scene worth vs a 50-50 in the UFC? Is Stephanie choking out Ravena Oliveira really any more impressive than Marina knocking out journeywoman Maristela Alves?

I don’t know. Nothing in her tape wows me, though. STEPHANIE LUCIANO BY DECISION.

SATURDAY, JULY 25 FROM THE ETIHAD ARENA IN ABU DHABI
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 6 AM PDT / 9 AM EDT | MAIN CARD 9 AM / 12 PM

You know William Utermohlen? The artist who very tragically and famously painted a series of progressively more confused self-portraits depicting his gradual descent into Alzheimer’s and his growing inability to recognize himself, his work, and the things he loved?

I’ve just been thinking about that a lot lately, for some reason. Anyway, two weeks after Conor McGregor’s Welterweight comeback fight that ended in hilarious disgrace and one week after Kamaru Usman got a top-ranked Middleweight fight that concluded equally pointlessly here’s a card built around a de facto Light Heavyweight title eliminator featuring one guy who was the world champion one fight ago and one guy with just one ranked win and a draw in his last fight.

MAIN EVENT: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Magomed Ankalaev (21-2-1 (1), #1) vs Bogdan Guskov (18-3-1, #9)

I’ve been staring at the blinking caret on this paragraph header for two hours because talking about this fight is like trying to describe the sound a body makes when it falls off the back of a truck into an unkept interstate thicket.

Up until about a week and a half ago, this fight was just the normal sort of bad. If you’ve read these articles you already know the story, but let’s recap it in a blurb: The UFC spent years keeping Magomed Ankalaev away from Alex Pereira because Alex was their meal ticket and Ankalaev was a dangerous #1 contender, they finally ran out of road and put them in the cage together, Ankalaev took Pereira’s title, Alex presaged his current situation by complaining about being injured, the UFC gave him an instant rematch, he mauled Ankalaev in eighty seconds, Ankalaev noted that he, too, was injured and they should have a rubber match, and the UFC/the entire world laughed at him and then Alex moved on to getting rabbit-punched by a scab in front of the White House.

Magomed was supposed to fight former title contender Khalil Rountree Jr. here. I was already crotchety about this, because Khalil is the guy they surfed to contention on the back of a victory over a near-retirement Anthony Smith in a blatant attempt to keep Ankalaev away from the belt, but Khalil was ranked relatively high and Light Heavyweight is a tire fire where Ankalaev’s only other adjacently-ranked options were a just-knocked-out Jiří Procházka or Paulo fucking Costa, so: Fuck it. Fine. I was willing to grit my teeth and admit that this was the best they could do, even if that was their own fucking fault.

But last week, Khalil Rountree Jr. got injured. This left the UFC in a pickle. Fortunately, Jan Błachowicz and Bogdan Guskov were scheduled for a fight on the UFC’s card in Serbia next week, in an attempt to get Jan out of the rankings once and for allrun back the majority draw they went to last December, but that means Jan was fresh and available. It even made perfect sense as a fight. Jan’s the #4-ranked man in the division, he’s a former world champion, and he and Ankalaev also have unfinished business--back in 2022 they fought for the then-vacant title and it ended in a controversial split draw.

The two highest-ranked available fighters, and they’re both former champions and multiple-time main event talents, and they have a built-in backstory to finish. It’s rare that the universe gives you a better replacement fight than the original would’ve been, but the gods of combat smiled on the UFC and sent them a gift.

So anyway, Jan’s fighting the unranked Navajo Stirling next week. Ank’s got Bogdan.

Here, unabridged, is Bogdan Guskov’s entire UFC career:

• Gets mauled in one round by Volkan Oezdemir

• Knocks out The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) runner-up (jesus christ) Zac Pauga, who is cut after the fight for being 1-3

• Knocks out Ryan Spann, who is best summed up by the fact that the aforementioned retiring Anthony Smith only managed to beat three men in the last four years of his career and Ryan was two of them

• Chokes out Billy Elekana, a man who is 3-1 in the UFC and has yet to beat anyone with a winning record

• Knocks out Nikita Krylov, who had just been knocked out by Dominick Reyes barely three months prior

• Goes to a draw with Jan Błachowicz, who, despite all of the nice things I just said about him, is 43 years old and has one win in the last five and a half years and it happened because Aleksandar Rakić’s leg imploded in mid-fight

Like, fuck, man. This division! This fucking division! I really don’t like being negative to the point of histrionics about mixed martial arts, but oh my fucking god, Light Heavyweight is garbage. Light Heavyweight is so goddamn bad that Alex Pereira just fought at Heavyweight, and has reiterated his intention to never, ever come back, and he’s still ranked #3. Jamahal Hill, Johnny Walker and Aleksandar Rakić are joining him at 265. Volkan Oezdemir is out of action after getting busted for using EPO. Paulo Costa is a fight away from a title shot. Robert Whittaker, who spent the last five years getting repeatedly knocked around at Middleweight, is now a top fifteen Light Heavyweight after knocking out Nikita Krylov, who is, coincidentally, Bogdan Guskov’s best fucking win and the only thing keeping him ranked.

There are two matchups scheduled for the entire ranked roster, and this is one of them, and the other is Jan/Stirling, which means Stirling is going from beating up Bruno Lopes and fighting tooth and nail to beat the 9-11-1 (1) Ion Cuțelaba to fighting a former world champion for a berth in the top five. The company’s biggest, deepest hopes for the future of this division lay in Bogdan Guskov knocking out Ankalaev and that somehow making him a star despite their putting absolutely no effort into any of it.

And whoever wins this fight is the top contender to a champion whose injury status still isn’t clear, and the leader of a top ten that only contains one active fighter coming off of a win.

Burn the estate. Salt the Earth. Disband Light Heavyweight like they disbanded Lightweight back in 2003 and just give it a few years off to see if anything good happens or if we can all learn to live without Frank Shamrock’s division. MAGOMED ANKALAEV BY TKO.

CO-MAIN EVENT: THE WAY THE OTHER SIDE LIVES
FLYWEIGHT: Steve Erceg (14-4, #10) vs Ramazan Temirov (19-2, NR)

You think you can just mollify me by throwing a Flyweight fight at me right after all of that bullshit, Mick Maynard? Do you really think I’m that easy? Honestly, you’re probably right. Once upon a time I would’ve held a bit of loathing in my heart for this matchup thanks to the presence of Steve Erceg, but I think he’s officially off my shitlist.

Which is probably overdue. I have said it before, I will say it again: My problems with Steve Erceg had nothing to do with Steve Erceg. He is and has always been a perfectly fine fighter. His boxing is sharp and fluid, his wrestling is underrated in the annals of the division, and by all accounts he seems like an entirely inobtrusive personality. He’s a fine young man with an acceptable head of hair.

The problem is not Steve. The problem is Steve knocked out Matt Schnell once and the matchmakers lost their shit about an Australian Flyweight with punching power and refused to ever let him go. Despite being ranked #10, Steve got a shot at Alexandre Pantoja’s world title. Despite losing, he followed it up with a title eliminator against Kai Kara-France. Despite getting flattened in four minutes, his next fight was a main event against the #2-ranked Brandon Moreno, and despite having lost twice in a row, Erceg went up in the rankings.

It was an exceedingly blunt marketing push and it killed Erceg’s momentum. He went from a rising prospect to a three-time loser who’d been so effectively boxed out of the title picture that despite being featured on main cards for his last six straight fights, no one’s really talking about him as a relevant Flyweight anymore. He’s being booked and winning on broadcasts, but it’s against folks like Ode’ Osbourne and Tim Elliott--solid fighters that no one really pays heed to.

Which is what tends to happen when the UFC wants to keep one of their old projects vital. They don’t turf them, but they don’t give them room to maneuver, either. They get matchmade into stasis, so the UFC can one day cash in on them.

Steve: The day has come. After a career spent as the favored Australian, you’re fighting in Abu Dhabi against an Uzbekistani man whose name ends in -V. The matchmakers spent the last season planting and watering you, and now they have come for their harvest.

Which is good, because Ramazan Temirov kind of needs the boost. When he popped into the UFC in late 2024 he had a fair bit of hype as one of the better international Flyweight prospects the world had to offer. No losses since 2019, a whole bunch of knockout highlights from Kazakhstani organizations that you could find on Dailymotion with titles like SPIN KICK MASTER, he had everything except a win in a global league.

It didn’t come from the UFC, either. In 2023, Japan’s Rizin gave Temirov a shot at their favorite kind of matchup--the scary, unfamiliar foreigner against the canny local veteran--by putting him up against Takaki Soya. Soya had more than a decade of experience under his belt, he’d been a standout in Shooto, the actual oldest extant MMA organization in the world, and he had a reputation for being a tough out for anyone. The only man to stop him since his rookie years was a multiple-time Pancrase champion with a dozen knockouts under his belt, and it still took him three rounds.

Ramazan dusted Soya in three minutes. He never fought for Rizin again. The UFC signed him away, and in 2024 he hopped into the cage and repeated his performance by meeting the tough-as-nails CJ Vergara and becoming the only man to ever knock him out--once again, in just about three minutes. Five months later Temirov met Charles Johnson, at the time on a four-fight winning streak that included crushing future champion Joshua Van, and ended his winning streak with a decision loss. Five months, two wins, and Ramazan had all the momentum in the world on his side.

And then he failed a drug test and became a sacrificial lamb for the UFC’s need to pretend it still has a legitimate drug testing program.

It’s been a year and a half. Ramazan has served his time. The UFC wants him back on track, and they’re willing to sacrifice their Australian marketing darling to do it.

But it’s going to take a fucking scrap to get it done. Steve’s only been stopped once in his entire career, and it took Kai, one of the single hardest punchers in the history of the Flyweight division, to do it. And even Kai was gifted with long-ass arms that saw him actually outrange Erceg despite being visibly shorter than him. Ramazan is both the shorter man and fighting with an almost half-foot reach disadvantage. He’s going to have to tank Erceg’s traditionally sharp jabs to get into range enough to land one of his spinning kicks or big hooks.

I am choosing to have faith that he’ll get there. RAMAZAN TEMIROV BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: VIOLENTLY BACKPEDALING
WELTERWEIGHT: Islam Dulatov (12-1) vs Wellington Turman (18-8)

Here, we have your scheduled murder of the week. If you have a particularly good memory, you’ll recall Islam Dulatov as a fairly well-hyped Contender Series debutant last July. He hadn’t lost a fight since his very first outing back in 2019, he’d made a solid name for himself by picking up wins in organizations like BRAVE and OKTAGON, and he was benefitting greatly from possessing the best gimmick you can have as a mixed martial artist, the “What if I just destroy everyone and never lose” Hardcore Holly special. (Unfortunately, he also has the currently popular ‘what if I say a lot of antisemitic shit and also think vaccines are the devil and QAnon is great’ gimmick.) He showed up, he punched the shit out of an exceedingly digestible target in Adam Fugitt, and then he decided to fuck off for an entire year.

The UFC would like to keep the train running, because of all the people they could have matched him up with for his return, they picked Wellington Turman. Wellington is on a three-fight losing streak. He hasn’t competed since 2023, when he was choked out by Jared Gooden, who was released one fight later after repeatedly botching his weight cut and losing. Wellington is two for his last seven, which conveniently goes back seven entire-ass years, and said two victories came against Misha Cirkunov, who retired one fight later on a massive losing streak, and Sam fucking Alvey, one of the losingest men in UFC history, whom Turman only beat by split decision on account of losing multiple points for poking Alvey in the eye.

It is hard to get more blatant than this. ISLAM DULATOV BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Magomed Zaynukov (8-0) vs Damian Rzepecki (10-0)

I’m not sure that there is a better testament to the current age of the sport than this. Magomed Zaynukov is an undefeated fighter, a UAE Warriors veteran, a Contender Series winner and yet another soldier in the endless Dagestani wrestling army. Nobody knows him for any of these things. He is not here because of any of those things. He is here because Islam Makhachev said his nickname in an interview, and because of his accent, people thought instead of “Chanco” Islam said “John Pork,” like the fucking meme, and now that’s his identity. If you search for his name you will find perfunctory results, but if you search for “John Pork MMA” you will find twice as many articles, all of which also include how much he and his team really hate the nickname.

But that’s maybe less unfortunate than being Damian Rzepecki, who is also undefeated, and also a top international prospect, and a Lightweight champion in his native Poland thanks to his tendency to punch his opponents in the liver until they stop being able to stand up and/or process toxins, and after ten straight wins he’s accomplished enough that the UFC signed him without even sending him to DWCS first. But they did it because they wanted John Pork on the card. Imagine that you have spent your entire adult life singlemindedly dedicated to mixed martial arts, and you finally get the call up to the big show, and it’s just because you’re a convenient target for a guy who’s popular because he makes people think of a virtual pig-man.

We get the sport we deserve. I kinda want an upset. DAMIAN RZEPECKI BY TKO.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Rizvan Kuniev (14-3-1 (1), #8) vs Tyrell Fortune (18-3, #9)

Okay. Lemme make sure I have this all correct. The UFC signed Rizvan Kuniev, former Eagle FC champ and PFL steroid enthusiast, and spent half a year trying to repeatedly book him into a debut fight against the #5-ranked Curtis Blaydes. When Kuniev lost, they tried to bump him allllll the way down to the entirely irrelevant Ryan Spann, and when Spann couldn’t make it, they decided to give Kuniev the #6-ranked Jailton Almeida instead. And Kuniev won! For which they immediately fired Almeida. Despite being the #6-ranked man in the world, and despite that man not even being in the UFC anymore and thus a big ol’ opening being right there, Kuniev is #8.

And despite being a top-six contender, Kuniev is now fighting Tyrell Fortune. Fortune, you may recall, went from fighting Oklahoma City’s Dennis brothers, the 22-13 Myron and the 9-7 Demoreo, and the 52 year-old 65-34 (1) Tony Lopez sandwiched between them, to getting called up to the UFC for a top ten bout against Marcin Tybura. And, hey, it’s Heavyweight, so Fortune won! He took a 29-28 and became a ranked fighter and got that sweet, sweet, minimum wage contract, and in exchange, the UFC booked him into an adjacently-ranked fight as a big underdog against a big Dagestani grappler in Abu Dhabi.

Matchmaking department: What are you doing. What are you doing with this entire division. You’ve spent years antagonizing Tom Aspinall even though he’s a star, you tried to put all your eggs in the Alex Pereira basket again and then Ciryl Gane scrambled them, you are constantly shitting all over two very good top contenders in Alexander Volkov and Sergei Pavlovich while pushing Josh Hokit to the moon, you are having the entire world fight Curtis Blaydes in an attempt to suck the marrow out of his bones, Serghei Spivac is ranked and winning so you have him fighting an unranked Vitor Petrino, Valter Walker is on a submission streak so he’s down here on the prelims against Thomas fucking Petersen, and after repeatedly trying to force Rizvan Kuniev through the square hole you finally, finally succeeded, and you’re celebrating by pushing him down the rankings for a fight with zero stakes or purpose.

In other words: You are booking Heavyweight with the exact amount of respect it deserves. Don’t change a thing, you’re doing great. RIZVAN KUNIEV BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Abubakar Vagaev (24-4) vs Saygid Izagakhmaev (22-3)

This is probably going to rule. There’s one major MMA promotion ruling the roost in Russia, and that’s Absolute Championship Akhmat, the only company big enough to promote regular events and attract international talent. Abubakar Vagaev’s been its Welterweight champion twice, which not only puts him in the rare position of holding one of the precious few international titles left with a lot of credibility, but means he’s had the chance to fight folks like Michel Pereira and ol’ Trator Prazeres and Yasubey Enomoto and Albert Tumenov, people who were moderately to fairly successful in the big leagues. He beat all of them. This was, funnily enough, originally supposed to be an ersatz champion-vs-champion ACA fight--Vagaev, who gave up his 170-pound belt for a shot in the UFC, was going to welcome ACA Middleweight champion Magomedrasul Gasanov, himself a mega-prospect.

But Gasanov couldn’t make it, and for once, the UFC found a really solid replacement. We wrote about Saygid Izagakhmaev during his UFC debut back in November--he was the Eagle FC fighter turned ONE Championship contender who’d turned heads by flattening living-if-aging legend Shinya Aoki in under ninety seconds, and all of those heads proceeded to get stuck with horrible neck problems, as ONE proceeded to ice Saygid for two and a half goddamn years of his athletic prime before finally letting him go in 2025. He stopped over in Karate Combat for a donut, he made it to the UFC, he fought the undying enigma that is Nicolas Dalby, and Dalby managed to exhaust him and scrape away a split decision.

Hopefully, Saygid has learned to pace himself better and navigate the realities of his gas tank. Realistically? ABUBAKAR VAGAEV BY DECISION.

PRELIMS: LARGE MEN OF SHAME
HEAVYWEIGHT: Valter Walker (15-1, #13) vs Thomas Petersen (11-4, NR)

In the current mire of the large-man no man’s land, Valter Walker should be getting a place of honor. The Heavyweight landscape lacks people who can manage persistent success: Valter has four straight first-round finishes. Heavyweight struggles to find effective grapplers: Valter’s submitted everyone he’s beaten in the company. In a time where the product is glutted with meaninglessness, historically notable achievements are harder to find than ever: Before Valter there were three heel hook submissions in the entire history of the UFC’s Heavyweight division, and now Valter has four. In just under two years, he has outstripped the nearly thirty-year history of the regulated weight class. He’s funny. He’s memorable. He comes to weigh-ins wearing a necklace made of a decapitated foot. You could push this man to the moon. He is instead risking his winning streak on the Abu Dhabi prelims in a timeslot no one will be watching against Thomas Petersen, a man who cannot string together two wins or losses, just barely survived a run-in with Guilherme Pat three months ago, and is more likely, when named, to make people think you are talking about Tom Goes to the Mayor rather than mixed martial arts.

There is no order. There is no reason. Feet must be removed until no one can run any longer. VALTER WALKER BY SUBMISSION.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Dustin Jacoby (22-9-1) vs Muhammad Said (9-0)

Y’know what? This too, actually. This is also a thing that sucks. Dustin Jacoby is one of the 205-pound division’s best gatekeepers. He’s a very reliable knockout artist, he’s always an interesting challenge, and he has so much credibility for both that Dominick Reyes dropping him--Dustin’s first stoppage loss in the UFC after six goddamn years--singlehandedly made Dom a relevant fighter again. And Dustin’s knocked three motherfuckers out since then! Hell, Dustin dusted Vitor Petrino and now Vitor’s about to fight for a top ten berth at Heavyweight! In a division as completely hosed as Light Heavyweight you could be doing a lot with a Dustin Jacoby. Instead he’s down here fighting Muhammad Said, a UAE Warriors prospect who’s been subsisting on a diet of aging jobbers and can-crushers who rush at him with their heads completely still and then get very confused when he punches them. Said’s been waiting patiently for the next time the UFC needs a guy who knocks people out for a show in the UAE.

So congrats on getting here, I guess. If you win I’ll never forgive you. DUSTIN JACOBY BY TKO.

WELTERWEIGHT: Santiago Ponzinibbio (30-9) vs Sam Patterson (14-3-1)

This is a big part of why I complain so much about the matchmaking these days. The institution of marketing favorites getting preferential treatment is neither new nor shocking. If you went to a Boston library’s microfiche department I’m sure you could find newspapers complaining about promoters letting Gentleman Jim duck a rematch with Peter Jackson. While I would prefer a perfectly even promotional playing field, I am not so foolish as to think such a thing does, or even could, exist. But even the attempts to promote specific guys these days are so often batshit that I don’t really know what the UFC is trying to get out of them anymore. They fell in love with Sam Patterson’s tall-ass habit of gangling about, and they made a big deal out of him, and then he got smashed in his debut. It happens! They proceeded to feed him a diet of digestible opponents for two straight years, and having proven himself capable of dispatching people like Kiefer Crosbie, the UFC threw him into a main-card mid-London fight with Michael “Venom” Page, one of the trickiest, weirdest and yet most successful fighters in the sport, a man who damn near beat Ian Machado Garry. Patterson, shockingly, did not win. And now they’re trying to rehabilitate him by having him fight Santiago Ponzinibbio, who is almost solely losing these days, looking worse every time we see him and a couple months away from crossing 40, but they’re doing it buried halfway through the prelims in Abu fucking Dhabi.

Like, have a plan. Have a goddamn plan! That is all I ask of you. SAM PATTERSON BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Ismael Bonfim (20-6) vs Axel Sola (11-1-1)

Once upon a time, the Bonfim Brothers were the future of mixed martial arts. Within just a few months, they both suffered their first UFC losses. Gabriel got knocked out by our earlier-mentioned enigma, Nicolas Dalby; Ismael was trounced and choked out by future gatekeeper Benoît Saint Denis. In the three years since, Gabriel has beaten everyone in front of him--including kind of a screwy decision over Stephen Thompson, but judges have always hated Wonderboy, so that goes with the territory--and now he’s beaten a former champion and he’s a fight away from the title. Ismael has badly botched his weight cut twice and spent 2025 getting his face broken by Nazim Sadykhov and his head dribbled off the canvas by Chris “Taco” Padilla. The trajectory is deeply unfortunate for his future, and the UFC is hedging their bets on whether said future still exists by giving Axel Sola the chance to take away the last vestiges of his hype. Axel came into the UFC with some legitimate international-prospect hype as the reigning king of France’s ARES Fighting Championship, I doubted him by saying his tendency to rush headfirst into punches while aggressively wrestling would cost him against Rhys McKee, he knocked McKee out, they promptly booked Sola against Mason Jones in London, I chose to doubt again, and this time, I was correct. Sola’s no longer undefeated, and he’s real mad about it.

He will probably get to take that rage out here. I really hope Ismael’s fixed whatever’s been dragging him down for the last three years, because if he comes in as half-assed as he’s been lately, Sola’s going to crush him. AXEL SOLA BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Brendson Ribeiro (17-10) vs Magomed Tuchalov (6-0)

Into every card at least one -600 favorite slaughter must fall, and if you have ever watched mixed martial arts, you cannot be surprised that it’s some guy named Magomed. Brendson Ribeiro was supposed to be a big Contender Series punchman who would be the king of vaguely large men, but he discovered too late that his true love was not punching, but being punched, as consenting adults are wont to do. Unfortunately it also means he’s 2-5 and on a three-fight winning streak and about to go reclaim his title in Shooto Brasil. Magomed Tuchalov is the bigger, angrier, undefeatedier man who has mostly spent his career brutally destroying rookies--which is fine, because he, too, was a rookie. In this specific case, though? One of Brendson’s two UFC wins came against Caio Machado. It was a razor-close coinflip of a split decision, it was Caio’s third loss in the company, it made him a clean 0-3, and he was fired immediately after. Five regional wins later, Caio, the man who so very nearly beat Brendson, fought Magomed Tuchalov and got torched by a right hook in two minutes.

Godspeed, Brendson. May Shooto be bright. MAGOMED TUCHALOV BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Nurullo Aliev (11-0) vs Mike Davis (12-3)

We touched on Mike Davis last week vis-a-vis the tragic injustice of Chase Hooper and Mitch Ramirez getting a big main card matchup despite having both gotten violently trounced in their last fights by people who were booked much less prominently or not booked at all. Davis crushed Ramirez! Wadded him up and threw him in the damn trash. And his reward is an underdog bout against an undefeated Middle Eastern standout in Abu Dhabi. Nurullo Aliev’s been signed to the UFC for damn near four years, but a bad leg injury meant almost half of that time was spent on the shelf. He only just came back in 2025, he beat the decidedly unsuccessful Joe Solecki and he got a comedy matchup against the genuinely inexplicable Shem Rock, and now he is here to hopefully beat someone who is actually relevant.

And I really wanna see what happens to the crowd if one of their guys loses right off the bat because Davis is actually pretty good at everything. MIKE DAVIS BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Abdul Hussein (15-2) vs Cody Gibson (21-12)

I try--maybe not as hard as I should--to not fall into the trap of making fun of goofy fighter names. Not only is it too easy, it’s essentially impossible to avoid falling into quasi-racist traps by just thinking names from other cultures are funny. But when I looked up Abdul Hussein to do my usual tape research, the very first fight that came up was Hussein’s first-round submission victory over the former Flyweight champion of South Africa, Gift Walker. Gift mostly stood in front of Abdul and got kicked in the leg a bunch en route to getting choked out off of a really bad takedown attempt, and it was a reminder that a) even in the sliding scale of regional skill, 125 and 135 are still divisions you have to be at least pretty athletic and dangerous to exist at, and b) I am but a human, and if you put a man named Gift Walker in front of me, I am going to chortle and feel bad about it.

Anyway Cody mostly loses and he’s probably going to lose this one too, but it’d be really funny if he didn’t and we need every Cody we can get, so CODY GIBSON BY DECISION.

SATURDAY, JULY 18 FROM THE PAYCOM CENTER IN OKLAHOMA CITY
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 6 PM / 9 PM

We’re not currently thriving, my friends.

The central point of the UFC’s existence is, in theory, the promotion of the best mixed martial arts fighters and the best mixed martial arts fights on the planet. You put up with all of their evil bullshit because, at the end of the day, they will give you big main events with the top fighters the sport has to offer.

Including this week, our next four UFC main events are:

• Dricus du Plessis vs Kamaru Usman for top contendership at Middleweight, where Usman is 0-1

• Magomed Ankalaev, former champion and the main who beat Alex Pereira, vs Khalil Rountree Jr., whose last three wins were Jamahal Hill, Anthony Smith and Chris Daukaus

• Uroš Medić vs Daniel Rodriguez, because they’re in Serbia and Medić is Serbian

• Mateusz Gamrot vs Quillan Salkilld in the fucking Apex

UPDATE: It got worse! Between writing this and publishing it, Khalil Rountree Jr. dropped out with an injury and next week’s main event is now Magomed Ankalaev vs Bogdan Guskov. Everything is terrible. We are in the dead of Summer and we must travel the desert before we reach the light of Islam in mid-August. Come survive with me.

MAIN EVENT: HOW CAN WE MAKE THINGS MATTER LESS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Dricus du Plessis (23-3, #2) vs Kamaru Usman (21-4, #9 at Welterweight)

I’m so tired of writing these.

Not write-ups. Somehow, impossibly, I have not yet burned out on big, silly essays about our fake sport. I am tired of writing some variant of ‘here’s why this match is an active drag on matchmaking and represents a further movement towards nothing mattering’ three times a month. We just finished watching mixed martial arts fully and wholly debase itself by circling the wagons around Conor McGregor and celebrate his grand return to the sport after forty years spent wandering through the twin deserts of sex abuse and bigotry, and its reward for giving up its last shreds of credibility was ten seconds of an angry Irishman breaking his own leg while trying to pretend he was still in his twenties.

Things Don’t Matter right now. In three decades of watching this sport I would be hard-pressed to think of a time in mixed martial arts when things Mattered less than they presently do, and when I say that, I am including memories of Murilo Bustamante having to submit Matt Lindland twice because after the first time Lindland said “nuh uh,” and Nate Quarry randomly getting a world championship bout because he knocked out no less than Pete “Drago” Sell, and Vitor Belfort somehow being allowed to compete despite very visibly having every known steroid in the world fighting to burst out of his veins, and Michael Bisping bypassing all of his relevant contenders in favor of defending his title against a seventy-eight year-old Dan Henderson, and if you haven’t yet picked up on the pattern, it’s that Middleweight has always been the most frustrating division in the fucking world.

It’s not the worst division! That’s Light Heavyweight. But it is, perpetually, the most annoying. The aforementioned Murilo Bustamante left to go get boned out of decisions in Pride. Anderson Silva was the best mixed martial artist in the world and he would occasionally prove it by winning fights through interpretive dance. Chris Weidman went from the biggest new star in the sport to losing his belt because he crossed 30 and decided after a lifetime of using his knees for wrestling it was time to start throwing spinning wheel kicks. Bisping won the belt in a short-notice match against a man who’d beaten him before, refused a rubber match, and lost the belt to a retired Georges St-Pierre, who promptly re-retired because his colon was dying. Robert Whittaker has zero title defenses because Yoel Romero couldn’t make weight. Yoel Romero exists.

185 has always been the division that most commonly defies the concept of purpose. It asks you to care, then it spits in your eye and makes fun of your sexuality through obscure terminology that only makes sense if you understand the intricacies of Brazilian class struggle*. It tells you to get emotionally invested in contenders, then spurns them in favor of random fighters chosen by a hidden conclave of men in suits who took the auspices and decided Marvin Vettori was In this year.

_{*This happened.}

We already complained about all of this just two months ago, of course. I lamented the way Nassourdine Imavov had been passed over for a shot at then-grand poobah Khamzat Chimaev in favor of Sean Strickland, and because the arc of the present bends towards assholes, Sean is, once again, world champion. Which should be fantastic news for Dricus du Plessis! He beat Sean twice already, so, clearly, he should be the logical choice for the next shot at the belt.

But back in May, I had to break fellow co-writer Jess’s heart by letting her know about the latest matchmaking rumors.

Carl: But then, this is Middleweight, where the guy we both agree to be #3 hasn’t fought in almost a year for no apparent reason and, if rumors are true, his next bout will be Kamaru Usman. This is a division where Kamaru Usman could be 1-1 as a Middleweight and also the #2 contender to its title. Rhyme nor reason have purchase here, this is simply a Place where things Happen and we must hide in the storm cellar until they tell us who the new Anderson Silva is this time.

Jess: I was unaware of that Dricus/Kamaru matchup rumor. I would like to lay down, now.

The baffling thing here is you could have easily run du Plessis/Imavov and had an extremely natural, internationally-relevant #1 contender. And you could have done that at any point in the last year! Imavov hasn’t been booked to fight since he beat Caio Borralho back in September, DDP hasn’t been on the docket since losing the belt to Khamzat one month before that, your two former champ and your top contender have both been sitting idle for an entire season.

And that’s still better than Kamaru Usman, who is proceeding to a top contendership bout despite having one victory in the last five years, and said victory was already thirteen months ago, and it was at Welterweight.

For most of the last decade the UFC beat the marketing drum about Usman being arguably the best Welterweight of all time, having eclipsed Georges St-Pierre on the back of an eight-year unbeaten streak. It was, to be clear, a hell of a streak! In his prime Usman was a Terminator of a champion, a technically sound wrestler with an unending gas tank, a piston of a jab, and enough power in his back hand to surprise you every once in awhile by knocking Jorge Masvidal cold or breaking Colby Covington’s jaw.

Unfortunately, he had a lot of opportunities to do it, because the UFC booked his five-fight title reign to be dominated by rematches. He beat Colby twice, he beat Jorge twice, and sandwiched between them he knocked out poor Gilbert Burns, and at the apex of his success, as everyone was talking up his double-champion prospects, he fell apart. He lost his title to a last-minute Leon Edwards leg upside the head in 2022, he much more comprehensively lost the rematch that following March, he took half a year off, moved up to 185 pounds on short notice to fight Khamzat Chimaev, did better than anyone expected, still lost, and vanished for a year and a half.

Last June was everyone’s last Kamaru Usman sighting. He showed up to fight Joaquin Buckley in a matchup widely seen as the UFC attempting to force a passing of the torch from an old, falling, expensive star to a new, rising, cheap contender, and Usman proceeded to remind everyone why he reigned for so long, practically grinding Buckley into dust in the first round and running the table on him right up until the fifth. Usman walked away with his first win in half a decade, he regained his place as a relevant Welterweight contender, and he opened up all sorts of conversations about where he fit into the deeply crowded, talent-rich top ten of the division.

So he is, of course, leaving for Middleweight, where he already lost to the man who just lost the title.

That’s the funniest part of this whole thing. This is, technically, a fight between two men who’ve both already beaten the champion. Dricus famously took Strickland’s title and defended it against him with ease, but Usman less famously dominated a then-Welterweight Strickland back in 2017 to the tune of multiple judges giving him a 10-8 after he broke Sean’s face and dropped him on his ass. There’s an argument to be made that this fight makes sense, given that either man has an argument to be favored over the champion. It’s just, y’know, one of them beat him twice in very recent history and the other did it back when Charlie Rose was still on the air.

It also falls a bit flat when you remember that both men also got beat by Khamzat in equally recent history. So whoever wins, they beat the champion but lost to the guy the champion beat, and either way Nassourdine Imavov, the only top contender that hasn’t gotten a shot at the belt, is twiddling his thumbs.

But everything’s currently as silly as it can possibly be, so fuck it, whatever. Have Usman fight Dricus. Why the hell not. They’re practically the same size and Usman probably only has another couple fights in him and it’s not like Middleweight isn’t built on a foundation of lies, so as long as everything’s already stupid, why not make it stupid in another, stupider way. And y’know what? I’m gonna pick Usman, too. Is it an enlightened, strategically thought-out choice? Not even a little. Dricus is an energy gremlin and Usman was getting winded just dominating Buckley and there’s a very good chance he won’t be able to wrestle Dricus as well as he has everyone else. I think, realistically, this is Usman trying to pace Dricus behind his jab and hunt for good takedown entries and every time he tries Dricus will make him work so hard for it that by the midway point of the fight Usman’s going to be getting tired and Dricus is going to club him until he falls over.

And I’m picking Usman anyway, because a) he’s still very, very good, and more importantly, b) that’s the dumbest thing that could possibly happen, which makes it much more likely. KAMARU USMAN BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: THE RETIREMENT PLAN
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jared Cannonier (18-9, #11) vs Christian Leroy Duncan (14-2, #13)

You know what we need after all of that? More Middleweights who are all fighting in one big circle.

On one side of this equation you have Jared Cannonier. Big puncher. Loves crystals. His management took away the keys to his social media several years ago because he wouldn’t stop posting crazy conspiracy shit, which, honestly, way to have your finger off the pulse of the sport. Jared’s had a really rough go of it, he’s 1 for 4 in the past three years, and the sole win keeping him afloat was a vicious knockout over Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues just a year and a half ago.

Christian Leroy Duncan was a Cage Warriors champion who was supposed to coast into title contention on an undefeated record and British boxing power, but he found things more difficult than anticipated. His ship eventually got righted and he’s now on a four-fight winning streak that saw him knock out Eryk Anders and take a decision over Roman Dolidze, but he’s still dogged by his only loss in his past seven outings, which came against Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues just two years ago.

If you’re good at keeping a calendar in your head, you will have already surmised that those fights came back to back. Robocop beat Duncan in July of 2024, and in so doing earned his shot at Jared in February of 2025, and promptly got his head bashed in for it. There is a direct, 1:1 connection between both of these performances and what can be surmised about their respective competitors. So why are we still here?

Well, mostly, it’s because they really want Jared to go away.

Seriously, they’ve been throwing prospects they’d like to get boosts at Jared Cannonier for years. The UFC was already talking about Jared being long in the tooth and facing the twilight of his career when he got his title shot at Israel Adesanya because he was already in his late thirties, and that was four goddamn years ago. Since then, in order, he has:

• Beaten Sean Strickland, which Sean still complains about to this day

• Beaten Marvin Vettori, which was impressive, at the time

• Lost to Nassourdine Imavov in a really wonky stoppage, but he was losing anyway

• Lost to Caio Borralho in a fight that probably SHOULD have been stopped, but wasn’t

• Knocked the fuck out of Gregory Rodrigues

• Stood there in confusion while Michael “Venom” Page waved his hands at him for fifteen minutes, which constituted losing a decision

For better or worse, that’s a lot of fucking top contenders. How about Duncan? What’re his last six fights like?

• Knocked out Cláudio Ribeiro, who was cut immediately after for being 1-3

• Lost to Robocop

• Got a decision over Andrey Pulyaev, who is currently 1-3

• Knocked out Eryk Anders, whose last wins were a crippled Chris Weidman and the five-fight-losing-streak-laden Jamie Pickett

• Knocked out Marco Tulio, who is currently 2-2

• Decisioned Roman Dolidze, whose entire career is a confusing morass of looking persistently middling

In other words: Jared has been persistently fighting top competition, and Duncan has been getting gently nudged up the ladder in the hopes that by the time he gets to guys like, say, Jared Cannonier, he’ll be ready to feast on their aging bones. Even this fight, itself, isn’t dissimilar. He’s not rematching Robocop, he’s not defending his spot against Ikram Aliskerov. And it’s not like the UFC is shy about pushing it! They just gave Edmen fucking Shahbazyan an abrupt shot at the top five! If they thought he could handle it, they’d have Duncan fighting Reinier de Ridder.

But he’s facing 42 year-old, one-win-in-recent-memory Jared Cannonier, because they want Jared out of the damn way, and each time he shows up he looks just a bit creakier and just a bit more exhausted and just a bit less happy to be there. They launched Imavov off of him and they’re hoping they’ll get Duncan there too.

So I’m rooting for one last big uppercut. JARED CANNONIER BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: THE TRAVELING APEX
LIGHTWEIGHT: Chase Hooper (16-5-1) vs Mitch Ramirez (8-3)

This is just funny. Both of these men are on losing streaks--violent losing streaks. Two fights ago Chase Hooper got knocked out by Alexander Hernandez; one fight ago it was Lance Gibson Jr. kneeing him to death. For Mitch Ramirez, it was a leg kick TKO to Thiago Moisés followed by just getting flattened by Mike Davis last July.

Alexander Hernandez was thrown right back into the Apex. Mike Davis is on the early prelims in Abu Dhabi next week being served up to the undefeated Nurullo Aliev on a silver platter. Lance Gibson Jr. is not currently booked at all. Thiago Moisés got fired.

Chase Hooper is on the main card of a road show just under the co-main event as a -375 favorite against a man who’s 0-2 in the company after almost three years under contract.

As of this December we’re going to be in year 8 of Chase Hooper in the UFC. He’s not the literal teenager they were hoping to sport as their star prodigy anymore, he is a grown man who can legally rent cars. For eight god damned years they have built him with softballs like Nick Fiore and ancient, retiring Clay Guida only to tentatively put him in the cage with real competition, and every time, he’s gotten fucking thrashed. We’re not talking about close scrapes or fights that prove how competitive he can be with his fellow prospects. Every time in the last five years they’ve put Chase in there with someone who has even the faint chance of divisional relevance, he’s gotten knocked out in the first round.

But he’s a marketing favorite and they refuse to let go, so we’re going to do it all over again. CHASE HOOPER BY DECISION, and I look forward to writing that again in five months when he gets booked against the 0-3 Alex Reyes, and then, maybe, they’ll take the chance of booking him against Kyle Nelson or something and he’ll unfortunately get smashed all over again.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Tabatha Ricci (12-4, #8) vs Fatima Kline (9-1, #11)

Tabatha Ricci, welcome to the back half of the equation. For the last three years, Tabatha has been eating a steady diet of older, more-established fighters on a downward trajectory--Tecia Pennington, Angela Hill, Amanda Ribas--in an attempt to keep her afloat as a potential contender given her bad habit of getting beaten by actual contenders. Loopy Godinez outworked her, Xiaonan Yan outstruck her, and just three months ago the UFC begged Tabatha to rid them of persistent top contender and grappling bugbear Virna Jandiroba, and once again, Tabatha failed. Women’s Strawweight is not an enormous division, it is easy to re-entrench yourself with one or two good wins as long as the UFC cares about you, but when you are hired to carry out a hit and you fail, the Family exacts consequences.

In this case, those consequences include falling into the ‘aging, troubled veteran being changed out for a younger model’ trap that once lifted you into the top ten. These two women even share an origin story. Ricci and Kline were both successful, undefeated Strawweight prospects before the UFC called them up on short notice to fill in at a higher weight class, where they were promptly thrashed by a bigger, stronger woman. For Tabatha it was Manon Fiorot; for Fatima, it was Jasmine Jasudavicius. Kline’s return to her proper weight class has worked out much better. She pounded out Victoria Dudakova, she outright knocked out Melissa Martinez, and just one fight ago she completed the Strawweight entrance exam by beating Angela Hill. She was supposed to get her own shot at Amanda Ribas here, but Ribas couldn’t make it, and Ricci’s the veteran in need of a win now.

I don’t think she’ll find it here. Kline’s game isn’t without issues, she’s got vulnerabilities, but she’s a lot better than Ricci on the feet and she’s a lot bigger than Ricci on the ground. FATIMA KLINE BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Tommy McMillen (10-0) vs Alberto Montes (11-1)

Ordinarily this is where I pitch some form of fit about how the UFC marketing machine is working overtime to push their blood-obvious favorites like Tommy McMillen over the better fighters and genuine prospects and ranked women who are perpetually stuck on the undercard. Fortunately for all of us, I can’t do that this week! Because there aren’t any. Unless you have really strong feelings about Dione Barbosa or Alvin “Goozie” Hines, we’ve reached the point in the Apexification of the UFC’s product that even the road shows barely qualify as half-assed. This is a card people are supposed to pay money for. This is a card intended to fill a 16,500-seat arena.

And your anchoring fight for the main card is industry plant Tommy “Gun” McMillen, owner of one incredible victory over no less than the world’s most Italian man, Manolo “Angeleno Veneziano” Zecchini, and Alberto Montes, who’s had one fight in almost two years as a contracted UFC fighter, and it was a victory over Ricky Turcios, who has one real win in his entire UFC career. Management really likes McMillen given his propensity for violently swinging with no thought of defense or strategy, and coincidentally, he is half a foot taller and has almost as much of a reach advantage on Montes, who is the second-shortest Featherweight in the company and, equally coincidentally, is a lifelong grappler whose sole loss was a violent knockout against a wildly-swinging man.

Congrats on the red carpet, Tom. TOMMY MCMILLEN BY TKO.

PRELIMS: AN ARRAY OF CHOICES
FEATHERWEIGHT: Austin Bashi (14-1) vs Jose Delgado (11-2)

One of the issues with the current talent funnel into the UFC is how little time it gives fighters to make names for themselves. Austin Bashi is a good, solid fighter, but the company gave him a little too much hype as the latest in their neverending march of young, undefeated Contender Series prospects, and said hype centered around his being a) young and b) undefeated. Christian Rodriguez proceeded to beat the stuffing out of him in his UFC debut, and now, two whole years later and going on a truly ancient 25, Bashi has no identity. He’s just another scrappy grappler (”scrappler”) who was throwing guys with 15-35 records in the garbage to get to the company. And they know it, too, because they rehabilitated him by having him beat John Yannis, the same punching bag you saw Marcus McGhee knock around last month. Jose Delgado is, similarly, just here, which feels awfully disrespectful. He’s 3-1, he’s the only man to ever knock out Hyder Amil, he’s coming off a victory over the perennially tricky Andre Fili, and that means he’s right on par with guys who’ve only scraped together one win and need to be re-established.

Bashi just hasn’t quite done it for me yet. He’s very solid, but I need to see more from him before I can let him carry the emotional weight of my time watching Team Alpha Male in the WEC. JOSE DELGADO BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Seokhyeon Ko (13-2) vs Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani (10-2)

This may be an overreaction on my part, but I believe whoever booked this fight should go to jail. Ordinarily I say this due to lopsided odds or a fighter who got knocked out ten minutes before the booking or some similar injustice, but none of those apply here. This fight is the nexus of even more odious crimes: Sloth and incuriosity. Seokhyeon Ko is one of South Korea’s better MMA prospects, a very tough all-around stylist who trains under former UFC contender Dong Hyun Kim and has a hell of a left hook. Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani is a promising, up-and-coming submission prospect with headkicks in his back pocket and a victory by scarf hold in the 2020s, which means I’m ethically obligated to root for him. Both of these men are good! Both of these men just beat Phil Rowe. In Seokhyeon Ko’s last fight back in November, he beat Rowe by unanimous decision. In Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani’s last fight back in February, he beat Rowe by split decision.

Every fight is, or should be, about proving something. You compare two fighters and determine who deserves to rise up in the pecking order. There are 80ish Welterweights in the UFC. You could have booked any of them. You could have called up Ty Miller. You could book Darrius Flowers. You took the only two people in the entire division who fought and beat the same guy in their last fight and you booked them against each other, knowing that means whoever wins receives no momentum from the experience. Nothing will be proven. Nothing of value will be learned. We are letting the days go by, and I am letting the water hold me down. SEOKHYEON KO BY DECISION.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Felipe Franco (10-2) vs Levi Rodrigues Jr. (5-0 (1))

On the topic of things that don’t matter: Oh my fucking god, this fight. Let me diagram this. Just a hair under a year ago, Felipe Franco made it to the Contender Series as an undefeated 8-0 prospect who had only fought an opponent with any wins, ever once in his life, and that was the 19-18 Nilton dos Santos. Franco met the 3-0 Freddy Vidal, a part-time fighter and full-time P.E. coach, and Vidal choked him out. However: Vidal missed weight by 4 pounds. He took the fight as a short-notice replacement with all of one week to prepare, so you would think the UFC would understand, but Dana White was unimpressed, and that’s all that matters. Instead, they told Freddy to return to the DWCS one month later and fight Levi Rodrigues Jr., another undefeated prospect. Levi knocked Freddy out in the first round, only to have his win struck down as a No Contest after he pissed hot for steroids. Vidal, who beat Felipe, jumped through the UFC’s hoops and got screwed by someone who broke the rules even worse than he did, was not signed to a contract. Levi was. Felipe, after defeating a 1-2 man in Brazil, was brought into the UFC as a short-notice competitor for undefeated Heavyweight Mario Pinto, who beat him easily but unimpressively.

Mario Pinto is not booked to fight. (LAST MINUTE PRE-PUBLISHING UPDATE: As of this morning, no longer true! Now Mario Pinto is fighting down in the rankings against Ryan Spann this September, which is even worse.) Freddy Vidal is moldering on the regional circuit. Levi has a UFC debut as a -225 favorite. Everything is as stupid as it can possibly be, all of the time, and when I tell you that Light Heavyweight is the worst weight class on the planet, I want you to realize that this is the kind of shit the UFC is looking towards for its future. This is where we’re headed. Make your fucking peace. LEVI RODRIGUES JR. BY TKO.

FLYWEIGHT: Alden Coria (12-3 (1)) vs Stewart Nicoll (8-3)

This is going to be fun, because it’s Flyweight, but make no mistake, this is a setup. Alden Coria is a four-figure favorite and he should be. Coria’s 2-0 in the UFC and one of those wins was a beautiful, violent knockout over Alessandro Costa, a deeply dangerous boxer who’s only now starting to get his flowers. Stewart Nicoll was picked up by the UFC as an attempt to add local flavor to an Australian card back in the Summer of 2024, and since then he’s 0-3 in the UFC, and the last of those three bouts just this past April was a violent, one-sided knockout loss--against Alessandro Costa.

So three months ago Stewart got his liver punched out by a man Alden knocked senseless last September. The intentions are clear. ALDEN CORIA BY TKO.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Alvin Hines (7-1) vs RJ Harris (5-0)

Hey, sports fan. Do you remember Alvin “Goozie” Hines? No? That’s probably fair! He showed up in the UFC last June, fought Jhonata Diniz, got the stuffing beat out of him, won the third round because he poked Jhonata in the eye really badly but Jhonata continuned to fight anyway because fouls aren’t real? That guy! Unlike the rest of the UFC’s budget Heavyweight brigade you didn’t hear from ol’ Goozie again because he got busted after pissing hot for multiple steroids, and unlike every other fighter on Earth who blames it on tainted supplements he said “oh yeah I totally did all of that and thought I’d pissed it all out already so you wouldn’t catch me,” for which he was thanked for his honesty, suspended for a year, and booked into a comeback against an undefeated man who is almost half a foot taller than him, almost half a decade younger than him, and appears to have a baseline awareness of how grappling works.

Sorry, Goozie. RJ HARRIS BY SUBMISSION.

WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT: Dione Barbosa (9-4) vs Anna Melisano (6-1)

I miss Invicta, man. I miss the women of mixed martial arts having more spaces to develop. When Dione Barbosa made it to the Contender Series she was only 5-2 against a woman who was 5-1, and unsurprisingly, she’s spent the two and a half years since beating other women who were underprepared for the realities of fighting in the UFC while losing when set against anyone relevant to her division. And now she gets to welcome Anna Melisano, who has, herself, only just completed her first fight against someone with any kind of real experience under her belt. There was a time that these women could compete in Invicta or Strikeforce and build themselves up. Now I watch Anna Melisano’s tape and see a woman who has some legitimate offensive talent, but hasn’t yet had to worry about defense or proper technique to the point that I watched her, two fights ago, complete a takedown by just sort of gently shoving Lydia Warren’s shoulders until she fell over.

And I’m genuinely not sure if it’s more unfortunate that we don’t currently have that kind of developmental space for an entire gender, or that what I’m describing is, now, the UFC’s level. DIONE BARBOSA BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Damien Anderson (5-0) vs Ezra Elliott (7-0)

Speaking of missing the days of MMA having a proper developmental level: This fight got added to the card on Tuesday. Damien Anderson is a BJJ black belt who’s spent a lot longer grappling than fighting, his MMA career is all of two and a half years old, and he’s only fought two fights against people with more than 0 wins. Ezra Elliott’s career didn’t start until April 2024, he, too, has never fought anyone with a non-rookie record, two months ago he was beating the stuffing out of the 8-9 Ashton “No Chance” Caniglia for CINCO DE MAYO FIGHT NIGHT, which was not, in fact, held on Cinco de Mayo, as part of Ringside Unified Fighting, yet another of those companies that dares to ask questions like ‘can an undefeated prospect beat a 50/50 fighter with a mysterious preponderance of first-round stoppage losses?’

Here’s the secret: Ezra Elliott knows Sean O’Malley. He’s one of the BJJ coaches at Tim Welch’s Red Hawk Academy in Arizona. You still get opportunities by knowing people. Both of these guys are really good at grappling and I really want this to turn into the kind of fascinating and increasingly rare grappling showcase we need these days, but these guys both being relatively inexperienced and having almost no time to prepare, I feel like a tepid kickboxing match is more likely. Still gonna hope for DAMIEN ANDERSON BY DECISION, though.

SATURDAY, JULY 11 FROM THE T-MOBILE ARENA IN LAS VEGAS
EARLY PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | PRELIMS 4 PM / 7 PM | MAIN CARD 6 PM / 9 PM

I’m not sure things have ever been more meaningless than they are this week. This is the first card the UFC has promoted under the auspices of its new Meta-powered AI bullshit rankings, and you can tell how seriously they’re taking them right off the bat, because the official card list doesn’t reflect those rankings at all. The AI says Paddy Pimblett is barely hanging onto the top ten? Fuck that, he’s #6. Mario Bautista’s #5 now? That’s too goddamn high, he’s #7.

I know that sounds silly, but really, genuinely, engage with the reality that we now exist in an era of the sport where the UFC openly advertises rankings it no longer even reflects. MMA has never been less real and there is no more appropriate way to welcome Conor McfuckingGregor back to our terrible sport.

MAIN EVENT: WHATEVER IT TAKES
WELTERWEIGHT: Conor McGregor (22-6, NR) vs Max Holloway (27-9, #4 at Lightweight)

The last time we talked about a Conor McGregor comeback was just over two years ago, when the UFC pulled a bait-and-switch by lying about Conor’s return only to abruptly switch the fight to an Alex Pereira/Jiří Procházka rematch when they could no longer cover up that Conor was nowhere near fighting shape. I cursed us into this timeline.

Normally, when a main event gets cancelled, I’ll devote a little bit of space to complaining about it before moving on to analyzing the new fight we have in its place. Normally this is because we have an entirely new fight to discuss and, inevitably, I will get my chance to complain about the previously-scheduled fighter when they come back.

But I don’t think I’ll get that chance, because I don’t think Conor McGregor is ever coming back.

Oh, how I wish I had been right.

The assumption that Conor McGregor would stay in his torpor was rooted in the idea that we still occupied a consensus reality where things matter, which was, in June of 2024, still a thing you could hold at least a little hope for. It is two years later. That hope is dead. Every barrier to Conor McGregor’s return has been shattered.

Legitimate drug testing? That’s gone. The UFC infamously severed their ties with the US Anti-Doping Agency in large part because Conor was very visibly on every goddamn steroid known to man during his time away from the sport, and they were insisting, as a drug testing agency, that he be tested for drugs before his return. The UFC does, of course, swear by the legitimacy of their new, in-house testing program, and just like their USADA days, they have a website where you can see how many times everyone’s been tested. Why, Conor’s been tested 14 times in 2026! That’s more than anyone! Sure, there are about 1/5 as many test failures as there were under USADA, and sure, the only people who seem to get caught are conveniently the ones whose loss would be maximally convenient--they’ve published five test failures this year and the biggest hit was Iasmin Lucindo--but I’m sure it’s legit and everything’s fine.

Weight classes? Never been less of an issue. The Featherweight champ was the Lightweight champ and the Lightweight champ is the Welterweight champ and the former Welterweight champion who’s never won a Middleweight fight in his life is about to fight in a 185-pound title eliminator and the former 185-pound champ who became the 205-pound champ just got a 265-pound title fight at the fuckin’ White House. This fight, here, is between Max Holloway, a Featherweight great who is 2-2 at Lightweight in the UFC, and Conor McGregor, who is 1-3 at Lightweight in the UFC, and it’s being contested at Welterweight, and it’s already widely agreed that the winner will probably get a shot at the Lightweight title anyway.

Social expectations of conduct? Last time around we were talking about Conor suckerpunching people and whipping a dolly into the window on a UFC bus, and now he’s been found civilly liable for rape by two separate juries. Once upon a time, that would’ve mattered. Now? Hell, Conor’s not even the only legally-noted attempted rapist on this card. The UFC got tired of lowering the bar over and over, so now the bar is gone. Did you try to incite anti-immigrant pogroms a couple weeks ago? Have multiple juries of your peers looked at you and decided you sexually assaulted someone? Congratulations! This era of the sport was meant specifically for you.

In the aftermath of the White House card there were a few folks that noted the joy of enjoying the sport for the sport, rather than getting bogged down in its philosophical and political muck. I got it. I didn’t agree, but I understood. You could still do that, even with the White House.

But you can’t really do that here, because the muck is the only fucking thing to talk about. I’ve seen people try to discuss the reality of this as a rematch, in the way rematches are used to gauge how two fighters have grown since their first meeting, but Conor’s victory over Max Holloway was in 2013. Forget the fighters: The entire Featherweight division was less than three fucking years old.

There is nothing you can say about Conor McGregor The Mixed Martial Artist In Twenty Twenty Six that isn’t just pulling guesses directly from your own ass. It’s been half a decade since his last fight. It’s been six and a half years since his last win. It’s been ten years since his last Lightweight victory. Barack O-fucking-bama was still in the White House the last time Conor McGregor beat a ranked fighter in their own weight class. Anyone who starts to say a goddamn thing to you about the accuracy of Conor’s counterpunches or his speed or his precision is lying to you, and themselves, and picturing the Conor McGregor from the year fucking Finding Dory came out.

Conor’s contributions to the current age of mixed martial arts are getting knocked out by Dustin Poirier, shattering his own leg in an instant rematch against Poirier and following it by laying on the floor and screaming about how he really won the fight because he knows Dustin’s wife wants to fuck him, leading Michael Chandler on for years only to constantly cancel on him and make him look like an idiot for thinking Conor ever gave a shit about fighting him, and coasting on the triune powers of inertia, unbridled bigotry, and being a complete asshole in an era built by, and for, complete assholes.

And Max? Max is just here, man. Max should’ve been a Lightweight contender after knocking out Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier, but the UFC bet big on Paddy Pimblett and wanted to cash in on him, and when that failed, well, hell, Ilia Topuria’s the champ so obviously Max can’t fight him given the way Topuria smashed him at 145 pounds, so far better to make Gaethje your top contender even though Holloway and Charles Oliveira both crushed him. Which worked out gangbusters for the UFC! They got everything they wanted. Justin Gaethje won the title at the White House, Max is sidetracked for Conor, everyone’s chasing the money match again, and #1 contender Arman Tsarukyan isn’t even in the goddamn conversation.

Instead of anything that mattered, Max fought Charles Oliveira for the Bad Mother Fucker Championship, and then when Oliveira took Max down and dominated him for five straight rounds, the audience got mad about it, because daring to use a grappling-based gameplan was an affront to the legitimacy of the Bad Mother Fucker Championship, a title that was used by the UFC to sell Dwayne Johnson’s PROJECT ROCK shoes.

Mateusz Gamrot is fighting down in the rankings. One match down from here, Benoît Saint Denis is being used to try to rehabilitate Paddy Pimblett. Arman is unbooked. Oliveira is unbooked.

And Max Holloway is fighting adjudicated rapist Conor McGregor at Georges St-Pierre’s weight class five years after his last fight because this is how we make our money.

There is no sport here. There is no analysis. Maybe the cocaine and the steroids have joined forces in Conor’s body and now he has superpowers. Maybe he’s so hopped up on the power of getting away with sex abuse that he has the crushing force of a Rumble Johnson. Maybe Max kicks him in the calf once and Conor stops the fight so he can get on his phone and tweet about how immigrants made his leg hurt. Everyone involved in this should feel bad and I hope to god this is MAX HOLLOWAY BY AN INCREDIBLY FUNNY AND GRATIFYING KNOCKOUT so we can just move the fuck on from this once and for-fucking-all because my soul cannot take the Conor McGregor Title Tour we will be stuck with if he somehow wins.

CO-MAIN EVENT: WHATEVER IT TAKES
LIGHTWEIGHT: Benoît Saint Denis (17-3 (1), #5) vs Paddy Pimblett (23-4, #6)

I just don’t care, and that’s devastating, because this is the smartest, best-matched fight they could’ve made for these two men.

They’re both fine. They’re fine! Benoît’s a solid throwback of a savage wrestleboxer who doesn’t care half as much about his health as he really should if he wants to still be able to read by the time he’s 40, Paddy’s a big, aggressive grappling machine who is incredibly difficult to knock out, all of these things are true, none of them matter. We have trod repeatedly on the posies of praise when it comes to both prospects. Their talents have never been the issue, the matchmaking has.

But the UFC keeps trying with BSD. Hot on the heels of his knockout victory over Matt Frevola back in 2023 they decided to strap the jetpack to his aggressively French back and throw him in there with Dustin Poirier in a title eliminator, and he got stomped out in two rounds. They tried to rehabilitate him with a main event in France against Renato Moicano, and Moicano, who has self-described his fighting talents as “I fucking suck,” beat Benoît even worse than Poirier had. He went from having a ton of momentum to looking like a complete afterthought.

So they gave him Kyle Prepolec, a Canadian regional who’d already flunked out of the UFC once. Fine: Tune-up fight, I get it. And they followed that up with Mauricio Ruffy, a legitimate threat and now-top-ten competitor, and BSD handed him his only UFC loss, and it was great! Sending in Beneil Dariush afterward was kind of a lateral move, but at the time, it seemed justifiable--Beneil had just beaten Moicano, so by the transitive property, it was a good match!--and then Beneil showed up overweight and preemptively exhausted and looking like the clock had run out on his career. And then, to emphasize the point, the UFC booked Benoît against Dan Hooker, who still had a visibly damaged face from the hellacious beating Arman Tsarukyan had laid on him two months prior.

So BSD’s back in the top five, and all it took was one and a half real wins in a four-fight span. Paddy? You can’t even give him that.

Paddy Pimblett’s journey to the top was managed the way an ornithologist manages a robin’s egg. Paddy Pimblett’s UFC career has been so gently booked that even Paddy Pimblett himself repeatedly mocked it. Paddy Pimblett beat three guys with 50/50 or worse records, extremely clearly lost a fight to Jared Gordon only to inexplicably win a decision anyway, got matched up with Tony Ferguson at the ass end of the longest losing streak in UFC history, graduated from that to King Green, who was on a winning streak of 1 and it was over Jim fucking Miller, and finally faced Michael Chandler, who, himself, was 1 for his last 5 (now 7!) and that one win was, of course, also Tony Ferguson.

They gave him a title shot for that. Paddy Pimblett beat Michael Chandler, who hadn’t won a fight in three years, and they put him in there with Justin Gaethje for the interim Lightweight championship of the world. Of this world.

People will tell you Paddy vs Gaethje was close, and it was, in the sense that if I am hit by a truck and do not die, I can say that I almost defeated it. Justin beat seven shades of hell out of Paddy, whose best assets in the fight were a) his chin, b) his willingness to repeatedly knee Justin in the dick, and c) Justin’s refusal to stop ducking into the same strike over and over. Paddy hit him! A bunch! It did not matter. Justin practically killed him in the second round but somehow not a single judge scored a 10-8, and somewhere, Jared Gordon’s blood boiled in his bed.

So the UFC astroturfed Paddy to a title shot and it failed. It happens! No shame in it, except for, y’know, how ashamed all of the matchmakers should be for doing it in the first place. What do you do with him now? Do you make him fight down in the rankings? Do you test him against the Rafael Fizievs or Grant Dawsons of the world?

Of course not! You get that fucker back in the top five as fast as fucking possible, and you do it on the Conor McGregor comeback card so we can keep rubbing that fandom off on him like it’s a fucking disease.

I dunno, man. Like I said, it’s a smart matchup. Either BSD beats Paddy and the UFC hypes it as his big signature win or Paddy beats someone who isn’t old and broken down and this is cited as proof that he’s ready for another title shot so we can continue to ignore Arman Tsarukyan forever. On a skill by skill basis it’s practically a mirror match. Both men eschew defense in favor of their own toughness, both men would really like to take you down because their top game is where their most effective offense comes from, both men would really, really prefer it if you not put them on their backs because that’s just unfair.

And I very clearly want Benoît to win, which makes me second-guess all of the reasons I think he could. Paddy’s really, really fucking tough, and Benoît is good at a number of things, but persistent offense and self-pacing have never been one of them. I can easily see him blowing his gas tank trying to get Paddy out of there early and getting Pimbletted in the back half of the fight. Hell, I can see Paddy using his clinch game to drag BSD down and simply deny him the chance to be the aggressor.

But the heart wants what it wants. BENOÎT SAINT DENIS BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: WHATEVER IT TAKES
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cory Sandhagen (18-6, #4) vs Mario Bautista (17-3, #7)

Oh, Cory. Your day will never come. In eight and a half years with the UFC, Cory Sandhagen has only ever lost fights against world champions or title contenders--and he arguably beat T.J. Dillashaw!--but as much as I will always root for him, when you lose all of the big ones, it becomes progressively harder to get mad that you aren’t getting more of them. Cory was supposed to win a title eliminator with ol’ Dilly, and he probably should have, but he didn’t. Cory got his interim title shot against Petr Yan, and he tried, but he couldn’t get it done. Two summers ago they sacrificed Cory to Umar Nurmagomedov, and after Cory shredded Deveison Figueiredo last year they finally gave him a shot at the title and Merab Dvalishvili, and unfortunately, Merab did what Merab does and drowned him. Does Cory deserve the shot at Sean O’Malley he’s been calling for? Absolutely. Is there any universe in which they give it to him instead of Song Yadong and Aiemann Zahabi, whom they’re more confident Sean can beat? Absolutely not.

No, what Cory gets is prospect rejection rematch duty. Mario Bautista is one of the best Bantamweights in the world, and if they could keep him carefully separate from the title picture, they’d be much, much happier. They gave him a shot! They tried to dispose of him by having Mario welcome Patchy Mix to the UFC last year, and then it turned out Patchy had dissolved into a horrifying skeletal approximation of his former self, so they pivoted the other way and gave Mario a shot at Umar with top contendership implications. But Mario failed the Umar test, and just like that, it was back to trying to get Mario killed, this time at the hands of Vinicius Oliveira. Unfortunately for the Lok Dog, the fight reinforced that there are, in fact, levels to this shit, as Mario turned him into a pretzel and choked him out with relative ease. He is, still, one of the best in the world. But he’s a grappler who usually goes to decisions, and by god, that’s just not acceptable.

This match is incredibly fucking cool. They already fought back in 2019, Cory armbarred Mario in one round, and since then Mario’s gotten a lot better at fighting to his strengths and Cory has gotten a lot better at not getting booked into the fights he deserves. Cory and Mario are both the caliber of fighter that could be king, were it not for the tip-top of the mountain just out of their reach, and there’s a very good chance whoever loses this fight is condemned to never sniff a title shot again. I love Mario’s grappling, I love his creativity; I am still going with CORY SANDHAGEN BY DECISION because I think he’s got a few more tools in his bag.

FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Royval (17-9, #4) vs Lone’er Kavanagh (10-1, #6)

It’s open season on Brandons again. All Brandons must proceed to the back of the boat and depart for their Brandon-shaped life rafts. After winning the Battle of the Brandons and wresting the title of The Brandonest from Brandon (the lesser) Moreno, and following it by derailing the then-undefeated Tatsuro Taira, Brandon Royval was supposed to get a title eliminator with Manel Kape last year. But Royval got injured, and then Kape got injured, and the UFC had Royval fight Joshua Van on barely any notice, and the rest is history. After his loss, Royval finally got that matchup with Manel, and unfortunately for him it ended with Manel punching him stupid in one round. Now Brandon is well and truly out of the title picture, and that means it falls to him to give prospects the jump they need.

Lone’er Kavanagh was supposed to fight Bruno Silva in a barely-ranked bout this past March. Instead, after the aforementioned Moreno’s main event with Asu Almabayev fell through, the UFC decided to send Kavanagh in. Was he coming off a knockout loss to Charles Johnson, who is only barely clinging to the edge of the top fifteen? Yes. Did he deserve a shot at the top five? Nope! Did it matter? Not even slightly. It was competitive but clear, Kavanagh outstruck Moreno and took his spot in the title picture, and now that the UFC has managed to get their Irish-English-Chinese marketing idol into the conversation by feeding him a Brandon, their ravenous appetite must be sated. All Brandons must fall.

More than any particular analysis about Kavanagh’s striking style vs Royval’s clubbing aggression, I just want something nice to happen for Brandon the Greater. The sport was not kind to him and I would like him to get one back. BRANDON ROYVAL BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: King Green (35-17-1 (1)) vs Terrance McKinney (18-8)

At this point I’m convinced the UFC got what they wanted by jobbing King Green out to Paddy and Mauricio Ruffy and now he’s part of the same non-canonical class of fighter Shara Magomedov and Michel Pereira exhibited the other week. In his last three fights, in order, King Green has fought and defeated:

• Lance Gibson Jr., a Bellator veteran who’d been fighting 22-52 guys named Charon Spain for Muckleshoot Fight Night before his abrupt callup to the UFC

• Daniel Zellhuber, a former UFC marketing darling now losing fights to circa 2025 Michael Johnson

• Jeremy fucking Stephens, who is, inexplicably, still fucking here

This is why sentences like “this fighter is on a three-fight winning streak!” are becoming less and less meaningful. If your winning streak incorporates The Muckleshoot King and a man whose last UFC win was damn near a decade ago, did it really happen?

We’re not going to find out here, because Terrance McKinney exists only for two and a half minutes at a time. For those one hundred and fifty seconds, he is a stone-cold killer with insane power and the willingness to sling headkicks and flying knees and punches that come all the way from his ass, and if he can strangle you on the way, by god, he will. After that? He disappears into dust and dreams. In thirteen UFC appearances, McKinney has never won a fight that lasted beyond two and a half minutes. Everyone who drags him into the deep waters of half the length of Next’s “Too Close,” 1998’s hottest dance song about being embarrassed you have a boner, will, statistically, defeat him.

King, once upon a time, you were a defensive mastermind who could run circles around damn near any Lightweight in the world. Lately, you have been bouncing off the cage and getting punched in the head. I am requesting that you fight like the guy who dodges punches tonight. KING GREEN BY TKO.

PRELIMS: WHATEVER IT TAKES
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Nikita Krylov (31-11, #12) vs Robert Whittaker (26-9, NR)

I did this. This is my fault. I’m so sorry, everyone. I have spent years talking about how giving up your harsh, unpleasant weight cut and moving up to a higher class is the sport’s best basis for success, but I never thought to stop and disclaim “Not you, Robert Whittaker,” and now we are all doomed to a harvest of depression. You already did this, Rob! You were a Welterweight and it sucked shit and you hated it and then you became a Middleweight and it went good up until you started dying a lot! Some of it is the division getting better, sure, but some of it is you decided to focus your fighting style around darting, lancing attacks and then you turned 30 and you slowed down at the same time people figured out that they can just hit you! You were already not a big Middleweight, you are about to be tied as the second-shortest Light Heavyweight in the company and I am so, so very afraid you are about to get lit the fuck up by Nikita Krylov as he punches you from half a foot away.

And yet: You beat the stuffing out of Paulo Costa and now he’s the #4 Light Heavyweight on the planet and he did it by beating the only man in the division who’s smaller than you. So fuck it, I guess, you do what you gotta do. Please don’t make me as sad as I think you’re about to. ROBERT WHITTAKER BY DECISION.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Gable Steveson (3-0) vs Elisha Ellison (5-2)

When you book a fight with a -3000 favorite someone should come to your office and throw you in jail. Speaking of which: Hi, Gable. I knew we were going to get here sooner or later, but christ, I was really hoping for later. For those who don’t know, Gable Steveson is a) an Olympic gold medalist, b) one of the best amateur wrestlers of all time, c) an (alleged) attempted rapist who got away with it in part thanks to his professed inability to perform and in part to a now-closed loophole whereby women in Minnesota couldn’t be considered unable to consent to sex if they’d willingly gotten drunk, and d) a failed professional wrestler who flunked out of the WWE’s developmental program after a combination of his lack of charisma and reputation as a sex criminal led to the audiences completely rejecting him. Fortunately for us, mixed martial arts has no standards.

I wish Gable Steveson were not here. I am sad it has come to this. He is probably still the best Heavyweight prospect on the planet. I wish both things could be mutually exclusive but I am afraid we are going to be stuck with him for some time. Elisha, you have the opportunity to do the funniest shit in the entire world. GABLE STEVENSON BY TKO.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Cody Garbrandt (15-7) vs Adrian Yañez (17-6-1)

I kinda thought we were done with this. Both of these guys, honestly. Adrian, you got a lot of good will for knocking Tony Kelley the fuck out of not just the UFC but mixed martial arts altogether, but for one, we immediately replaced him with much worse people, and for two, it’s been pretty downhill since then. You are 1 for your last 5, and the guy you beat was Vinicius Salvador, a Flyweight so unsuccessful he got kicked up to Bantamweight for screwing up his weight cut AND losing, and in the middle of that you’re going to draws with Ricky Simón, and it’s just a bad scene, man. But Cody? Cody, my guy, what are we doing here? You were supposed to leave! You were talking about your contract being done, like, two goddamn years ago, and now it’s 2026 and you are coming off a fight with Xiao Long where you were the beneficiary of a two-point deduction and people still think you winning the decision was a fucking robbery!

Like, it’s okay. You can stop. It’s a big world out there. Go learn about leatherworking. ADRIAN YAÑEZ BY TKO.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Kai Kamaka III (18-7-1) vs Luke Riley (13-0)

In another of those somehow-this-is-an-even-matching-of-careers moments, Kai Kamaka III, who got cut from the UFC on a 1-2-1 run back in 2021 after only managing to beat--hey, Tony Kelley! How wonderful it is to get a chance to remind you that Tony Kelley sucked shit twice in one writeup--was invited back to the company on less than a week’s notice this past April. Not because of an injury, or a need for a replacement, but simply because the UFC looked at Renato Moicano vs Chris Duncan and said “maybe if we add one more fight to the prelims no one will notice that we tried to convince them Renato Moicano vs Chris Duncan was a legitimate main event.” Luke Riley, meanwhile, is an undefeated contender from Cage Warriors who’s already 2-0 in the UFC after knocking out Bogdan Grad, which leaves him perfectly positioned to fight the guy who was losing decisions to Diego Brandão less than a year ago but made it to the UFC even though they turned Brandão down for the crime of being 39.

LUKE RILEY BY DECISION.

EARLY PRELIMS: WHATEVER IT TAKES
WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT: Tracy Cortez (12-3, #8) vs Wang Cong (9-1, #12)

Welcome to the war of women the UFC wishes were more successful. They fuckin’ love them some Tracy Cortez. Is it her grappling? Is it her lack of finishes? Is it her incredibly distressing habit of not taking off her fake eyelashes before she gets in the cage? Either way, Rose Namajunas and Erin Blanchfield, both potential contenders, had fights with Maycee Barber fall through and saw Maycee replaced with Tracy, and they both beat her, and she is still here, getting fights on numbered events. Wang Cong was supposed to be the UFC’s 125-pound Zhang Weili, the new female face of their Chinese invasion, and then they put her in a big splashy fight in Macau and she got run through by Gabi Fernandes and everything’s been kind of blurry since then. She beat Bruna Brasil, who has a losing record, and she beat Ariane da Silva, who has a losing record and got released immediately afterward, but then she beat Eduarda Moura, who has a winning record! By one fight. Also Cong missed weight. Manon Fiorot hasn’t fought since October, Valentina Shevchenko hasn’t fought since November, Erin Blanchfield is fighting down in the rankings and there are, as of now, exactly two matches booked for absolutely anyone in the entire top fifteen at Women’s Flyweight.

But Cong and Cortez are one of them, so nothing else matters. TRACY CORTEZ BY DECISION.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Damian Pinas (9-1) vs César Almeida (7-2)

This fight exists because people need to watch a motherfucker get punched in the head. Motherfuckers getting punched in the head is the only reason César Almeida has a job. They signed him as a 4-0 fighter because he used to do kickboxing and they were still so high on Alex Pereira’s success that signing a guy with four fights who was already in his late thirties seemed like a wise use of time and money, because hey: It worked once. Two years after his UFC debut, Alex Pereira was a two-division champion! Two years after his UFC debut, César Almeida is 3-2 and hasn’t beaten anyone with a winning record. Damian Pinas just got here. They signed him off the Contender Series because he knocks out goddamn near everyone he fights, and they booked his UFC debut against a guy who got knocked out on the Contender Series back in 2024, and, shock of shocks, Pinas knocked him out. He is large, he is scary, he was fighting 4-5 guys just a couple fights ago, and he will continue to terrify anyone until it turns out he doesn’t know what to do if someone moves laterally.

Until then, DAMIAN PINAS BY TKO.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Farid Basharat (15-0, #15) vs John Garza (6-1, NR)

This went from my favorite fight on this entire card to the fight I’m angriest at for reasons unrelated to sex criminals. Farid Basharat is one of the Bantamweight division’s best prospects: An undefeated all-arounder who’s defensively sound and smart enough in his approach to make it to the rankings despite only having one finish in the company. He was supposed to meet red-hot prospect Ethyn Ewing, in what would have been a genuinely fascinating contest between one of the division’s best defensive strategists and one of its best offensive boxers. But Ewing dropped out, and rather than just rebook the fight later, or find someone for Basharat who’s already in the company, they’re bringing in 23 year-old John Garza, a rookie with barely two years in the sport who’s been fighting guys down in Fury FC who don’t even stand out at the regional level. He hits hard, he hits fast, and he hits like someone who’s barely had to worry about people testing his defense.

So he’s fighting for a berth in the top fifteen. God bless. FARID BASHARAT BY DECISION.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ryan Gandra (9-1) vs Zach Reese (10-3 (1))

The pattern feeds on itself to survive. Zach Reese was hired because he openly advertised his desire to ignore things like ‘defense’ and ‘strategy’ in favor of simply being a wild-eyed savage who goes for finishes all of the time. Two and a half years later he’s coming off a loss because he can’t beat Michel Pereira and he has yet to record a win over anyone with a successful UFC record. Ryan Gandra just got here four months ago, and he was fighting nobodies one bout before his shot at the Contender Series, and they hired him because he, too, knocks out all of the warm bodies tossed in front of him, and to make sure he succeeded, they started him off against José Medina, who was on a five-fight losing streak that included--shock of shocks--Zach Reese.

Now the models must fight to determine which interchangeable punch-rookie matters the most. None of this means anything. Neither of these guys seems particularly good. ZACH REESE BY SUBMISSION.

FLYWEIGHT: Cody Durden (18-10-1) vs Alessandro Costa (16-5)

This is Cody Durden’s third fight in four months. That’s very silly. That’s a silly thing to do. But it got Cody his first win in two goddamn years and that win was over Jafel Filho, the fighter I have arguably the unhealthiest relationship with, so honestly, who’s to say if it’s actually bad or if I’m just bitter? It worked out gangbusters last time, and all it took was a last-minute replacement fight against an underprepared grappler with bad stand-up fighting at an unfamiliar weight class. Surely, that will translate extremely well to a return to Flyweight against a strong wrestleboxer with real knockout power!

ALEESANDRO COSTA BY TKO.

Welcome to July. You have survived more than half of this year and you should be proud of yourself. It’s a weird month, with the entire world taking the first week of July off and four separate events all being crammed into the 17th/18th, and also Conor’s back so that sucks.

THIS MONTH’S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

• UFC 329: McGregor vs Holloway 2, July 11

• UFC Fight Night: du Plessis vs Usman, July 18

• UFC Fight Night: Ankalaev vs Rountree Jr., July 25

• PFL Austin: Eblen vs Kasanganay 2, July 18

• PFL New York: Nurmagomedov vs Colgan, July 31

• ONE Friday Fights 161: Pacio vs Malachiev, July 10

• ONE Fight Night 45: Lessei vs Rabah, July 17

• Rizin Landmark 15: Ota vs Tilenov, July 18

A NOTE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF BOOKKEEPING

As of this month, I am removing Invicta from the championship rolls. Which sucks! I love Invicta and the industry has never, ever needed a dedicated home for women’s MMA like it does right now. But at this point it’s been 14+ months since the last Invicta event with no news in sight. We’re half a year overdue for the big relaunch they promised, and I certainly hope they return, but even if they do, their only two champions were Jennifer Maia and Elisandra Ferreira and both are now fighting for other promotions, with Maia kickboxing in K-1 and Ferreira having just made a successful 115-pound debut for the PFL. Get better soon, Invicta. We miss you.

IS THERE ANY NEWS

Dustin Poirier got arrested for being drunk and disorderly in an airport and threatening to beat up cops and yelling the n-word in reference to kicking their asses. He’s since posted apologies lamenting how he’s struggled with his drinking since retirement, and no one actually got hurt, so the biggest lasting impact is Sean Strickland having an excuse to say the n-word on social media a bunch now it’s okay. I hope Dustin gets help.

Remember that whole thing over the last year where the Global Fight League announced a completely preposterous event series with a massively expensive roster of aging veterans, AI-generated hype videos and no explanation for how on Earth they were going to make money, and then it folded before it could even begin and no one on Earth was shocked?

We’re gonna do it all over again! The GFL has announced it’s back, for totally real this time, and they’ll be holding it from the venue at Sam’s Town Live, which has just barely one thousand seats, on October 17. We mean it! We’re really gonna do it! Also here’s a link to our cryptocurrency.

Alex Pereira is really, really mad about Herb Dean. He wants you to put in the papers that he’s mad. He celebrates it. It’s hard to avoid a little bit of schadenfreude, here, as Pereira was happy to scab for Tom Aspinall and was decidedly unsympathetic towards his woes, but now that he, himself, has felt the sting of questionably legal blows en route to his TKO loss to Ciryl Gane, he has decided Herb Dean is a stain on the sport and must be fired immediately. He started a petition! Which was especially funny a couple weeks later when Herb turned in an incredibly bad performance during Shara Magomedov vs Michel Pereira, allowing Shara to get away with pulling Pereira’s hair and poking his eye without ever taking a point, despite a stern warning.

Multiple things can be true at once. It is true that Herb Dean makes a lot of mistakes. It is true that we are desperately overdue for a conversation about the reffing, judging and administration of the rules of mixed martial arts. It is also true that Alex going from a fuck-you-got-mine marketing face-of-the-UFC favorite to Dom Cruz levels of referee grudge this fast is really, really funny.

The UFC launched their long-promised, Meta-powered LLM-driven rankings system, and the net result was several days of the website having no idea who the champions were and changing the identity of beltholders every few times you reloaded the page.

But they fixed it! It’s perfect now! Except it’s so weighted towards recency bias that Kevin Borjas is a top ten Flyweight despite being 2 for 6, and Marcus McGhee is #9 at Bantamweight because he beat up John Yannis but Aiemann Zahabi is only #12 because he got knocked out by Sean O’Malley, and Pat Sabatini is now the world’s #7 Featherweight, and Mike Malott is ranked above Yaroslav Amosov at Welterweight despite Malott getting crushed by a man Amosov choked out in seconds, and Joe Pyfer is the world’s #5 Middleweight, and we could keep going but I’m already weeping blood.

Rankings are terrible. And I should know, because we made our own! It takes real work to make something worse than what the rankings already are. But by god, they managed.

WHAT HAPPENED IN JUNE

We kicked off the month in the Apex with UFC Fight Night: Muhammad vs Bonfim on June 6. Ketlen Souza knocked out Ariane Carnelossi, Jeisla Chaves won a ‘why is this in the UFC’ split decision over Yuneisy Duben, we had a very rare three straight submissions as Joanderson Brito choked Jordan Leavitt, Chelsea Chandler armbarred Priscila Cachoeira, and Édgar Cháirez got the rear naked choke on Bruno Silva all in one round apiece, Marcus McGhee took a wide decision over John Yannis, and Alessandro Costa knocked out Matt Schnell in two and a half minutes. On the main card, Iwo Baraniewski leg kicked Junior Tafa to death in a minute and a half, Bryce Mitchell choked out Santiago Luna, Tom Nolan earned his way into the rankings by beating Farès Ziam, Brendan Allen won a really obvious decision against Edmen Shahbazyan that Edmen reacted to with shock anyway, and in the main event, Gabriel Bonfim dominated Belal Muhammad, whose career is just making me sad now.

Rizin Landmark 14 came later that night. After Rizin’s attempts to make the Landmark cards bigger, flashier affairs of late, this was something closer to their baseline, with kickboxing and rookie fights and guys with 0-4 records that are somehow still here. But Yusuke Yachi beat fellow aging veteran Isao Kobayashi, and good ol’ Blackpanther Beynoah damn near decapitated Bilal Kai Haga, and Tony Laramie scored the upset by taking a decision over Yuki Motoya, and in the main event, Shinryu Takahashi finally got his revenge on Hiromasa Ougikubo after their first fight in 2024, this time taking home a unanimous decision and Ougikubo’s Flyweight championship.

On the 13th we had PFL Africa 2, and I’ll be honest, I could tell you things like “Patrick Ocheme knocked out Ayinda Octave” or “Ignacio Campos choked out Wasi Adeshina,” and I’m sure we’ll touch base more on the Africa tournaments later this year when they hold their finals, but what I really care about is Invicta Atomweight champ Elisandra Ferreira moving up to Strawweight, debuting in the PFL, and armbarring Juliet Ukah, a former Featherweight. Good fuckin’ job, Lili.

The next day on the 14th, the UFC went to the White House.

Six days later, we came back to the Apex for UFC Fight Night: Kape vs Horiguchi. Was it bad? Not really! Was it depressing? Man, yeah, kinda. Shane Collins beat Otari Tanzilovi in a fight that didn’t make either of them look all that great, Luana Santos unseated Karol Rosa with a similar performance, Levan Chokheli destroyed Leon Shahbazyan in twenty-three seconds, Gastón Bolaños pulled a decision over Michael Aswell Jr., Mitch Raposo just barely scraped a split over Allan Nascimento, Bia Mesquita looked pretty lousy and almost got knocked out by Melissa Mullins but Mullins inexplicably followed the world-class grappler to the ground and got armbarred for her troubels, and Kevin Borjas missed the Flyweight limit and proceeded to beat hyped prospect André Lima by decision anyway. On the main card, Vinicius Oliveira knocked out Andre Fili in two rounds, Murtazali Magomedov hit the Scottish Twister on Melsik Baghdasaryan, Christian Rodriguez choked out Hyder Amil, Navajo Stirling overcame an early scare to stop an exhausted Ion Cuțelaba, and in your ultimately sad main event, Kyoji Horiguchi pitched a near-perfect game against Manel Kape for two and a half rounds, looked amazing, reminded everyone why he’s one of the best fighters in the world, and then promptly got socked in the chin by Kape and fell over.

The 26th brought us ONE Fight Night 44: Jarvis vs Rungrawee 2 and I dunno, man. I dunno. Every couple months they get rid of more MMA and I wonder when it’ll just be over. Paul Elliott knocked out Regan Upshaw in seconds with a jumping Heavyweight kick and that was pretty neat, I guess. Karen Ghazaryan knocked out Hisashi Ezaki in a round. Lucas Gabriel won an upset split decision over former champ Ok Rae Yoon. George Jarvis knocked out Rungrawee Sitsongpeenong in the Muay Thai main event and some people liked it, I’m pretty sure.

And on the 27th the UFC returned to Baku for UFC Fight Night: FIziev vs Torres, a night where it was awful, awful good to be a UFC fighter whose name ends in a V. The prelims included Farman Hasanov beating Eric Nolan, Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyayev dropping Julius Walker in eight seconds, Nursulton Ruziboev choking out Andrey Pulyaev, Kaan Ofli looking like a different fighter entirely in destroying Javier Reyes in one round, Daniil Donchenko taking out Theodor Berggren and Jean Matsumoto outlasting Bekzat Almakhan to a decision, but the prelim people will remember most was Tahir Abdullayev vs Jefferson Nascimento, a truly baffling fight in which Abdullayev repeatedly complained to the referee that Nascimento was moving around too much, somehow succeeded in getting the ref to admonish Nascimento for not engaging even though he was the only one landing strikes, god away with several cage grabs and a groin shot, may have actually bitten Nascimento in mid-fight, and wound up getting a TKO ruling so early even the commentary team was shocked by it. On your main card, Abus Magomedov choked out Michał Oleksiejczuk, Ikram Aliskerov got a decision over Brunno Ferreira, Asu Almabayev hit the goddamn Suloev stretch on Charles Johnson, Matheus Camilo flattened Nazim Sadykhov in ninety seconds, Shara Magomedov won a pretty bad fight with Michel Pereira before calling for a title shot, and in the main event, Rafael Fiziev turned back the clock and knocked out Manuel Torres.

The month closed later that night with PFL San Diego: McKee vs Isbulaev. The prelims were an all-finishes affair, with Cobey Fehr, Savarjon Khamidov, Khasan Magomedsheripov and Jena Bishop all scoring submission victory, the latter over former UFC contender Ariane da Silva, and Shannon Clark scored the only knockout of the prelims against Ilara Joanne. Up top, Rob Wilkinson won a moustache fight with Abraham Bably, knocking him out in the second, Alexander Shabliy took a dominant decision against Alfie Davis, Liz Carmouche guillotined Viviane Araújo in two rounds before calling for the PFL to make a Women’s Bantamweight division, and in the main event, a game but outmatched Salamat Isbulaev got dominated by A.J. McKee.

WHAT’S COMING IN JULY

ONE is up first this month with ONE Friday Fights 161: Pacio vs Malachiev on July 10, and as is the standard with ONE there are only two MMA fights announced and they’re Eduard Folayang vs Shozo Isojima and the main event, Joshua Pacio defending the ONE Strawweight MMA title against Mansur Malachiev. As is the NEW standard for ONE, I’m typing this on June 28th, this event is less than two weeks away, and those are the only two fights announced. I want ONE to just take a break and get their shit together, man.

The next day, it’s UFC 329: McGregor vs Holloway 2, because everything sure does suck. Ryan Gandra vs Zach Reese in a “why are we still here” matchup. Farid Basharat vs Ethyn Ewing in a “why is this still on the early prelims” matchup. Gable Steveson vs Elisha Ellison in a “why are you not in prison” matchup. Plus Tracy Cortez vs Wang Cong, Cody Garbrandt vs Adrian Yañez, Robert Whittaker moving up to 205 pounds against Nikita Krylov, and a main card of King Green vs Terrance McKinney, Brandon Royval vs Lone’er Kavanagh, Cory Sandhagen vs Mario Bautista, Benoît Saint Denis vs Paddy Pimblett, and, in the main event, Conor McGregor is back, and he’s getting a fight against #4-ranked Lightweight Max Holloway except it’s being contested at Welterweight because nothing matters, especially not being found legally liable for sexual assault.

Our very long weekend begins on July 17 with ONE Fight Night 45: Lessei vs Rabah, which has five MMA fights on it: Ayaka Miura vs Victoria Souza and Jihin Radzuan vs Anastasia Nikolakakos at the again-vacant Atomweight division, Sanzhar Zakirov vs Ruslan Satiev and Lito Adiwang vs Joshua Perreira at Flyweight, and Bokang Masunyane vs Lee Seung Cheol at Strawweight. Your actual main event is a Muay Thai match between Luke Lessei and Mohamed Younes Rabah.

The 18th kicks off with PFL Austin: Eblen vs Kasanganay 2. As of now, only six fights are announced: Andrea Vázquez vs Aleksandra Savicheva, Sergio Cossio vs Kolton Englund, Jesus Pinedo vs Levy Saúl Marroquín, Caolán Loughran vs Julio Arce, Sergio Pettis getting back on the horse against Lewis McGrillen, and your main event was supposed to be a Middleweight title rematch between Costello van Steenis and Johnny Eblen, but with Costello out injured, it’s now a rematch between Eblen and Impa Kasanganay for an interim title.

Middleweight madness continues throughout the day thanks to UFC Fight Night: du Plessis vs Usman. This aggressively silly card includes amazing fights like Allen Frye Jr. vs Alvin “Goozie” Hines, Austin Bashi vs Jose Miguel Delgado, Tommy McMillen vs Alberto Montes, Brad Tavares vs Marc-André Barriault, and Tabatha Ricci vs Fatima Kline. Your anchoring fights are, in all likelihood, Chase Hooper vs Mitch Ramirez, Kevin Holland vs Jacobe Smith, Marlon Vera vs Charles Jourdain, Jared Cannonier vs Christian Leroy Duncan, and, in your main event, #2-ranked former Middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis vs Kamaru Usman, who is 0-1 at the class.

Our long 48 hours of combat sports concludes late that evening with Rizin Landmark 15. As before, this is still a developmental show, so there’s a lot of development talent and subsequent records on it--the 6-5 Namiko Kawabata vs the 4-3 Ayane Hirata, the 19-18-1 Shoji Maruyama against the 2-1 Genji Umeno, the kinds of things you would expect to see from a Rizin card where a bunch of kickboxers are trying their hand at MMA. But we’ve got Rizin’s first stabs at filling the void Seika Izawa left in their Atomweight division, as Saori Oshima faces Lee Ye-Ji and Si Woo Park meets Moeri Suda, and a couple embattled fan favorite bouts, with Hiroya Kondo facing Erson Yamamoto and Karshyga Dautbek fighting ol’ Kenka Bancho himself Kyohei Hagiwara, and your main card is a score of good, old-fashioned Japanese-vs-foreigners bouts, as Tatsuki Shinotsuki faces Korea’s Lee Jae-Hoon, Tenya Yoshimura fights America’s Johnny Case, Shinobu Ota tries to outwrestle Kyrgyzstan’s Yrysbek Tilenov, and in the main event, Jinnosuke Kashimura tries to wrest Rizin’s Bantamweight title away from champion Danny Sabatello, whom Rizin is threatening to fire if he doesn’t start finishing people.

The UFC closes their month out on July 25 by returning to Abu Dhabi for UFC Fight Night: Ankalaev vs Rountree Jr. It is, once again, a night of EMEA-friendly competitors, with highlights including Nurullo Aliev vs Mike Davis, Uran Satybaldiev vs Dustin Jacoby, Islam Dulatov vs Wellington Turman, Ramazan Temirov vs Steve Erceg, Rizvan Kuniev vs Tyrell Fortune, Umar Nurmagomedov vs David Martinez and, playing the role of our honorary Abu Dhabian for the week because his name at least STARTS with a V, Valter Walker vs Thomas Petersen. Headlining the show is former champion Magomed Ankalaev and former challenger Khalil Rountree Jr. fighting to see which of them gets a potential claim on a belt that will probably have an interim or a vacancy in the very near future.

And July ends on the 31st with PFL New York: Nurmagomedov vs Colgan. The PFL’s throwing a bit more at this one than usual, with Montana De La Rosa vs Tatiana Postarnakova, Raufeon Stots vs Lazaro Dayron and Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov vs Simeon Powell filling out the card, but the big deal are their two biggest stars both gettin gpole position. Striking queen Dakota Ditcheva is in the co-main event against former Bellator titlist Denise Kielholtz, and in the main event, Usman Nurmagomedov defends his Lightweight title--in what might be his last-ever fight for the PFL--against the undefeated Archie Colgan.

CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Tom Aspinall - 15-3 (1), Either 1, 2 or 0 Defenses Depending On How You Look At It

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 he made his first undisputed one against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on October 26--and, because this division is fucking cursed, it ended in a No Contest after Gane poked him in both of his eyes at once. The UFC has decided this is mostly Tom’s fault, which has nothing at all to do with Tom’s dad talking about how he shouldn’t sign a new contract. A rematch has been vowed, but Tom had to get eye surgery to regain his sight and the UFC doesn’t want to wait when there’s marketing to be done, so Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira fought for an interim title at the godforsaken White House.

Interim Heavyweight Champion

Ciryl Gane - 14-2 (1), 0 Defenses

Five years ago, the UFC ran into issues with their undisputed Heavyweight champion and chose to end-run around them by putting an interim title on Ciryl Gane. It is 2026, and nothing has changed. With Tom out thanks to Ciryl’s fingertips piercing his eyeballs, Ciryl was rewarded with a big fight against Alex Pereira for the interim belt--again--at the UFC’s big, terrible White House super-event, in the not-so-subtle hopes that the UFC’s continuing attempts to put all their eggs in the Alex Pereira basket would pay off in the form of their first-ever three-division champion. Instead, Ciryl beat the crap out of him. At 205 pounds, Alex was a monster; at 265 he was slower, smaller and no longer possessed the biggest guns in the cage. Ciryl boxed him up and knocked him out in the second round, but in the process of getting the stoppage he dropped elbows on a fallen, shaky Pereira that hit the back of his head, over which Pereira is attempting to a) have the fight’s result reversed and b ) have referee Herb Dean fired. Ciryl Gane, meanwhile, continues to profit from everyone else’s misery. He’s the interim champ again, which means either he’s going to face Tom in a rematch when Tom’s healthy, or the UFC’s going to stop pretending and strip Tom and Ciryl will ascend to the Heavyweight throne on a trail of eyeballs and brainstems.

Light Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Carlos Ulberg - 14-1, 0 Defenses

It’s so hard not to skip to the punchline on this one. Carlos Ulberg’s combat sports career is more mixed than MMA alone would lead one to believe. He started as a mixed martial artist all the way back in 2011, but after winning his debut fight, he decided to give fighting a break for almost half a decade. Then it was boxing, and then it was MMA again, and then it was kickboxing, and for a brief period of time it was both at once. The rise of Israel Adesanya led the UFC on an all-out talent search for big, credible strikers from Oceania, and that is how despite being just 3-0 as a mixed martial artist, Carlos wound up on the Contender Series in 2020, and just a few months later, in March of 2021, he was debuting in the UFC. They hyped him, they gave him a spot on the pay-per-view prelims, they booked him against the 1-1 Kennedy Nzechukwu and despite having half his experience Ulberg was the heavy betting favorite, because everyone knew they wanted him on top. Which was unfortunate, because Kennedy knocked him out in two rounds. Carlos described the loss as the most important moment of his career--half for the lesson of the loss itself, half for the $50,000 bonus that gave him his first taste of actual profit as a professional. He vowed to take his career more seriously, he vowed to prepare for his fights as though every one mattered rather than simply being happy to be in the UFC, and four years later, he was the top contender for the Light Heavyweight crown. A testament to determination and a good mindset? Absolutely! But also a bit of a testament to the careful cultivation and protection of a prospect. Carlos did his job and beat everyone the UFC put in front of him, but the people put in front of him tended to be carefully picked. At one point he beat a genuine prospect in Nicolae Negumereanu, and the UFC followed it up by giving him Ihor Potieria, the man Nicolae had just knocked out in his previous fight. Stiff prospects like Aleksandar Rakić and Azamat Murzakanov flew past in the background, but Da Woon Jung and Alonzo Menifield had to be destroyed. The UFC spent a year and a half trying on three separate occasions to book Ulberg against Dominick Reyes, and by the time they finally got there, it was, somehow, impossibly, a title eliminator. But Ulberg won, just as he’d won every fight since his meeting with Kennedy Nzechukwu, and he proceeded to his title fight with Jiří Procházka for the championship Alex Pereira had left behind to try his hand at the Heavyweight division. It was fun, it was fast, it was dramatic and it was definitive. In just a hair under four minutes, Jiří was flat on the canvas and Carlos Ulberg, five years after his debut, was the Light Heavyweight champion of the world. He also very visibly tore his ACL in half right in the middle of the fight and could barely move. If Jiří had simply backed away, hacked a few leg kicks and kept his distance, the fight would’ve been stopped between rounds, but he chose to engage and got flattened by a left hook counter for his troubles, and the result was a brand new titleholder who proceeded directly to the emergency room after the fight and had knee surgery less than a week later. For the third time in six title reigns, the new champion has an injury so bad it will prevent them from defending their title for at least the rest of the year. Will we get an interim title? Will yet another champion have to give up the gold? Will Paulo fucking Costa wind up technically a 205-pound champion? Stay tuned.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Sean Strickland - 31-7, 0 Defenses

After all of that time, we are back where we were. When Sean Strickland got his first shot at the UFC Middleweight Championship back in 2023, it was under particularly thin circumstances. Strickland had just come off back-to-back losses against Alex Pereira and Jared Cannonier, his title prospects seemed slim, and a short-notice victory over the then-unheralded Nassourdine Imavov and one-fight UFC veteran Abus Magomedov seemed unlikely to get Strickland anywhere. But then Dricus du Plessis wanted another month to prepare for Israel Adesanya, and the UFC wanted to keep their pay-per-view main event, and suddenly, Sean Strickland was beating one of the sport’s biggest stars and becoming its top Middleweight. It was a stellar performance, it was a career-defining victory, and it was one of the shortest title reigns in UFC history, as just four months later Strickland lost the belt to du Plessis in his first defense. But it was a split decision, so his argument for a rematch was sound, and after a pretty dubious win over Paulo Costa, Strickland got du Plessis back in the cage, where he vowed vengeance, justice, and a return to greatness. Dricus beat him 50-45. It would be a full year before Strickland returned, and in that time, the Middleweight division had changed shape. Nassourdine Imavov was in pole position. Israel Adesanya was a shadow of his former self. Anthony Hernandez was the fastest-rising contender in the class. And Strickland’s nemesis Dricus du Plessis had lost his title to Khamzat Chimaev. On February 21, 2026, on the back of a bunch of bigot bullshit that was growing ever-more tired by the day, Sean returned to the cage and walked right through Hernandez, not just beating him but knocking him out in the third round, and just like that, Imavov’s work didn’t matter, Dricus beating Sean twice didn’t matter. The UFC has its favorites, and Sean got the shot. Khamzat, as he did, hadn’t fought in nine months, and had been busying himself making threats about moving to Light Heavyweight and chasing a superfight with Alex Pereira, who had, himself, already moved up to Heavyweight altogether. Chimaev swore he would outwrestle Sean, smash him, and move on with his life. And for one round, he looked completely correct. After the first, suddenly, Strickland evened things up. Khamzat was never able to assert his wrestling game again, so the rest of the title fight became a boxing match, and in that sense, it was surprisingly even, with Khamzat arguably landing the bigger punches but Strickland landing at a higher clip, and the scorecards were split right down the middle. But the coinflip went Sean’s way. For the second time, Sean Strickland is a world champion, and we are all bastards for it. A rematch seems almost inevitable, but Sean has a shoulder injury to rehabilitate, so we’ll see what the future holds.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Islam Makhachev - 28-1, 0 Defenses

The prophecy has been fulfilled. Khabib Nurmagomedov was considered by many to be the greatest Lightweight of all time, but in the later stages of his career he began to repeatedly reference his lifetime friend and training partner Islam Makhachev as not just his successor, but the man who would break the mold he’d left behind. And the fanbase was more than willing to buy another Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov protege coming in and wrecking shop--until he got knocked out by Adriano Martins. Khabib’s aura of invulnerability came from the simple, so-obvious-more-people-should-try-it factor of simply never losing a damn fight. When Islam got torched in under two minutes by a man that couldn’t beat Donald Cerrone, that aura vanished. A lot of folks still thought he could be a champion, but most felt the greatest-of-all-time lane was closed to him. It turns out there’s another way to regain that sense of unbeatable awe, though: Just don’t lose for so goddamn long people forget it ever happened. In the ten full years since that Martins bout, Islam has not lost a single fight. Most of the time, he hasn’t even lost a round. He worked his way up the Lightweight ladder and began to rack up incredible achievements. He tore through top prospects with virtually no effort, he choked out one of the best MMA grapplers ever in Charles Oliveira, he outlasted and later knocked out one of the two men with a claim to the all-time Featherweight crown in Alexander Volkanovski, he choked out Dustin Poirier and he broke the Lightweight title defense record after stomping Renato Moicano. And then he traded in his record-breaking reign to challenge for Welterweight gold. Jumping divisions is always difficult, but the 15-pound leap from Lightweight to Welterweight is a mountain, and no Lightweight champion had ever managed it. Even BJ Penn, the canonical first man to hold gold at both, had to do it in reverse: He failed at both of his attempts to win Lightweight gold and shocked the world by abruptly taking it at Welterweight instead, and it would be five more years before he finally got his shit together and won a title in the division that made him famous. His subsequent attempts all ended in defeat, half because Matt Hughes and Georges St-Pierre were both great and half because BJ was just a Lightweight. Even though Islam was Islam and widely agreed to be a monster in the cage, Jack Della Maddalena had won the Welterweight title with some of the cleanest boxing the UFC had seen, and his championship victory over wrestler Belal Muhammad had people convinced that Islam, at best, would struggle. They met in the main event of UFC 322 on November 15, 2025, and there was absolutely no struggle. Islam kicked Jack’s leg to pieces, landed some surprisingly big punches, and took the fight to the ground almost at will, and by the time the fight ended, it felt like Jack never had a chance. The shadow has been stepped out of. Islam Makhachev is a two-division champion. And now he has a brand new horde of contenders beating down his door. He’ll try to notch his first defense against Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330 on August 15.

Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Justin Gaethje - 28-5, 0 Defenses

This has been a long, long time coming. Justin Gaethje has been right on the edge of the top for so long he banked two half-championships on his way up the mountain. Back in 2016, before the UFC even signed him, he was the champion of the World Series of Fighting--now known as the Professional Fighters League, much to our collective sadness--and was widely considered one of the best Lightweights in the world before ever setting foot in the Octagon. Back in 2020 he fought Tony Ferguson, then arguably the scariest Lightweight in the world, and beat him so horrifically that his career never recovered, and that netted Gaethje his first interim belt, which he promptly lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov in the latter’s retirement bout. Back in 2022, Gaethje got his second shot at the undisputed title against Charles Oliveira and he wound up strangled in three and a half minutes. Three and a half years after that, Gaethje was still right there at the precipice of the top, Ilia Topuria needed a break from the sport, and the UFC needed an aging veteran to propel their marketing star Paddy Pimblett to the top, and at UFC 324 on January 24, 2026, they threw Paddy’s big party and Justin crashed it. The UFC will tell you the fight was close, and it was in the sense that it went the whole way and one judge only gave Justin three rounds, but Paddy got brutally beaten and dropped repeatedly. With their desired player having failed his final exam, the UFC booked Gaethje into the main event of their big, terrible White House card against the finally-returning Ilia Topuria, who vowed to put Gaethje out within two rounds and resume his journey to a Welterweight showdown with Islam Makhachev. Instead, the two men had a goddamn war, with both hurting each other repeatedly and Topuria, arguably, giving away a TKO victory in the second round after crumpling Gaethje with bodyshots and choosing to roll for an armbar rather than pound him out. Gaethje broke Topuria’s face and left him nearly blind, and by the end of the fourth round, Topuria had nothing left and his corner threw in the towel. It took ten years, two interim belts and two failed shots, but finally, Justin Gaethje is the champion of the world. Which makes whatever happens next really fucking weird. They could run a Topuria rematch, but the ending was definitive and Topuria never defended the belt in the first place. They could have Gaethje fight rematches with Oliveira or Max Holloway, both of whom stopped him in the recent past, but Gaethje is hesitant about them and Holloway is booked against Conor McGregor. I’m sure they would LOVE it if Conor won so he could fight Gaethje instead, but that seems drastically unlikely. Arman Tsarukyan is, as ever, the #1 contender, but we know the UFC doesn’t care about that. My guess: Paddy Pimblett rematch.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 28-4, 1 Defense

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’ve been Movsar Evloev, but the UFC was busy trying to get 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 wasn’t done yet, so Noche UFC 3 got moved to the most Mexican of places, Las Vegas, in October, and Alex’s manager said he had an eye injury that needs time to heal, so he took the rest of 2025 off. Good news, though: That left time for the UFC to get new contenders going. Lerone Murphy wound up fighting and knocking out Pico! Aljamain Sterling beat Brian Ortega! Hell, Movsar Evloev is still right there! The UFC looked at all of them and gave them all the finger. At UFC 325 on January 31, fresh off his title victory over Diego Lopes, Alexander Volkanovski had his first title defense against Diego Lopes. Unsurprisingly, the guy who beat Diego Lopes beat Diego Lopes again. The UFC had Evloev and Murphy fight in March and Evloev won a contentious decision, and now Jean Silva is lobbying as hard as possible for the fight, so we’ll see who gets it.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Petr Yan - 20-5, 0 Defenses

Petr Yan’s road to the top has been incredibly circuitous. When Yan initially won the Bantamweight title back in 2020, no one was particularly surprised. He’d been one of the best in the world for years, he’d put together a six-fight winning streak on his road to the title shot, and the UFC had fed aging legend Urijah Faber to him in an attempt to make him a known quantity. Felling an even greater legend in José Aldo and taking the belt felt like an entirely expected passing of the torch, and a long reign as the division’s standardbearer seemed all but assured. And then, as they so often do, things went wrong. In quite possibly the most infamous title change in UFC history, Yan became the first champion to ever lose his title by disqualification after drilling Aljamain Sterling in the face with an illegal knee. Yan’s team cried foul and the world turned on Sterling, but when they had their rematch a year later, Sterling beat him by decision and that was that. But it was a split decision, and it was close, so the UFC gave Yan another theoretical title eliminator with Sean O’Malley, and this time the world was almost unanimously convinced Yan won--except for two of the three judges, who split in O’Malley’s favor. To top it off, Yan’s attempt to stay in the contendership conversation ran into the brick wall that was the rising Merab Dvalishvili, who handed him the most one-sided loss of his entire life. In the space of two years, Petr Yan went from being perceived as a generational champion to 1 for his last 5 and seemingly eliminated from contendership. After a year off to cope with injuries, reassess his career and figure out how to turn things around, Yan proceeded to take the path that most commonly leads to success: Just fucking beating everyone. He battered Song Yadong, he outpunched Deiveson Figueiredo, he won an exceedingly weirdly-booked matchup with Marcus McGhee, and suddenly, he was on a winning streak and right back in contendership. It might have taken him longer to get an actual title fight were it not for Merab Dvalishvili being a crazy person. Merab was on the greatest championship run the division had ever seen, and after clearing out most of his to contenders and recording a blistering three defenses in a single year, he announced his intention to break a UFC record and cement himself as the greatest 135-pounder of all time by recording a fourth--just two months after the last one--and Petr Yan was available and ready. The world saw the fight as a foregone conclusion, given how one-sided their first match had been, and the world was wrong. Yan put on the best performance of his career, not just battering Merab but outwrestling him, and in one of the best career comebacks we’ve seen, almost five years after he’d given it away, Petr Yan got his title back. He’s on top of the world again, and in all likelihood, the rubber match with Merab will be next. But it’s gonna have to wait until the second half of the year, because Yan’s having back surgery.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Van - 17-2, 1 Defense

It would be disrespectful as hell to Joshua Van to say that no one saw this coming, as many people perceived it as a possibility, but I don’t think anyone saw it coming like this. Van was the Flyweight champion of the Fury Fighting Championships when the UFC came calling, as a 21 year-old regional titleholder with a penchant for collecting knockouts despite fighting at 125 pounds so thoroughly ticks all of their boxes that Van couldn’t have been a more perfect fit without also having a history of racist tweets, and his Contender Series debut was set for August of 2023. But the UFC needed someone to fill in against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, so Van got called up to the big show early and proceeded to justify their faith by beating Zhalgas, and then beating the man he was originally slated to Contend against, and then facing off with Legacy Fighting Alliance champ Felipe Bunes and handing him the first TKO loss of his entire career. In the space of six months, Van went from a little-known regional fighter to a borderline-ranked Flyweight in the UFC. And then he got atomized by Charles Johnson. It was the second loss of Van’s career, the first time he’d ever been knocked out, and the snapping of an eight-fight winning streak, and in many cases, that would’ve permanently ended his momentum. But Van was smart enough to learn from his mistakes, and the UFC was invested enough in him to bring him back up to speed with a gentle hand, and eleven months later he was on a four-fight winning streak again and had successfully made his way to the top ten after knocking out Bruno Silva, which left him in the perfect position to take advantage of an abrupt opportunity. Top contender Brandon Royval had just lost his opponent and needed a replacement, and Van was game to fight for the second time in three weeks if it meant a shot at the belt. It was a close bout, and if Van hadn’t knocked Royval down at the end of the third round he may well have lost, but he did, so he didn’t, and suddenly the prospect was next in line for the title. All but one month of Joshua Van’s UFC career took place during Alexandre Pantoja’s reign as the Flyweight king. His streak was monstrous and he was a sizable favorite coming into his defense against Van, but many were waiting to see if Van’s boxing could defuse Pantoja’s aggression. As it turns out: We’re gonna have to wait a bit longer. Twenty-six seconds into the bout Pantoja busted his own arm on the mat after a head kick gone awry. So Van’s the champion, but it’s under some real weird circumstances, and it means a number of people are immediately gunning for him. Alexandre Pantoja presumably has a rematch as soon as he’s back, but Tatsuro Taira just pounded Brandon Moreno out and got his crack at Van at UFC 327 on April 11. It was an amazing fight, but ultimately, Van got the knockout in the final round.

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--actually, this got delayed so much it’s only now finally booked for UFC 324 on January 24, 2026--maybe never? A couple weeks before the superfight Kayla had to pull out for apparently fairly major neck surgery. No word on when she’ll be back or what on Earth happens now.

Women’s Flyweight, 125 lbs

Valentina Shevchenko - 26-4-1, 2 Defenses

After almost two years of suffering, we have gone back to the start. At the end of 2022 Valentina Shevchenko was so thoroughly ensconced as The Greatest Women’s Flyweight that a sizable segment of the fanbase had built an honest-to-god antipathy for her over it. Sure, she won, all the time, and sure, her only losses in almost a decade and a half came to the greatest of all time in Amanda Nunes, and sure, Shevchenko arguably won their second fight, but familiarity breeds contempt, and after watching the purported greatest struggle with a split decision to Taila Santos that could easily have gone the other way, too, a big chunk of the mixed martial world was ready to move on from Val. And then, unexpectedly, it did. Valentina was a -900 favorite when Alexa Grasso shocked the world, choked her out, and took her title away on March 4, 2023. An instant rematch was obligatory, given Val’s long history on top, so half a year later they ran it back at Noche UFC in 2023, and, awkwardly, it ended in a draw. If the rematch had been obligatory, the threematch was mandatory, but a hand injury on Val’s part and the UFC’s desire to put an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter behind their promotion meant a full twelve months passed before they got back in the cage. That’s a long goddamn time, and it left a lot of air, and that air was filled by doubt. Alexa won the first fight, after all--but she was on her way to losing a decision before Valentina made a costly mistake, threw one of her trademark nowhere-close-to-landing spinning back kicks, and got immediately jumped on and choked out for her troubles. Alexa didn’t lose the second fight--but based on the scorecards, she should have, and would have, were it not for one judge handing her a completely indefensible 10-8 in the final round. When the third fight came on September 14, 2024, it was seen as Alexa’s chance to cement her legacy: Either she was the superior fighter and the herald of a new generation for Women’s Flyweight, or the whole thing was just a weird episode. Unfortunately for Alexa, it was the latter. Valentina dominated her. She outstruck her and outwrestled her with almost comical ease, the fight was a complete shutout, and despite their series being now tied at 1-1-1, no one has any doubts about the winner, nor any desire to see them fight again. Once again, much to the internet’s chagrin, Valentina Shevchenko is a champion. 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 was a long-awaited champion vs champion affair against Zhang Weili at UFC 322 on November 15, 2025. After years of watching Zhang dominate her competition, the world felt she had genuine double-champ potential and could be the woman to unseat Valentina. As it turned out: Not even close. Val dominated her in every aspect of the game, Zhang got completely shut out, and her Flyweight hopes are dead in the water. Valentina has multiple title defenses again and is now tied with Amanda Nunes and Anderson Silva for the fourth-most wins in title fights in UFC history. We’ll have to see who they give to her next, but Natália Silva feels like a safe bet.

Women’s Strawweight, 115 lbs

Mackenzie Dern - 16-5, 0 Defenses

On a long enough timeline, the house always wins. Mackenzie Dern signed with the UFC as a 5-0 fighter all the way back in 2018 and they’ve been trying to get a belt on her ever since. She came into mixed martial arts with a pre-existing pedigree as one of the more decorated women in the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Gi championships, no-gi championships, pan-Am championships, Asian open championships, world championships, ADCC championships, she took them all. And the UFC marketed her as a grappling champion who was bringing some of the best submission offense in the sport to the Strawweight division! But they also marketed her as an extremely conventionally attractive woman who frequently wore bathing suits. It was one of the touchiest things to comment on with her career: Where other women would have to struggle for their matchmaking and featured spots, Mackenzie’s opportunities kept coming, and they were almost always on the main broadcast and, on multiple occasions, in the main event slots women almost never received. And she needed them, because despite being legitimately quite good, she just wasn’t great. She could make it into the top fifteen, and sometimes even brush the top ten, but every time they tried to get Mackenzie into title contention, she’d falter. It was Amanda Ribas in 2019, it was Marina Rodriguez in 2021, and between 2022 and 2024, Mackenzie had the worst run of her life, winning only one out of four bouts, getting shut down by Yan Xiaonan and Amanda Lemos, and taking the first stoppage loss of her career after being knocked out by Jéssica Andrade. She managed to get her way back up the ladder again by outgrappling Loopy Godinez and submitting a struggling Amanda Ribas in a six-years-belated rematch, but with so many losses to top contenders, her path to the title still seemed closed. Then a funny thing happened: Zhang Weili gave up the Strawweight belt to move up to Flyweight and challenge Valentina Shevchenko. Suddenly, the door was wide open. And conveniently, the UFC had booked all the women who beat Mackenzie into other matches, leaving Mackenzie with just one contender left--and it was Virna Jandiroba, a career grappler whom Mackenzie had already beaten back in 2020. The two met at UFC 321 on October 25, and after seven years of effort, the UFC finally got its way. Mackenzie beat Virna again, fair and square, in a close and hard-fought but ultimately clear decision. She is, at last, the Strawweight Champion of the World. And she’s in the exceptionally weird position of being a newly-minted champion that has very recently lost to several of her own top contenders. One would think, Zhang Weili having been soundly thwomped by Valentina Shevchenko in her bid for 125-pound supremacy, she would be back at Strawweight to reclaim her crown. Instead she’s MIA and Mackenzie will defend her title against Gillian Robertson at UFC 330 on August 15.

NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Luiz Gustavo - 16-4, 0 Defenses

Sunrise, sunset. Luiz Gustavo is not new to Rizin. He made his debut all the way back in 2018, when he was an undefeated, 8-0 22 year-old who’d only barely started fighting real competition down in Katana Fight. Rizin threw him straight into a main event in the hopes of completing the ascension of their rising star Yusuke Yachi, who’d just capped off a six-fight winning streak that included torch-passing matches with Japanese legends like Satoru Kitaoka and Takanori Gomi. Gustavo was supposed to be Yachi’s victim. Instead he knocked Yachi out in two rounds. Suddenly, Gustavo was the star and the man folks had flagged as Rizin’s next big Lightweight champion. He proceeded to go 1-3 over the next year, which culminated in the first knockout loss of his life against Patricky Pitbull and, ultimately, an almost three-year hiatus while the world struggled with COVID. When Rizin tried to get back to its wholly-international ways in 2022, they had Yusuke Yachi waiting for a rematch, and once again, Gustavo knocked him dead in two rounds. In two years Luiz had a winning streak and a shot at longtime champion Roberto “Satoshi” de Souza, and the world expected a classic striker-vs-grappler clash. Satoshi shocked him with a right hand and knocked him out in twenty seconds. Having lost his shot, and followed it with an unsuccessful bout against Shunta Nomura, Gustavo’s hopes for the top of the heap were so distant that Rizin booked him into a fight with living legend Kazushi Sakuraba’s son, the 2-1 Taisei. Gustavo punched him out in seven and a half minutes. Barely two months later, Rizin needed a challenger to stand opposite Ilkhom Nazimov, the man who had unseated Satoshi during their big New Year’s Eve special, and Luiz was available. Once again, the world underestimated him, and once again, they were wrong. Luiz punched Nazimov out in two minutes to finally take his title home.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Razhabali Shaydullaev - 18-0, 3 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 was Shaydullaev making his first defense against Viktor Kolesnik at Rizin 51 on September 28: He knocked Kolesnik out in just thirty-three seconds. His successful murders got him the main event of 2025’s Japanese New Year’s MMA special, where Rizin secretly hoped their big national star Mikuru Asakura would get the job done; Shaydullaev chain-suplexed him, grounded him, and laid an unconscionable amount of ground and pound on him in one of those Japan-likes-to-let-its-heroes-die moments before the ref finally called the fight in just shy of three minutes. Shaydullaev’s the best guy in the company, and now there’s a question of what’s left for him to do. For now, inexplicably, the answer was carrying the murder of the 5-2 Yuta Kubo at Rizin Landmark 13 on April 11, which is wild because they already fought at the end of 2024 and Shaydullaev destroyed him in seven and a half minutes. Try to control your shock: This time it only took Shaydullaev four.

Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Danny Sabatello - 18-4-1, 1 Defense

When Naoki Inoue won Rizin’s Bantamweight title I wrote that Rizin was one step closer to its dream of an all-Japanese championship roster, and it’s fitting that as gaijin once again take over the majority of the championship belts in the biggest organization in Japan, Danny goddamn Sabatello is one of the men to do it. Sabatello has been dogged by a reputation as a grinding wrestler without a ton to offer since 2020, when he got the call to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series, won, and was notably not offered a contract on the grounds of Boring Grappler. He made the move to late-stage Bellator instead, where he attempted to establish himself as their own personal Chael Sonnen: An indefatigable wrestling machine whose mouth ran just as hard as his double-legs. But it never quite caught on. The talk seemed a bit forced, the wrestling wasn’t that fun to watch, and all his 1980s wrestling promos about the bums in Bellator’s Bantamweight Grand Prix ended with an elimination at the hands of Raufeon Stots. Sabatello swore he’d won and that he’d get revenge; instead he ended his Bellator tenure getting choked out by Magomed Magomedov, decisioned again by Stots, and losing out on a shot at the PFL after going to a draw with Lazaro Dayron, who would’ve won the decision were it not for a point deduction. It was a bit of a shock when Sabatello signed with Rizin in 2025, but it seemed to have paid off when he scored his first knockout in six years during his debut against Shinobu Ota and swore he’d reinvent himself as Japan’s new American superstar. Then he went back to wrestling. It was still enough to get him his shot at Inoue’s belt at 2025’s New Year’s special, and despite the common wisdom of judging favoritism, a very close split decision went Danny’s way. It took three years longer than he intended, but Danny Sabatello is holding gold. Now we see if he can, in fact, become Big In Japan. His first title defense was against Joji Goto at Rizin Landmark 13 on April 11, and, unsurprisingly, he wrestled Goto to a broad decision. He’ll try to do it again when he meets Jinnosuke Kashimura on July 18.

Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Makoto Takahashi - 23-5-1 (1), 0 Defenses

Oh, buddy, Rizin has wanted this one for years. Anytime a fighter with an above-average winning rate successfully gets their name replaced with a nickname it means the marketing power is strong with them, and within one fight in Rizin, no one called him Takahashi anymore. Japanese MMA is perpetually desperate for young national stars, and they knew almost immediately that Makoto Shinryu was their guy. By July of 2023 Shinryu was already 16-1-1 despite having just turned 23, he was the most-hyped male prospect in the country, and he was uniquely positioned to take over the world, as Rizin and Bellator were in the middle of their historical co-promotion days, and Bellator was inaugurating its Flyweight title with a match between Shinryu and top dog Kyoji Horiguchi. It ended with Kyoji unintentionally poking Makoto in the eye in twenty-five seconds. It took half a year to get the rematch together, and this time it was for Rizin’s Flyweight title, and Kyoji choked Shinryu out in two rounds. This marked the beginning of Shinryu’s career hitting speedbumps, as after almost seven years of constant victory, it’d be two years before he managed back-to-back wins again. Hiromasa Ougikubo, Jose Torres and Yuki Motoya all turned Shinryu away by decision, the last of which knocked him out of the Flyweight Grand Prix to fill the throne Horiguchi abdicated to return to the UFC. Ougikubo ultimately won the tournament and the title, but wins over Hiroya Kondo and Nkazimulo Zulu were enough for Rizin’s brass to put Shinryu right back in the title conversation, because, well, that’s what they wanted in the first place. They were right, too. Three years after his first failed attempt at grasping gold, Shinryu took Ougikubo the distance and took his belt home. There may have been detours along the way, but he’s got the title everyone felt he was destined for. Now we get to watch him try to keep it.

Rizin Women’s Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

VACANT - The source of life and death

The world has long wondered who or what could beat Seika Izawa, and as it turns out, the answer is childbirth. At Rizin Landmark 13 on April 12, 2026, Seika took to the ring and announced her pregnancy and, accordingly, her hiatus from the sport. After four straight years as the undisputed best Atomweight in the world, the queen has abdicated the throne. She vowed to one day return and take back the belt from whichever unlucky woman gets it in her absence, but obviously there’s no timeline for said return, nor should there be. All eyes now turn to the rest of Rizin’s Atomweight division, which is, like, four people. Ayaka Hamasaki’s back in Rizin, but she got armbarred pretty easily by the debuting Natasha Kuziutina. Moeri Suda and Saori Oshima are always around on loan from DEEP. I’m sure they’d love to belt up RENA, but she spends half of her time closer to Strawweight. It’s a loss for mixed martial arts, we are all happy for Seika and wish her well, and god bless Rizin, which can never, ever have a full complement of champions.

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs

ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs

VACANT - The inevitable end of hubris

We were always destined to end here. ONE’s heavier title belts have always been more suggestion than reality. All three have seen at most five champions apiece in their decade-plus of existence--in Light Heavyweight’s case it’s just four, which makes sense, as after ten goddamn years there have been exactly five Light Heavyweight title fights. The belt-padding era began in earnest when ONE made Reinier de Ridder the double-champion over a division that barely existed, and when he fell on hard times with ONE management, they one-upped him by having Heavyweight champion Anatoly Malykhin drop to 225 and 205 thereafter just to beat him out of the company entirely. Over the past two years there was exactly one championship fight across all three weight classes, and it saw Oumar “Reug Reug” Kane take Malykhin’s Heavyweight title away, and it was a portent of the future that Marcus Buchecha won #1 contendership on that same night and opted to leave the company rather than fight for its title. Kane and Malykhin wouldn’t have their scheduled rematch until May 15, 2026, when Malykhin got his revenge by knocking out an exhausted Kane in the fourth round. Having won back his belt, he retired immediately, and in so doing rendered 1/3 of ONE’s MMA championships vacant. I’d bet we will, eventually, see another Heavyweight champion in ONE; I doubt we’ll ever see the other two belts again.

ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs

Christian Lee - 18-4 (1), 0 Defenses

ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs

Christian Lee - 18-4 (1), 1 Defense

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, 2024--and it ended in a No Contest after two rounds thanks to Christian unintentionally gouging Rasulov’s eye. They ran it back almost a full year later at ONE 173 on November 16, and this time Lee knocked him out in the second round, marking Lee’s first win in three years.

ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Tang Kai - 20-4, 2 Defenses
Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China’s WBK (after investigating, we THINK it’s World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz “Ong Bak” Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai’s weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai’s Dragon Gym and Phuket’s legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It’s worked out quite well: He hasn’t lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China’s Rebel FC got ONE’s attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he’s held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare, and 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 cut Abdullaev anyway rather than give him another shot. After almost another year and a half of inactivity Tang Kai finally defended his title on May 15, this time knocking out Shamil Gasanov.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu - 14-3, 0 Defenses

By god, ONE had an MMA title change hands in 2025. Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu is one of the precious few success stories for ONE’s feeder system. He was a 5-2 champion in the small (but competitive!) regional scene in his native Mongolia, which put him on ONE’s talent-scouting radar for their Warriors of the Steppe tournament in 2022. Enkh won two fights in six days to earn his contract with ONE, where he quickly discovered that no matter where you go in the wide world of sports, being a grappler-type Pokemon makes companies less invested in promoting you. Enkh went 6-1 across two years--8-1, if you count those aforementioned tournament wins--and finished most of his opponents, but title contention eluded him in no small part thanks to ONE’s turn away from mixed martial arts as a whole. It wasn’t until December 6 that Enkh finally got his long-belated shot at Fabricio Andrade’s Bantamweight title, and the first round and a half looked pretty thoroughly one-sided in Andrade’s favor, as most had figured it would be given the gap in Enkh’s striking game, and Andrade battered him to a near-stoppage on a couple occasions. But Enkh, as it turns out, is tough as shit. He weathered the storm and used his grit, his power and his wrestling to turn the tables, and towards the end of the fourth round, an exhausted Andrade gave up the ghost and got himself strangled. Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu is ONE’s Bantamweight champion, and his very first act as a champion was to call for a cross-class title match with Tang Kai, because weight classes aren’t real. Instead, a measly eight months after winning it, his first defense will be against the undefeated Elbek Alyshov on July 31.

ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs

Avazbek Kholmirzaev - 16-2, 0 Defenses

There’s a certain kind of tragedy in winning a championship during what certainly seems to be the waning days of a promotion’s time with mixed martial arts. Avazbek Kholmirzaev is by no means new to ONE, his title victory came a whole eleven fights into his time on their roster, but he spent a great deal of that time nigh-unto invisible. He got his start in his native country’s Uzbekistan MMA Association, but like so many of his countrymen, the successes that built his career came from the bigger, more popular Alash Pride FC, Kazakhstan’s biggest promotion, which is large, well-populated, and also the kind of bullshit record-padding organization that books main events between promising prospects and 5-11 guys who mysteriously always lose within three minutes. But he was on the positive side of the equation, and he knocked people out with spinning kicks, so ONE scouted him for their expansion across the East and he proved to be a natural fit--for the prelims. Avazbek almost never left the first few fights of the cards he was booked on, right up to his championship-opportunity-earning victory over no less than the 11-10 Jeremy Miado this past December curtain-jerking an Amazon Prime card, and an unkind man would probably intimate that his shot at Yuya Wakamatsu’s Flyweight Championship was an attempt to get Yuya a win, being as it was ONE’s big Ariake Arena show in Tokyo and they were attempting to showcase as much of their Japanese talent as possible. It was going well for Yuya right up until he ate a spinning elbow to the dome and went down in a heap just moments before the second round was about to end. Avazbek is a champion and he should be duly proud, and now we’re just left to see what being an MMA champion in ONE means in 2026.

ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Pacio - 23-5, 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, of course, challenged for the 135-pound title next. Pacio vs Wakamatsu happened at ONE 173 on November 16 and ended in Pacio getting smashed in six minutes. He’ll try to defend his actual belt against Mansur Malachiev on July 10.

ONE Women’s Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

VACANT - The planting ground for broken dreams

On June 23, Denice Zamboanga vacated the Atomweight title after she had a baby. On one hand: Mazel tov. On the other, for those keeping track, this means Stamp Fairtex was the champion, then she got hurt, then Denice won the interim belt a year and a half ago, then Stamp fell out of their unification bout with an injury so ONE promoted Denice to undisputed champion, and that was more than a year ago, and now it’s ended with the belt going to nobody. There has been one championship fight in the last three fucking years and it was for an interim belt and one of the women in said fight hadn’t recorded a win since January of 2021. I am once again pleading with ONE: Just stop doing MMA. Let my people go.

PFL Heavyweight Championship, 265 lbs

Vadim Nemkov - 19-2 (1), 0 Defenses

When the PFL announced that it was going to crown a standing Heavyweight champion, they had a raft of interesting options. Oleg Popov, their 2025 tournament champion, had a strong argument. Denis Goltsov, 2024 champion and the only man in almost ten years to beat Popov, could’ve called dibs. Hell, the PFL still technically has Francis Ngannou, the best Heavyweight on the planet, under contract. They, of course, did not choose any of those men. They chose Renan Ferreira, the 2023 tournament champion whose only fight in almost two years was a TKO loss to Ngannou, and Vadim Nemkov, Bellator’s best Light Heavyweight. Nemkov, a Fedor protégé, hadn’t lost since 2016, when he got himself punched out by Jiří Procházka and narrowly edged out by Karl Albrektsson, and it’s a testament to both his skills and the world’s dim view of the Heavyweight division that when the PFL acquired Bellator and Nemkov announced he was leaving 205 for the 265-pound world, instead of the expected fretting about how a 6’1” man would contend in the world of the big boys, more or less everyone said “Yeah, that’s fine.” And lo: It was. Nemkov choked out 2021 PFL champ Bruno Cappelozza, and then he choked out the ever-pained Timothy Johnson, and when he fought Renan Ferreira at PFL Champions Series 4 on December 13, 2025, shockingly, he choked him out, too. Nemkov’s now the only major Heavyweight champion in American MMA outside of the UFC. Hopefully it pays off.

PFL Light Heavyweight Championship, 205 lbs

Corey Anderson - 20-6 (1), 0 Defenses

One of the best Light Heavyweights in the world isn’t in the UFC, and they have only themselves to blame. Corey Anderson was the precise kind of fighter the UFC wanted when they first got ahold of him in 2014: Big, young, athletic, talented, undefeated. He had all the makings of a future champion, and his victory on The Ultimate Fighter 19 (jesus christ) cemented him as a prospect to watch. Unfortunately, he had also barely been in the sport for a year and only had four professional fights to his name. In short order he’d suffered his first loss, and a couple years later, a pair of back-to-back knockouts in 2017 sent him to the realm of afterthoughts. But a recommitment to his wrestling style, an extremely well-aged victory over Glover Teixeira, and a devastating knockout over Johnny Walker got Anderson back in the title picture, and in 2020, he fought Jan Błachowicz to determine the #1 contender to the soon-to-be-vacated belt. They’d done battle once, five years prior, and Corey had won a clear decision. This time, Jan flattened him in three minutes. Despite his top-ten ranking and the four consecutive fights he’d just won, the UFC decided to dump Corey, sending him from main event to unemployment in a week. Corey went straight to Bellator and proceeded to become one of its best stars, and he would have become the first man in America to beat Vadim Nemkov had they not banged their heads together and ended the fight prematurely. Corey lost the rematch, but he became the last man to hold Bellator’s Light Heavyweight title after beating Karl Moore, and on October 3, Corey had a champion vs champion match against the PFL’s 205-pound tournament champion, Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov. Corey had pounded him out in Bellator four years prior, and while he didn’t get the stoppage in the present, he did get the win, and in so doing he became the inaugural PFL Light Heavyweight Champion. What that actually means going forward, we’ll have to see.

PFL Middleweight Championship, 185 lbs

Costello van Steenis - 18-3, 1 Defense

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 he became the second man to defend one after knocking out Fabian Edwards on March 20.

THE PFL WELTERWEIGHT CONUNDRUM

Yeah, I don’t quite know what to do here. On February 7, the (technically) final Welterweight champion of Bellator, Ramazan Kuramagomedov, beat 2024 PFL tournament champion and undefeated favorite Shamil Musaev and became the first official PFL Welterweight Champion. In his post-fight interview he immediately retired. On one hand, the PFL still lists him as their officially reigning champion. On the other, the PFL’s Youtube channel has a video on it named RAMAZAN KURAMAGOMEDOV ANNOUNCES THIS WAS HIS LAST FIGHT and in their own description phrase it as “announcing his retirement.” Does the PFL have a Welterweight champion? I don’t think even they know. So, as of March 1, 2026, I’m leaving ol’ Matthew Lesko here until the PFL clarifies its own title situation and I am on pins and needles to see how long it’ll take before I remove this section. UPDATE, JUNE: The PFL has announced that Ramazan has officially been stripped, which sure does feel like a ‘you can’t quit, you’re fired’ kind of move, and Thad Jean vs Shamil Musaev on July 25th will crown the second Welterweight champ. Matty Lesks can stick around for another two months, as a treat.

PFL Lightweight Championship, 155 lbs

Usman Nurmagomedov - 21-0 (1), 1 Defense

The Nurmagomedov family is trying to run the sport, and Usman is their B-league beachhead, but that assault has proven to be an awful lot rockier than the rest. As the kid brother of Umar and the cousin of Khabib, Usman had great expectations thrust upon him very early in his career, and he dealt with them the way regional talents with great camps traditionally do: Squashing severely overmatched competition until you get a contract from one of the big companies. Bellator won the Usman bidding war and brought him over in 2021, and he proved to be one of the breakout stars of their final days, blitzing his way up the Lightweight ranks, knocking off several contenders and ultimately beating Patricky Pitbull to win the 155-pound championship and securing his reign by retiring former star and UFC champ Benson Henderson. It was 2023, and even though Bellator’s upcoming death was clear, Usman was a name and widely considered one of the best Lightweights in the world. Unfortunately, then, things got weird. He was a massive, -2200 favorite to beat Brent Primus in the waning days of Bellator, and he did--and it became the first non-win of his career after failing a drug test for something that was never disclosed. He carried Bellator’s title over into its new life as a colony of the PFL, and he immediately ran into controversy after barely scraping a majority decision off of Irish superprospect Paul Hughes. The world wanted a rematch for the inaugural PFL Lightweight Championship fight, and on October 3, at the PFL’s big Dubai show, they got it--and this time, it waws even closer, with media scorecards split right down the middle. This, by itself, is not that unusual, nor is one fighter winning a controversial decision unusual. It is unusual when the decision is not only unanimous, but one judge scores the entire fight as a 50-45 shut-out. So Usman’s last two wins were dubious, and his future as part of the PFL depends on how they treat their own championship, but for now, he is the damn champion. He notched his first title defense by choking out Alfie Davis on February 7, and he’ll shoot for a second--and possibly the end of his PFL contract--against Archie Colgan on July 31.

PFL Women’s Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Cris Cyborg - 29-2 (1), 1 Defense

Are you noticing how all of the inaugural PFL champions are just Bellator’s champions? Funny, that. Cris Cyborg is the greatest Women’s Featherweight of all time, and we all just kind of have to deal with that, because Women’s Featherweight has only barely ever existed. Strikeforce set the standard back in 2006 because Gina Carano was one of their biggest stars, and that star lasted right up until 2009, when they attempted to put a belt on her and failed because Cris Cyborg punched the shit out of her. In the following sixteen years Cyborg’s only lost one mixed martial arts fight, and it took Amanda Nunes, the greatest Women’s mixed martial artist of all time, to do it. Aside from that one loss, she’s run the table. She was the Strikeforce Featherweight Champion until it closed, and then she was Invicta’s Featherweight Champion until they let the UFC have her, and then she was the UFC’s Featherweight Champion until Amanda dropped her, and Cyborg promptly went to Bellator and won their title, too. When the PFL brought her over in the Bellator buyout, they set her up for an interpromotional superfight against Larissa Pacheco, a two-time PFL tournament winner and the only woman who’d ever beaten Kayla Harrison. On one hand, Pacheco’s one of just six women to ever make it to the final bell with Cyborg. On the other, she lost 4-1. In the ultimate act of promotional cowardice, the PFL promoted Cyborg to champion status three days before her appearance at the PFL Champions Series on December 13, 2025, meaning her fight with Sara Collins was, technically, a title defense. It was as one-sided as you’d expect. In theory, this is great! The biggest female fighter outside the UFC has a belt and the PFL is bringing back a division the UFC threw in the garbage. In practice, Cyborg didn’t even get out of her post-fight interview without noting that after her next fight she’s going to retire from MMA in favor of focusing on her boxing career. Unless she changes her mind--again--her swan song will come against UFC cast-off Ketlen Vieira on August 22.

SATURDAY, JUNE 27 FROM THE NATIONAL GYMNASTICS ARENA IN BAKU, AZERBAIJAN
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 6 AM PDT / 9 AM EDT | MAIN CARD 9 AM / 12 PM

There’s exactly one main section I wound up pulling out of the White House write-up this month: A rumination on the way the UFC’s repositioning of itself as a faux-regional promotion whose two primary products are a) a developmental talent show they don’t expect their fans to pay real attention to and b) traveling shows that take money from countries to create locally-friendly shows that’ll totally put those small countries like Australia on the map. Watching them have to turn that on its head and figure out how to program a regional-appeal for their own American backyard was fascinating, in a this-is-what-America-is-to-them sense, but there was already too much going on in that essay and I just didn’t think it fit.

And now we’re in Baku, where the government paid the UFC millions of dollars to bring them a card where only two out of thirteen fights are between ranked, relevant fighters, but ten out of thirteen feature a fighter whose name ends with a V. Thank you, Baku.

MAIN EVENT: THE CHURN
LIGHTWEIGHT: Rafael Fiziev (13-5, #11) vs Manuel Torres (17-3, #15)

Rafael, you are too damn young to be in the ‘old veteran getting put out to pasture’ position.

The first time we talked about Raffy Fizzy in these writeups it was mid-2022, he was 5-1 in the UFC, he hadn’t lost a fight in more than three years and he was about to cement his place as a top ten Lightweight by not just beating but knocking out Rafael dos Anjos, which was, at the time, incredibly impressive. His striking seemed a step above everyone in the division, his back-pocket wrestling had progressed nicely while no one was paying attention, and a giant swath of the audience saw him as a future title contender. He was booked into a fight with Justin Gaethje as a -250 favorite.

It’s four years later. Rafael is 1 for his last 5. What the hell happened?

Well, part of it is just incredibly bad luck. Losing a decision--and not even a unanimous decision, a majority decision--to Justin Gaethje, current #1 Lightweight on the planet, is nothing to feel too bad about, and with a solid rebound Fiziev would’ve been right back in the mix. That looked like it was in the cards, too, as he met Mateusz Gamrot, defended almost all of his takedowns and unanimously won the first round. Two minutes into the second round Fiziev blew his ACL. A year and a half of his prime disappeared on the spot. When he was finally healthy, rehabbed and ready to go, the UFC looked at his two straight losses and 18 months of inactivity and very sensitively booked him into a short-notice fill-in match...against Justin Gaethje, the man who had beaten him two fights prior. Unsurprisingly, Fiziev did not win. He averted a career crash by knocking off Ignacio Bahamondes, and that was supposed to propel him into a top contendership match with Charles Oliveira, but Fiziev’s injuries cropped up again, and he instead followed months of recovery with a severe drubbing at the hands of Maurício Ruffy.

And that’s the other reason he’s in this particular hole. The Lightweight division has changed an awful lot in a very short time. When Fiziev stepped into the cage for that first fight against Gaethje, the division’s top ten included Dustin Poirier, Beneil Dariush, Michael Chandler, Rafael dos Anjos and Jalin Turner. Drew fucking Dober was #14. Arman Tsarukyan wasn’t in the conversation. Max Holloway and Ilia Topuria were still Featherweights. Maurício Ruffy hadn’t even joined the UFC. No one had heard of Quillan Salkilld.

No one was paying attention to Manuel Torres.

It was hard to blame them. He wasn’t one of those smart prospects a bunch of hardcore fans were salivating for, he wasn’t fighting through Fury FC or the Legacy Fighting Alliance, he’s one of the few Mexican prospects to not have a stint with Combate Americas. He competed on regional cards. He got heel hooked by a guy named Mahatma for Club Hardcore Fighter. He had his knee ripped up for Crixus MMA, which closed after five events. One fight before his Contender Series debut, Manuel was beating up a 10-11 man named Carlos Cañada for the ULTIMATE WARRIOR CHALLENGE. But he rattled off three straight first-round finishes in the UFC after just a year and a half! That’s top-fifteen worthy, right?

As it turns out: No. Beating Frank Camacho and Nikolas Motta and Chris Duncan does not prepare you for the top of the heap. The UFC gave Manuel a borderline-ranked shot at the much-maligned, Mexico-focused mega-event at The Sphere©, and it ended with Ignacio Bahamondes knocking him flat in four minutes. Ignacio, who, as we know from the previous paragraph, would himself fail to beat Fiziev and achieve a top-ten ranking, was the brick wall in Manuel’s path.

Except it’s a year and a half later and Manuel’s ranked and fighting the guy who beat the guy who beat him. Once again: What the hell happened?

Here’s the thing about Lightweight: That dramatic change we talked about? It wasn’t entirely natural. For every Poirier retirement, there were a handful of attempts to churn older veterans and rid themselves of meddlesome wrestlers. Drew Dober has dozens of UFC bouts, but when they put him in front of Manuel Torres, he had lost two in a row, was 1 for his last 4, and had gotten the absolute shit beaten out of him in all three of those losses. Manuel knocking him out in two minutes wasn’t a surprise, it was a foregone conclusion. Grant Dawson spent years as an undefeated UFC Lightweight repeatedly denied chances to fight up in the rankings because of his wrestling-heavy style, and once King Green torched him, they tried to book him right back into the ground. By last December, Dawson, who had one loss in thirteen UFC appearances, had put together another three-fight winning streak and gotten his ranking back.

They booked him against the unranked Torres on a one-fight winning streak and Torres smashed him in half a round.

And, like, look: It’s fighting. You can only get so upset about fighters being forced to fight. Management did not book Manuel’s fist upside Dawson’s jaw. But you can glean an awful lot about how fighters are booked, and who is or isn’t favored, by looking at the patterns in their matchmaking.

For instance, this fight wasn’t supposed to happen. Remember this past April, when Beneil Dariush, former contender turned late-thirties hard luck story who can’t stop missing weight and getting knocked out over and over, was marched out to Australia to fight Quillan Salkilld, despite Quillan being a young, in-his-prime knockout machine and Beneil being a human target who’d been knocked out in sixteen seconds less than six months prior?

Yeah! That! That only happened because Manuel got injured. Manuel was supposed to catch that body on the undercard of Procházka vs Ulberg. So what do you do? Do you book Torres against a Salkilldian killer of a prospect? Do you make him defend his spot against a young, hungry guy?

Why would you, when you have another aging, expensive veteran on a skid who got brutally knocked out in the last half-year?

It’s crass and cynical and gross and it also makes complete sense, which makes me hate it even more. I have spilled too much ink on my yearning for the days when the UFC booked fights that were good for the division regardless of who won, rather than fights built to benefit a marketing favorite, and by that metric, this is a really smart match-up. Manuel is distinctly unlikely to wrestle Fiziev, he’s going to fight to his strengths, which virtually guarantees the kind of striking battle the c-suite considers the only acceptable form of fighting, and any eventuality works to their benefit. If Manuel blasts Fiziev out, it gives him his first recognizable victory and puts him in the conversation for a top ten bout. If Fiziev beats back another young prospect, it gives him a new lease on life at Lightweight and gives the Azerbaijani crowd a main-event victory for a hometown hero.

Good matchmaking is good matchmaking whether I like it or not. Torres is solid and dangerous as hell, but he’s also a very straightforward fighter, and I want to believe Fiziev is still fast and technically sound enough to deal with it. RAFAEL FIZIEV BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE WHERE NOTHING MATTERS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Shara Magomedov (16-1) vs Michel Pereira (32-14 (2))

You know? I’m fine with this.

Shara Magomedov has always occupied this inexplicable, noncanonical space in the annals of the UFC. Too talented to ignore, too good to fire, too likely to suckerpunch men in shopping malls: Too illegal to book outside of the Middle East. He’s got one eye, dude. Michael Bisping got away with being a one-eyed UFC fighter and then he bragged about it and ruined it for every cyclops of the future. For all of the UFC’s repeated assurances that Shara can absolutely totally fight in America and there’s nothing wrong and only a crazy person would say he can’t get licensed, as of this weekend, his seven UFC fights will have taken place in, respectively,

• Abu Dhabi, UAE

• Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

• Abu Dhabi again

• Abu Dhabi for a third time

• Riyadh’s back!

• Oops! All Abu Dhabis

• Baku, motherfuckers

And that’s a real bitch if you’re trying to make him relevant to anything real. Which they did! Just two fights ago they inexplicably booked Shara against Michael “Venom” Page, a man the UFC seems to actively resent having hired because they took him from getting ranked at Welterweight after taking a round off Ian Machado Garry and threw him in at Middleweight against the undefeated guy who can’t fight outside of a small vertical slice of the globe. But the campaign failed, Shara lost his unblemished record, and the UFC just sort of admitted defeat and gave up and had Shara beat up the 6-10 (1) Marc-André Barriault for shits and giggles and now it’s Michel Pereira.

Which is fine, because Michel Pereira doesn’t and arguably has never existed.

Can you prove Michel Pereira is real? A guy who does capoeira kicks but has more decisions than knockouts? A guy who did a moonsault kneedrop on his opponent’s forehead in a real fight? A guy who gained a ton of credibility as a Middleweight contender after buzzsawing three men in three minutes only for everyone to conveniently forget that Ihor Potieria and Andre Petroski aren’t real contenders and everyone in or remotely close to the top fifteen was going to beat him?

Weird knockout artist Michel Pereira, who is supposed to be a terrifying Middleweight knockout threat while also being the last man to ever record a loss against 2005’s hottest prospect, former Featherweight sensation Diego Sanchez?

Forty-three second Kyle Daukaus victim Michel Pereira?

Demonstrably-worse-than-Cody-Brundage Michel Pereira?

Yeah! That’s fine. Put him in there with Shara. Let the guy who can’t fight anywhere with an athletic commission that has at least one optometrist get in the cage with the world’s most dangerous knockout artist who can’t knock out Zach Reese. That’s a genuinely good use of both of these guys. Let them spin at each other threateningly at a ratio of 720 degrees per jab. Let the centripetal force power the lights of Baku.

Start a whole Elseworlds imprint of the UFC around these two. Put Junior Tafa in it so his continued presence makes sense. Put Charles Johnson in it so he can stop being simultaneously the most and least successful Flyweight in the world. Put Yair Rodríguez in it so he can find ways to not take fights in two places at once. Put Bryce Mitchell and Umar Nurmagomedov in it so they can talk about how the Holocaust was fake somewhere no one has to hear about it anymore.

Anything that keeps them over there. SHARA MAGOMEDOV BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: SMALL CONUNDRUMS
LIGHTWEIGHT: Nazim Sadykhov (11-2-1) vs Matheus Camilo (10-3)

Nazim, you were almost heading this thing up. 2025 was almost a breakout year for the Black Wolf. Sadykhov had been heralded as a can’t-miss prospect by all the Ray Longo aficionados out there, but going to a draw with Viacheslav “Slava Claus” Borshchev and going almost a year and a half without a fight thanks to injuries and scheduling issues dampened his hype almost completely. But Nazim surged back at the start of 2025 and, in the space of just five months, stopped the highly-hyped Ismael Bonfim and knocked out Nikolas Motta, a man who now, technically, has a knockout win over a top fifteen Lightweight. It took a little longer than expected, but Nazim was finally living up to the high expectations the world had for him. Right up until December, when Fares Ziam handed him his first-ever knockout loss. No longer borderline-ranked, no longer chasing the big time, Nazim’s just fighting to get back in the conversation.

Matheus Camilo, on the other hands, is fighting to get mentioned in it for the first time in his life. He wasn’t a hyped prospect, he wasn’t even a Contender Series signing--he got signed because of someone else’s misfortune. Dorobshokh Nabotov, a prospect out of Tajikistan, staged a series of publicity stunts that concluded in getting the microphone at a UFC press conference to ask for a shot in the company. Dana had company buddy Chan Sung Jung book him as a try-out, and Matheus Camilo got the call to test him, and Nabotov was found wanting. Camilo took Nabotov’s undefeated record, his UFC contract, and his shot at mainstream approval. He immediately spent it getting choked out by Gabe Green. A few months later Camilo righted the ship with a decision over Nazim’s former foe Slava Claus, but he’s 1-1 and on shaky ground, and booking him to fight the Azerbaijani fighter in Azerbaijan means they either have faith he can pull off another upset or they’re content to let him get crushed for the hometown crowd’s approval.

I’m banking on the Sadykhov revenge tour. NAZIM SADYKHOV BY SUBMISSION.

FLYWEIGHT: Asu Almabayev (23-3, #8) vs Charles Johnson (19-8, #14)

Flyweight is both a land of impossible riches and terrible tragedies. Asu Almabayev is one of the best 125-pound fighters in the entire world. He wrestles, he grapples, he jumps on chokes, he can bother someone for three straight rounds without looking even remotely tired and, as we just saw in his last appearance, he can violently strangle Alex Perez. Asu only has one loss not just in the UFC, but in the last nine years of his career. That loss? Manel Kape, the current top contender, and Kape did it by chaining together eyepokes into one unholy, ocularly-abhorrent combination, which was clearly visible on replays but was not overturned because our sport is fake. Asu is one of the best, but he is boxed out of the top, and he lost his shot at it by a fingertip.

Charles Johnson is in a much weirder, much funnier spot. Despite my years of recorded love for InnerG’s fighting, he is, demonstrably, not one of the best Flyweights in the world. He’s only narrowly above a 50/50 UFC average at 8-6, he hasn’t put together back-to-back wins in years, his long, solid winning streak ended at the hands of Rizin vet Ramazan Temirov, and he’s only just rebounded after getting obliterated in one round by the aforementioned Alex Perez. And yet, Charles cannot be an afterthought, because that same string of bad luck also includes knockout victories over Lone’er Kavanagh, the recently-minted #6 in the world, and Joshua fucking Van, the current world champion. Van only has one loss in an eleven-fight UFC run, and it was Johnson knocking him on his ass.

That’s the kind of thing you have to capitalize on as a journeyman, and Johnson’s fucking trying. This is a real tough matchup for him, Asu’s pressure game is very, very good and he’ll likely run Johnson right into the cage and grind him into dust, but I put up with O’Malley vs Chito 2 as a completely undeserved marketing-favorite’s-revenge title fight that passed up much more deserving contenders, and by god, let’s do that again but this time it’s for a guy I like so it’s okay. CHARLES JOHNSON BY TKO.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ikram Aliskerov (17-2) vs Brunno Ferreira (15-3)

For mysterious reasons that definitely aren’t related to his tendency to knock people out, the UFC is real invested in Ikram Aliskerov’s future. Despite his being a relative unknown after beating the likes of Phil Hawes and Warlley Alves, when the first attempt to book former champ Robert Whittaker and Khamzat Chimaev fell through back in the summer of 2024, the UFC decided to put Aliskerov in for Khamzat and hope that, somehow, it would all work out for the best. And it did! In the sense that Bobby Knuckles dusted him in under two minutes and for us Whittaker fans, that’s the only thing left to keep us warm. They let Aliskerov crush André Muniz to get his groove back, they actually tried to book this fight an entire year ago, and when that failed they had Aliskerov beat The Iron Turtle himself, Jun Yong Park, who had, funnily enough, already lost a fight to Muniz.

If you beat someone and they follow that up by booking you against someone who already lost to the guy you beat: Congratulations! Management likes you. If you’re Brunno Ferreira, and you’ve just failed the UFC for the third time after getting stomped out in 107 seconds by Robocop Rodrigues, and in response to your loss they not only book you against an unranked opponent on a winning streak, but one they already tried to match you up with once? Brunno, buddy, I’m sorry, they’re plotting your demise. What’s even sadder: Brunno was supposed to fight Paulo Costa back in March. With a win, that would’ve gotten him a damn ranking. But Costa decided he was too bored of cutting weight and hopped to Light Heavyweight instead, and now he’s a prominent contender and Brunno is stuck fighting a big favorite knockout artist whom the local crowd would much rather root for.

Sorry, Brunno. IKRAM ALISKEROV BY TKO.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Abus Magomedov (28-7-1) vs Michał Oleksiejczuk (22-9)

Abus: I give up. I give up on you. I give you up. You and your long, lanky legs had one job, and that was to prevent us from falling into the Sean Strickland timeline, and you failed, and now he’s a two-time champion. That would be enough to damn you. But you had a chance at cleansing yourself of your sins. They put you up against Joe Pyfer last October, and once again, yours was the fist standing between Heaven and Hell, and once again, you let the god damned demons in. You got choked out and now I have no use for you. You have disappointed me too many times.

Michał: This is your job, now. Are you being set up to lose this fight? Yes. Have you, in fact, gotten destroyed by people Abus beat? Yes. Are you going to win this fight anyway, half because your time training with the Fighting Nerds seems to have worked really well in terms of getting you to finally calm the hell down and fight to your strengths and half because you are now the sword of the divine and all of the pressure of rebuilding the wall that once kept the bigots and horrors out of the Middleweight division rests on your shoulders?

Do it for Dave Menne. Do it for Murilo Bustamante. Do it for the Middleweight we need. MICHAŁ OLEKSIEJCZUK BY TKO.

PRELIMS: FINISH YOUR JUICE BOX
WELTERWEIGHT: Farman Hasanov (5-0) vs Eric Nolan (8-4)

Should Farman Hasanov be here? Probably not. He’s only fought rookies or people who, themselves, have only fought rookies, but at 5-0 that makes sense. At 5-0 you probably shouldn’t be fighting people who matter, and the fact that 5-0 people are getting into the UFC is more of an indictment of the UFC than anything else. Hasanov’s tape is mild and inoffensive, the kind of wrestleboxing that would be a throwback were it not for how kind of slow and laborious it is, like watching a c-tier sitcom pretend to be Wings, and if any part of you replied to that with “but Carl, Wings was a c-tier sitcom,” you can get the fuck out right now. Eric Nolan, on the other hand, is absolutely supposed to be here, because this is why they hired him in the first place. He was signed on 48 hours’ notice because Baisangur Susurkaev got a big win on the Contender Series and the UFC decided to pull a publicity stunt by booking him into a proper fight that same week, and Nolan was the Cage Fury FC champion--i.e., one fight beforehand he’d been competing with a 4-7 guy named Trevor Gudde--at Welterweight. So they pulled him into the main show up a weight class with two days to prepare because they wanted another guy to get a stoppage in the UFC.

And now he’s fighting a fighter who got signed for being Azerbaijani so they could put him on a card in Azerbaijan. Their decisionmaking is rarely subtle and I hope it blows up in their face. ERIC NOLAN BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev (9-0) vs Julius Walker (7-2)

The “x beat y and y beat z so x will beat z” nature of MMA math is, and has always, been specious. It exists to simplify problems that exist not in a place of logic, but dreams and mysteries. Sometimes, however, you can compress it to something more reasonable. In this case, Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev is an undefeated man with 2 UFC wins and a near-100% finishing rate, and Julius Walker is 1-2 in the company and just got violently knocked out four months ago, and Walker’s one UFC victory was an awkward decision over Raffael Cerqueira that Cerqueira gave away after nearly knocking him out and choosing to jump a guillotine instead of finishing the job, and one fight later, Cerqueira met Yakhyaev, who floored him and choked him out in thirty-three seconds.

Math is cruel. ABDUL RAKHMAN YAKHYAEV BY TKO.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Nursulton Ruziboev (36-9-2 (2)) vs Andrey Pulyaev (10-4)

Sometimes you have one of those fights whose end result doesn’t feel like it’s in doubt, but the act of getting there will probably still be a lot of fun. Like, Nursulton is extremely likely to win this fight. He is big and powerful and extremely hard to defeat, and Andrey Pulyaev’s career has been marked primarily by getting repeatedly outstruck. But he’s overperformed in his losses. The last time we saw Andrey he was being served up as a +650 underdog to living wrecking ball Ateba Gautier, and yeah, Pulyaev lost, but he not only ended Ateba’s finishing streak, he took a round off Ateba and even narrowly beat him on a couple media scorecards. That level of toughness starts to raise questions. How much of Nursulton’s success is favorable matchmaking? How much of Pulyaev’s failure is being constantly thrown to the wolves? If Pulyaev doesn’t go away in the first half of the fight, do the odds begin to shift?

NURSULTON RUZIBOEV BY DECISION is still the call, but Pulyaev’s got real upset potential.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Kaan Ofli (13-4-1) vs Javier Reyes (23-5)

Kaan, buddy, I don’t think this is gonna work. For those who missed my horrible 2024 odyssey through the shapeless, featureless doldrums of The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ), Kaan Ofli came from its terrible depths, and while they introduced their picks for each team and gave some background for almost everyone involved,

• Kaan Ofli of Australia, Pick #5: The show does not bother to talk about him.

Kaan ultimately lost the season’s championship fight after being knocked out by Mairon Santos, but the UFC signed him anyway, because nothing means anything. Kaan lost again, but pulled together a submission over the perpetually troubled Ricardo Ramos and the perpetually overpushed Yizha, and for that, he must fall. Javier Reyes is one of the few, welcome Contender Series signings I didn’t have a single bad thing to say about. He’s experienced, he’s well-balanced, he’s aggressive and traveled, and while he does tend to favor the house style of shirking defense more than is necessarily wise, in his case, it is a skillset honed over dozens of fights rather than embraced because he hasn’t been around long enough to figure out how blocking works.

He’s very solid, he’s very dangerous, he’s hard to wrestle and he’s got half a foot of reach on Kaan. Violence seems likely. JAVIER REYES BY TKO.

WELTERWEIGHT: Daniil Donchenko (13-2) vs Theodor Berggren (8-3)

We’re just cramming all the TUF stuff together. Do you remember Daniil Donchenko? Do you remember anything of TUF 33 (jesus christ)? Did you even know TUF 34 (jesus christ) had its debut this week? Guess what: It didn’t! That was last week. Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen, once upon a time stars of the sport, are old and retired and hosting a talent development show that no one fucking watches and the UFC barely acknowledges exists and your reward for winning a TUF championship now is the right to fight a guy with a journeyman’s record in FIGHT CLUB RUSH and a win over in Cage Warriors against a 3-2 guy.

I miss Kendall Grove. DANIIL DONCHENKO BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Bekzat Almakhan (12-3) vs Jean Matsumoto (17-2)

What a deeply bizarre fight between two bizarrely booked fighters. Bekzat Almakhan was a solid and respectable if unheralded regional prospect who’d barely left his native Kazakhstan when the UFC signed him in 2024 and immediately booked him against Umar Nurmagomedov, one of the three best Bantamweights on the entire planet. Shockingly, he lost, and they’ve been keeping him in a strange holding pattern ever since, wheeling him out to beat up poor Brad Katona or test Ilia Topuria’s brother Aleksandre, and now, he’s here to see if Jean Matsumoto still has what it takes. Just a touch over one year ago, Jean looked like he was going to be a player in Bantamweight’s new era. Young, well-rounded, undefeated, defensively sound--when Dominick Cruz fell out of his own retirement fight with Rob Font the UFC picked Jean to take his place, and the world widely considered him a favorite to beat the eternal gatekeeper and take his place in the rankings. Sixteen months later, Jean is 1 for 3 and all three fights were split decision tossups, with Font and Farid Basharat both beating Jean. For three straight fights, Jean was a main card prospect. Now he’s one slot away from curtain-jerking in Baku, and there are valid questions to be asked about how much of his fall comes from higher competition and how much comes from losing part of his edge.

BEKZAT ALMAKHAN BY DECISION. I think Jean is heading to the land of What Ifs.

WELTERWEIGHT: Tahir Abdullayev (21-3) vs Jefferson Nascimento (13-0)

This is not a fight between two men, this is a battle between the two sides of the sport. Jefferson Nascimento has, in theory, done everything right. He worked his way through Brazil’s regional scene, he hooked up with a solid fight team, he made his way to the Legacy Fighting Alliance, battled through solid competition, and has reigned as their Lightweight champion for the last two years. He earned every part of his contract. Tahir Abdullayev lost to the last good fighter he faced. He’s on a four-fight winning streak against journeymen, jobbers, and, in my personal favorite, a guy who was 2-0 against Tahir’s 21 recorded bouts. He is here because he was born in Baku. He is here because he is convenient.

I will root for the soul of the sport until its embers are dead and gone. JEFFERSON NASCIMENTO BY TKO.

One of the best and only creative things the UFC has ever done is commissioning the wardrobe for the ring girls at UFC Noche, an event at The Sphere celebrating Mexican Independence Day. Normally the most thought that goes into what the models wear is how small a bikini worn indoors can be before stretching the limits of bad taste, and whether an energy drink or beer sponsor gets to put their logo on it. If that attire has any intention or purpose, it is to avoid an obscenity charge.

This time the UFC hired Marina Toybina, an Emmy award winning costume and wardrobe designer, a genuine world class talent in this field. She is responsible for wardrobe design for events such as Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show and Taylor Swift’s tour. For the UFC Noche show, she put together several rounds of costumes and makeup between nine women celebrating multiple aspects of Mexico’s culture and history. Not only was the wardrobe stunning, it provided substance for the women. For once these were not just generic sexy lady forms holding up signs to assist the many fans who can’t count to five, they were characters with distinct backgrounds and attitudes to portray. It was successful storytelling in a visual and artistic medium, covering the rise and fall of indigenous empires, anti-colonial battles against conquistadors, the cultural value of Día de los Muertos, and more. The attire was fulfilling a purpose.

The Less Triumphant American Attempt

The UFC brought Marina Toybina back for wardrobe design to celebrate the United States of America at UFC Freedom 250 At The White House Presented By World Liberty Financial cryptocurrencies. The budget is claimed to be $60,000,000, triple what they say the UFC Noche event cost. They did not rely on a lesser creative talent or suddenly get cheap. And yet the wardrobe looked like a horny teenager asked Grok to put his teachers into a Betsy Ross themed porno.

Or has the aesthetics of a Spirit Halloween costume called “Flag Slut” that goes for $40 which a maid of honor decided everyone has to wear for a Nashville bachelorette party.

Or someone thought that the comically hyper-patriotic supervillain Firecracker from The Boys, the least subtle show on television, wasn’t quite getting the message across strongly enough.

On a spectrum from the standard purposeless uniforms to the purposeful storytelling at UFC Noche, it’s unclear where this falls. What substance was there to this offering?

Any Plausible Celebration Of American Culture?

The lack of any specific reference point to celebrate is striking. A friend suggested it was meant to be a throwback to USO shows of the 1940’s or 50’s, the era most conservatives wish we could get back to, the era when the National Review declared they would stand athwart history yelling Stop!. Those USO shows did not look like this. You wouldn’t find Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe wearing a chopped and screwed American flag, they wore evening gowns and luxuriant furs. Norman Rockwell, even with his notoriously bad taste and love for chintzy Americana, depicted attractive women from the USO simply wearing dresses in his Willie Gillis cover for the Saturday Evening Post.

It was still an insightful starting point. Eventually I found what this aesthetic is referencing and celebrating. Please bear with me on a detour first.

A Philosophy Interlude

In the essay Simulacra and Simulation, the philosopher Jean Baudrillard discusses the nature of symbolic representation; those symbols gaining distance from reality, ultimately drifting so far away that reality is no longer part of the picture. He described a simulacrum as “copies that depict things that either had no original to begin with, or that no longer have an original.”

For example, the Frontierland park at Disneyland is a symbol that ostensibly depicts a town in the American Old West. However the park is not based on references to anything true or real about an old west town. It is a reference to cartoon depictions of the American west, which are a symbolic representation of popular western movies (filmed overseas no less), which are a symbolic representation of pulp novels, which may have finally been in reference to some crumb of reality about the historic American frontier. Each step of symbolic representation perverts the previous one until the final step he called hyperreality, where the symbolic representation no longer has a connection to an original. Knowledge of the original is no longer perceivable by those who participate in these exercises. Merely experiencing the hyperreality at Disneyland restricts one’s literacy.

Ok, What Was That About?

So what was behind the UFC’s concept of patriotic wardrobe? Look to this depiction of a 1940’s USO show in the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenger, produced by Marvel Studios, a subsidiary of the aforementioned Walt Disney Corporation, a leading purveyor of hyperreality.

Suddenly the UFC’s decisions feel like a familiar spectacle. The wardrobe was referencing a movie, a reference to a comic strip, itself a deliberate exaggeration not meant to portray the reality of those patriotic USO shows, and now playing a role in the chain of symbols obscuring the original reality. This easily blended and merged with the empty performative post-9/11 patriotism of smearing the flag over everything.

It would be easy to assume the ring girls’ wardrobe at UFC Freedom 250 At The White House Presented By World Liberty Financial’s crypto exchange was bog standard gaudiness and bad taste but I urge you to consider this alternative. Through the repetition of signifiers and symbolism, by filtering through the stages and orders of signs, this is actually what American culture can offer. While Mexico has cultural touchstones that could be referenced and rendered through art, the United States of America no longer does. The aesthetics of Bush era conservatism successfully erased knowledge of the past and the ability to tell stories regarding it. Whether building upon that was the UFC’s intention or not does not change that it is accomplishing a purpose. We have been rendered hollow, dressing up as The Flag Slut is all the nation has to offer.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20 FROM THE EMPTY SOUL OF THE APEX
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM PDT / 8 PM EDT

Feels real weird to go back to normal after all of that, doesn’t it?

Aside from the million other reasons I resent the White House card for existing, I can now add that for the first time in my entire goddamn life, I looked at a UFC event and thought “Oh, thank god, it’s only the Apex.”

MAIN EVENT: HIDDEN HISTORY
FLYWEIGHT: Manel Kape (22-7, #2) vs Kyoji Horiguchi (36-5 (1), #5)

This is a great fucking fight. This is an amazing bout between two of the best Flyweights on the entire planet. It is only through the lens of the Apex, and what it says about the different scales at which mixed martial arts operates, that I can find a single thing to feel bad about.

I mean, aside from the whole ‘Manel Kape keeps using gay slurs and calling people who anger him genetic failures’ thing. I could complain about that, and honestly, our proximity to the White House card is probably why I just don’t have the energy to get mad about it again right now. I am not thinking about Manel Kape the weirdly insecure guy, I am thinking about Manel Kape, unequivocal top contender to the Flyweight title.

Because he is, man. There’s no more denying it. Kape has spent the last five years being dogged by an inability to get over the line, be it badly-timed losses or injuries or opponents botching their weight cuts or Kape botching his weight cuts or, you know, steroids, he’s found himself repeatedly boxed out of contention. Should Muhammad Mokaev have his spot? Yes. Should Asu Almabayev sue the Kape estate for beating him with multiple eye gouges strung together like a Mortal Kombat Armageddon create-a-fatality? Also yes.

Did Kape make himself undeniable by blowing Brandon Royval out of the water? That, unfortunately, is the biggest and most present yes. Royval spent years stuck in his own holding pattern right at the edge of the summit. Good enough to beat Brandon Moreno and get to Alexandre Pantoja twice: Not good enough to win the belt. Went the distance with Tatsuro Taira and Joshua Van, but only beat the former, not the latter. He was long considered the toughest top contender to beat in the entire goddamn company. So Kape immolating him in three minutes last December made him, seemingly, the natural fit for the title picture. Sure, there was the complicating wrinkle of Joshua Van having just won the belt on a bizarre injury stoppage, but Kape was next, right?

Nope! Tatsuro Taira, the man who lost to the man Kape had just destroyed. Well, that sucks for Kape, but that means he gets the next crack at Van, surely?

Why, no. Instead, he gets to fight the goddamn bogeyman.

Kyoji Horiguchi is the best fighter in the world. I don’t care that this is objectively untrue: I am asserting it anyway. 36-5 (1) is already an absurdly good record for anyone who’s spent the majority of their career in the major leagues, but it belies an even wilder sub-statistic: Only one of those losses actually came at Horiguchi’s home in the Flyweight division, and that was against Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, arguably the greatest fighter of all time.

Flyweight is such an underbooked global divisionKyoji Horiguchi is just so god damned good that he had to fight at 135 pounds, despite being shorter than all but one of the UFC’s Bantamweights, and he was still great there. At one point in an era of co-promotion that now seems like an impossibly beautiful dream, he simultaneously held 135-pound gold in both Japan and America, thanks to Rizin and Bellator joining forces in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to compete with the UFC’s iron grip on the sport.

Shinryu Takahashi and Ougikubo, the only other Rizin Flyweight champions, both lost to Horiguchi before he left to return to the UFC. Kai Asakura fell to Horiguchi’s fists in under a round. Darrion Caldwell, Bellator champion, got beat by Horiguchi twice in six months. Ian McCall, UFC standout. Hideo Tokoro, living legend.

Manel Kape.

That’s right, baby: This is a rematch. The first time Kyoji and Manel fought was as part of a three-fights-in-48-hours tournament back in 2017 in Rizin. It was a good fight, too, with Kyoji ultimately choking Kape out late in the third. At the time, they were the two best Bantamweights Rizin had to offer, and they did battle in the Saitama Super Arena on New Year’s Eve on the same card as Mirko Cro-Cop, Takanori Gomi and Tenshin Nasukawa in front of tens of thousands of people.

And now they’re two of the best Flyweights the UFC has to offer and they’re fighting for title contention in the Apex.

Really sucks the air out of things, doesn’t it? Like, this is great! This is a stellar fucking fight! Almost nine years of history leading up to this rematch, two men at the top of their game, one maddened by a need for revenge, the other trying to live up to the dreams of his fallen master (no, really, he changed his nickname over it and everything), with the winner all but guaranteed a shot at the greatest Flyweight prize in the world. This is exactly the kind of thing the pomp and circumstance of combat sports theatrics were made for. You could market entire shows around this. When this fight was first rumored it was assumed to be an anchoring fight for the UFC’s first Japanese event in damn near a decade.

And instead it’s here, in the Apex, in front of a few dozen people and also co-main eventer Navajo Stirling before they kick him out because competing in the Apex doesn’t entitle you to a seat afterward.

This was a great fight in 2017 and it’s even better now. Both men have come even further into their own styles. Horiguchi has mastered his darting attacks and the way he varies up his offense so opponents don’t see his takedowns coming; Kape has calmed the fuck down (stylistically, if not personally) and is much better at taking his time and controlling how quickly he burns his gas tank. He’s a much more mature version of the 25 year-old Kyoji choked out.

But: He’s Kyoji goddamned Horiguchi. KYOJI GODDAMNED HORIGUCHI BY TKO.

CO-MAIN EVENT: AH, THAT’S BETTER
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ion Cuțelaba (20-11-1 (1)) vs Navajo Stirling (9-0)

It’s like falling down an elevator shaft. It’s like running after the Road Runner and smacking facefirst into what you thought was a conveniently-placed tunnel. It’s like walking out of the shower in the morning happy, clean and prepared to face the horrors of the world only to slip and fall into the moat you dug around your house for when the Water Wars happen.

Except a moat has at least a little bit of depth, and Light Heavyweight does not.

Ion Cuțelaba has a losing UFC record. It’s close--it’s 9-10-1--but it’s still on the wrong side of history. He has a victory over top contender Khalil Rountree Jr.! In 2019. In the seven years since then, he has defeated the following men:

• Devin Clark, cut after going 8-9

• Tanner Boser, who just got re-signed after his unsuccessful 5-5 run

• Ivan Erslan, who just saved his job with his first-ever UFC victory last month after dropping three straight

• Ibo Aslan, who just finished dropping three straight

• Oumar Sy, who went from an undefeated superprospect to 1 for his last 3 after Ion choked him out in a single round

But, hey: Navajo Stirling, right? Undefeated! Young-ish! Name sounds sort of interesting! Is he setting the world on fire?

No. You fool. You foolish fool. There is no fire. There is no fuel to burn. In four UFC wins, Navajo Stirling has exactly one victory over a man with a winning record in the company. That man is Rodolfo Bellato, and that record is 2-1-1 (1).

These two men have only the barest hint of divisional traction. Neither has a particularly impactful win anywhere in their recent history. Nobody in this arrangement has demonstrated the capacity to be the future of the division.

Which sucks, because this fight might, legitimately, be pivotal to the future of the division.

Light Heavyweight is fucked, man. We talk about Women’s Bantamweight being in bad straits, but 205 is right on their tail. Here is the entire goddamn ladder, without missing a single beat.

• Brand new champion Carlos Ulberg tore his ACL in his title win and is out indefinitely

• #1 Magomed Ankalaev just got shitcanned by Alex Pereira and is being booked down the card against Khalil Rountree Jr.

• #2 Alex Pereira isn’t even in this division anymore and just got destroyed by Ciryl Gane at Heavyweight

• #3 Jiří Procházka is a fan favorite who has also been knocked out in three title shots in as many years and already lost to the champ

• #4 Jan Błachowicz just went on injury leave for a torn meniscus, by the time he returns from which he’ll be either damn near or past 44 years old and he already lost to the champ

• #5 Khalil Rountree Jr. is somehow the best-positioned contender left, which is unfortunate because he’s 1 for his last 3 after getting brutally knocked out twice in one year

• #6 Jamahal Hill is currently on his third or fourth injury leave for serious leg issues

• #7 Paulo Costa has one fight at Light Heavyweight

• #8 Azamat Murzakanov just got knocked out by Paulo Costa, who has one fight at Light Heavyweight

• #9 Volkan Oezdemir is almost 38 and already lost to the champ

• #10 Bogdan Guskov failed to beat Volkan and Jan both

• #11 Dominick Reyes is a weird, tragic meme and already lost to the champ

• #12 Nikita Krylov got knocked out by Reyes and Guskov both and is welcoming former Welterweight Robert Whittaker to the division next month

• #13 Johnny Walker is moving up to Heavyweight

• #14 Aleksandar Rakić is moving up to Heavyweight

• #15 Alonzo Menifield is almost 39, gets crushed by everyone in the top ten, and already got knocked out by the champ in twelve seconds

That’s it. That is the top of your entire Light Heavyweight division. 20% of the Light Heavyweight ladder is injured and another, separate 20% doesn’t even fight at Light Heavyweight anymore. There is exactly one fight between already-ranked fighters booked in the entire fucking weight class, and it’s Magomed Ankalaev, who was champion one fight ago, against Khalil Rountree Jr., who is half the top ten below him and coming off a vicious knockout loss. Pereira’s gone. Jiří’s tarnished. Ulberg might have to vacate. Paulo fucking Costa might get the next shot at the title.

BREAKING NEWS: In the middle of editing, Jamahal Hill announced that he, too, wants to move up to Heavyweight. We are now at one-fourth of the entire ladder departing said ladder for Heavyweight all at once. Half of the rankings are functionally gone. Jesus wept.

205 was the UFC’s premiere division. It was the land of Frank Shamrock and Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture, Lyoto Machida and Rampage Jackson. Jon Jones. Daniel Cormier.

If you’re asking where the next great Light Heavyweight prospects are: This is, unironically, it. Navajo Stirling. Longest non-Ulberg winning streak in the division. Beneath him, it’s a three-way tie between no less than Dustin Jacoby, Iwo Baraniewski, and Billy Elekana. This is all there is.

Sit on the rusted throne. Inherit the ashes under your feet. NAVAJO STIRLING BY DECISION.

MAIN CARD: MISPLACED PIECES
FEATHERWEIGHT: Vinicius Oliveira (23-4, #12 at Bantamweight) vs Andre Fili (25-13 (1), NR)

One fight really changes everything, doesn’t it. On February 6, Vinicius Oliveira was one of Bantamweight’s biggest prospects. Rangy, powerful, difficult to effectively grapple, and possessed of that overt meanness in the way he hit people--not hunting for knockouts, not technically timing his counterpunches, just going out there trying to make his opponent completely miserable. And it worked fantastically, and it got him past a number of genuine prospects, and it got his name into the conversation for the top ten. And then it got him in the cage with Mario Bautista. Sometimes fights play out in such a way that it reinforces the concept of levels. Oliveira barely got a dozen strikes off between being absolutely styled on by Bautista’s grappling advantage, which, in turn, let Bautista crack him upside the head at will, and in just a hair under two rounds Bautista choked him out. More than being bummed out, though, Oliveira admitted a bit of relief, because cutting to 135 pounds was killing him.

He was supposed to get a solid measuring stick fight against the tragically fallen Giga Chikadze here, but Giga’s out, so instead we have the eternal road warrior, Andre Fili, who is entering, I swear to god, his seventh straight year of managing to never string together a pair of wins or losses. Back in 2019 he beat Myles Jury and Sheymon Moraes back-to-back, and since then: Chaos. He’s rarely ever boring, he’s rarely an easy out, and he goes to split decisions all the god damned time. But, statistically speaking, he wins more of them than he loses, so who’s to say if it’s good or bad? Hell, his entire career is a perpetually horrifying Sword of Damocles situation where every time I see him I think ‘hey, didn’t he temporarily go blind in one eye from getting punched too much?’ and then I remember that not only did that, in fact, happen, it was already almost three and a half years ago and he’s absorbed another 175 recorded headshots since then and that’s not counting sparring and I have to go lay down.

Please do not rob this poor man of his sight, Lok Dog. VINICIUS OLIVEIRA BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Hyder Amil (11-2) vs Christian Rodriguez (12-4)

Hyder Amil, you were supposed to be a thing. Amil was one of the more-hyped Contender Series children, a 2023 winner who seemed promisingly well-rounded and had already successfully tested himself in Bellator and the LFA en route to the big show, and starting off his UFC career with two straight underdog knockout victories earned him a whole lot of respect from the fans. Beating William Gomis by split decision didn’t really lower his stock, either--it’s William Gomis, no one’s stopped him in almost ten years, and besides, he won! Then Jose Delgado knocked Amil out in twenty-six seconds. Then Jamall Emmers, who had gone half a decade without managing back-to-back wins, finally broke his streak by grinding Amil down to a unanimous decision loss. One year ago, Amil was undefeated: Now, he is trying to avert a three-fight losing streak.

No one gets how quickly the sport can move past you like Christian Rodriguez. The UFC hand-picked him as a main-card pay-per-view victim for their undefeated child soldier Raul Rosas Jr. thanks to Christian’s history of getting outwrestled, and Christian proceeded to really piss them off by a) missing weight and b) beating the absolute dogshit out of their special boy. He then proceeded to miss weight even worse in his next fight, which meant it was time for a--completely correct--forced move to Featherweight by the UFC. 145 just hasn’t been kind to the man. Hilariously, his two moments of glory have come from taking out two more undefeated UFC prospects, one in Isaac Dulgarian and the other in Austin Bashi, but he’s 1 for his last 4 and I promise they would not miss him if he lost and they could finally get their just revenge.

So I am asking you to do it to ‘em one more time. CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ BY DECISION.

FLYWEIGHT: André Lima (11-0) vs Kevin Borjas (10-5)

André Lima has had an incredibly annoying time in the UFC, through very little fault of his own. He makes it through the Contender Series in 2023, waits half a year to make his debut against Igor Severino, and wins--by disqualification, after Severino bites him so hard it leaves a dental imprint of his teeth so perfect you would scoff at it for being unrealistic if you saw it on whatever iteration of CSI is still plaguing the airwaves. He goes through two replacements for one fight, then fucks up his own weight cut. He wins two fights, including his first finish and by far the best win of his career, then finds himself on the shelf for more than a year with an injury. He waits on a return against Dong Hun Choi, only for that fight to be rescheduled twice and ultimately cancelled.

And now, as one of the most promising Flyweight prospects in the company, he is making his return against Kevin Borjas, who is 1-4 in the company and whose one and only win came against Mexican meme star Ronaldo “Lazy Boy” Rodríguez, who missed weight and hasn’t competed since. Borjas wasn’t supposed to win that fight, and as revenge for his victory the UFC sent him to China to lose to Chinese star Sumudaerji, and when that didn’t satisfy their thirst for revenge, they followed it up by sending him to Mexico City to lose a fight against Imanol Rodriguez. He is here to be defeated. He is here to suffer.

So please make it quick, André. ANDRÉ LIMA BY SUBMISSION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Melsik Baghdasaryan (8-3) vs Murtazali Magomedov (10-0)

As someone who spends too much of their free time face-deep in MMA research, I’d like you to know, for the record, that half the problem is how much of our data is just plain wrong. The UFC’s punch stats? The ones I cite all the time? Not just frequently miscalculated, but also beholden to such absurd rubrics that every three-feet-away teep Sean Strickland throws is counted as a significant strike attempt, but someone landing a ground-and-pound haymaker might not make the cut. The records? Regularly disputed, given that one leading database counts everything and another tries to reflect fixed fights.

When I went looking up tape on Murtazali Magomedov, I saw that his last pre-Contender Series fight was a bout with Brazilian champion Claudeci Brito. According to Tapology’s database--and the UFC’s--Murtazali and Brito are the same exact height, down to the centimeter.

Down to the centimeter.

I dunno, man. Melsik Baghdasaryan had promise as a striking prospect but then he disappeared in a puff of smoke and this is just one month shy of being his second fight in the last three years. We saw him in February of 2025 and he got destroyed in one round by Jean Silva and then he went right back to the toy chest. Every time he shows up he looks a little worse and a little more tentative, and meanwhile, Murtazali is fighting out in Kazakhstan where people are of indeterminate height and everyone knows how to wrestle at least a little bit.

I will side with the Steppe. MURTAZALI MAGOMEDOV BY TKO.

PRELIMS: DEATH WOULD BE MORE HONEST
WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Bia Mesquita (7-0, #13) vs Melissa Mullins (7-2, NR)

It’s very, very funny that I spent all that time talking about how Light Heavyweight is doing almost as poorly as Women’s Bantamweight, and yet, the inequality remains. Navajo Stirling and Ion Cuțelaba? Co-main event. Hyder Amil vs Christian Rodriguez? Main card. And yet, predictable as the sun, we have two ranked women’s fights on the prelims, and both of them are at Women’s Bantamweight, and the higher-ranked one is actually lower than this one because nothing is real. Bia Mesquita is, quite possibly, one of the only hopes for this division. She’s a hyper-aggressive grappler with world-class bonafides and despite being the second-smallest woman in the division they’ve allowed her to strangle everyone in her way. Melissa Mullins was 2023’s iteration of a bigger, stronger and considerably more British version of a grappling prospect for the future, but unfortunately, she just isn’t quite as good at it and she also keeps boning up her weight cut. The UFC putting her here in a ranked match is not a favor to her; it is an attempt to get rid of her.

At least they’re putting Mesquita in a preliminary headliner? I fucking guess? My fingers are scrabbling through the dirt and silt to find the bottom of this bar. BIA MESQUITA BY SUBMISSION.

FLYWEIGHT: Mitch Raposo (10-3) vs Allan Nascimento (22-6)

Good news, me: This is a rescheduling so you don’t have to do any goddamn work. We were supposed to see this back in April at Burns vs Malott, but Raposo got sick 48 hours before the event. Consequently: A rerun.

They’re putting you out to pasture, Mitch. You were a late replacement signing that they expected very little from, and you managed to wrestle a bit, which they also don’t like, and somehow despite pretty clearly losing most of your fights you kept only barely dropping split decisions, which is even worse. They expected you to lose to Azat Maksum last October and help rebuild his prospects, and they were not anticipating Azat blowing his weight cut and coming in tired and unprepared. So here’s the good news, Mitch: You get another shot and it’s at a real opponent who’s damn near ranked! The bad news is he’s one of the best grapplers in the division and they are wholly intent on him strangling you.

I almost want to root for you, but Allan beat my boy Jafel Filho, so I’m honorbound to root for him. ALLAN NASCIMENTO BY SUBMISSION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Michael Aswell Jr. (11-4) vs Gaston Bolaños (8-5)

If you asked me to imagine the platonic ideal of an Apex prelim, it would be either this or a Middleweight bout between people with 4-0 records and nicknames like “Party Time” or “Bodybagz.” Gaston was a Bellator also-ran four years and change ago, he was one of the odder UFC pickups and he has proceeded to go 2-2, accomplish nothing, and sit out for an entire year since getting choked out by Quang Le, who has actually since been released from the organization, which is even more insulting. Michael Aswell Jr. is 1-2, his only victory came against Lucas Almeida, who was cut immediately afterward, and as an additional bonus he got hit one hundred and thirteen times just one day shy of three months ago but he’s still here because fuck you, get back in the fucking cage or we’ll go back to Samurai Fight House and hire Emmanuel “El Perro” Vallejos and replace you.

MICHAEL ASWELL JR. BY DECISION.

WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Karol Rosa (19-7, #8) vs Luana Santos (10-2, #11)

Yup, here it is. Top ten Women’s Bantamweight fight? One woman who’s beaten former title contenders and been in a Fight of the Year candidate, one woman who’s 5-1 and on a solid winning streak? You better fucking believe that’s all the way down the fuck here. Karol Rosa may have a dozen UFC fights, but win or lose she’s gone to a decision in every single one of them, so the UFC has no use for her because it’s not like she’s Colby fucking Covington or anything. Luana Santos dropped a bout to Casey O’Neill a couple years ago, but since then she’s tapped Tainara Lisboa and beaten promising Canadian prospect Melissa Croden, so it makes perfect sense that she’s getting tested in the top ten against one of the longest-tenured, most-successful veterans in the division.

On the prelims. Under Michael Aswell Jr. It’s almost like they don’t want the division to live. What a crazy thought, that. KAROL ROSA BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Leon Shahbazyan (12-4) vs Levan Chokheli (14-3 (1))

Hold on, wait. I’m sorry. Leon Shahbazyan? Edmen Shahbazyan wasn’t already enough, you had to go hire his older fucking brother? His brother who got knocked out by Phil Rowe on the Contender series? His brother who got thrown in a trashcan by Ryan Loder, TUF 32 (jesus christ) champion, in a minute and a half, a couple years before Loder proceeded to get repeatedly and effortlessly destroyed in the company? You are hiring that Leon Shahbazyan? His last five wins were the 14-10 Robert Hale, the 10-9 Gláucio Eliziário, the 9-10 Aaron “The Alaskan Bull Worm” Phillips, the 7-5 Aireon Tavarres, and my personal favorite, Marcus Hardaway, an 0-2 fighter whose last fight was against the man with the best name in the entire sport, Here Dudes? And you’re putting him against Levan Chokheli, who, himself, is known almost solely for losing to Goiti Yamauchi and Lorenz Larkin in Bellator?

You know what probably would have been a better idea? HIRING GOITI YAMAUCHI OR LORENZ LARKIN. You cut Lorenz Larkin a decade ago on a two-fight winning streak over Jorge Masvidal and Neil Magny! You could still get him! It isn’t too late!

Except, y’know, for how late it is. LEVAN CHOKHELI BY JESUS CHRIST, WHATEVER, I GUESS TKO, FUCK.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Shane Collins (7-0) vs Otari Tanzilovi (10-1)

No biting cynicism on this one, I’m looking forward to it. Shane Collins may still be a bit lacking in professional experience, but he had a long run as a successful amateur, he’s done well for himself down in Urijah Faber’s promotion, and he’s already pretty solid at wrestling, stringing together combinations and breaking livers, which puts him a step ahead of the rest of his peers. Otari Tanzilovi’s a Georgian striker who spins possibly more than he should and craves nothing more than the feeling of ribs breaking under his feet to the point of overcommitting, but he’s taken out a couple good fighters and he was a coinflip away from beating Josias Musasa on the Contender Series in 2024, so he almost made it to the big show already.

Of course, Musasa has proceeded to go 0-2, and Tanzilovi is being brought in as an underdog prospect, which is indicative that the house knows who it’s going for, here. SHANE COLLINS BY DECISION.

Why has it taken three years to track the recent happenings of this indomitable force? Well, simply put we were threatened by VACANT’s lawyers (many of whom also seem to work for TKO) and we’ve been dealing with a defamation case. Apparently you cannot refer to a being from the depths of hell as a “SATAN”. Who knew?

Thankfully the court has tossed out the case on the grounds that being a demonic entity and being called “SATAN” do not constitute defamation.

The Third Age

At the end of Part 2, VACANT had reclaimed his grasp on the UFC Light Heavyweight championship following the sudden injury suffered by then newly crowned $10k show / $10k win bonus champion Jamahal Hill. Many speculated that the injury was caused Hill’s decision to play a charity basketball game. However, we the seekers of truth at Punch Sport Pagoda know that the ever cunning VACANT tricked Hill into playing that game and placed a small nearly invisible pebble in Hill’s shoe causing him to tumble and ruin his legacy as a UFC champion.

Back in his proud role as the UFC LHW champion, VACANT enjoyed their time at the top. For months they sat, basking in the glory of holding the LHW title for the eighth time. Yes, you read that correctly, eighth time. VACANT is, by all accounts, the most obsessed with the UFC LHW division, and can one blame them? Their minion Jon Jones served them well.

But like all good things, this eventually had to come to an end when a sudden arrow found its mark striking VACANT in his black heart, felling the demon. The archer was a man who emerged from the Brazilian jungle. The man was Alex Pereira, who had recently moved up from middleweight helping the feeble and weak LHW division. Something that actually brought some positivity as he was the first man in four years to have more than one title defense, as well as being the first person not named Jon Jones to defend the title more than once in 18 years. VACANT, however, was not pleased.

After being shunned away by Pereira, VACANT turned its gaze back to the Featherweight division where they had once convinced the Irishman more famous for being on cocaine and abusing women than being a prominent fighter to take up boxing. This time, however, they found a new rube a Georgian-Spaniard who had steadily rose to the top killing and maiming fan favorites. With the exception of a neo-Nazi, nobody liked Bryce Mitchell so that win was kinda cool.

Ilia Topuria’s reign as the Featherweight champion brought new and interesting dynamics. As challenger they stopped Alexander Volkanovski, someone who was very difficult to put away once upon a time. Following that up they were the first person to ever knockout former champion Max Holloway, again something that was unheard of at the time. However, this time as a champion in the division bored Topuria and this is where VACANT struck. Promising greatness and convincing Topuria that Featherweight was boring and the pastures were greener elsewhere, the reigning champion abruptly ceded their championship to VACANT in order to pursue glory in the Lightweight division.

This, however, was a ploy VACANT had been working up. For at the same time they were talking with Topuria, VACANT had traveled to the fabled land of Dagestan to convene with Islam Makhachev. The Russian, having ruled over the Lightweight division for two years beating up a Featherweight twice, an old man once, and a guy nobody remembers being exciting or highly touted, had decided they no longer wished to keep cutting weight.

VACANT, ever the trickster, used the same promises they provided to Topuria. They praised Makhachev for his wrestling, something Dana White detested, and told them riches and gold could become a legend akin to Georges St-Pierre if he just moved up to Welterweight. After all, as VACANT claimed, the Lightweight belt was not nearly as prestigious as the Welterweight title, even considering being tainted by the likes of Colby Covington. Makhachev, ever the strategist, saw this as a reasonable deal and provided VACANT the UFC Lightweight championship. And once again, VACANT was a two division champion.

A New Opportunity

After several weeks, VACANT’s promise to Topuria was fulfilled as Topuria once again beheaded another beloved fan favorite in Charles “Chuckie Olives” Oliveira in April of 2025, becoming the new Lightweight champion. A short while later Islam made good on his promise to claim the Welterweight title.

One may think this is where VACANT would recede and build up strength for some time before appearing once again.

However, just two months later VACANT’s trickery once again played out when Zhang Weili would suddenly give up her prized Women’s Straweeight title to VACANT. This was the first time VACANT had ventured into the Strawweight division, the competition there had been consistently strong and defended well against his schemes. However, Zhang had (like Topuria and Makhachev) grown weary of being on top and like her fellow champions desired more power, something they believed they could gain in the Women’s Flyweight division. So she did just that, giving up the title to VACANT unaware that this came at a cost.

The cost, she would go on to learn, was that Velentina Shevchenko would bully her for 25 minutes that October. Followed by Mackenzie Dern somehow becoming the new Strawweight champion. VACANT’s trickery knows no bounds.

At this stage VACANT had wheeled and dealed with many hopeful champions. This, again, was all part of their plan. Just a few months later in February of 2026, Alex Pereira once again the UFC LHW champion made a baffling choice.

Seemingly tainted by VACANT through the LHW belt, Pereira made the sudden announcement he would be moving up to Heavyweight in a bid to become the first and only three division champion in UFC history. Pereira’s plan was to partake in a strange pagan ritual called “Freedom 250” where the husk of an obese and comatose old man was wheeled out and praised by equally brain dead sycophants, all under the guise to celebrate a nation’s founding that actually is celebrated a month later.

VACANT was pleased. This gave them an unprecedented ninth, yes ninth, claim as the UFC LHW champion.

I would like to now take this time to reiterate that LHW is, and always has been, a horrendously cursed division.

For months VACANT’s grip on the LHW title was strong. They kept the belt in their grasp while the UFC frantically tried to figure out who exactly they could convince to stand up and take the title back from the demon and on April 11, 2026 we had our answer. Carlos Ulberg was that man, who despite having no functioning knee beheaded former UFC LHW Champion, and a man who VACANT had once defeated, Jiri Prochazka.

There truly is no God.

And it is here where I, a man who spent time not really sure what the point of any of this was all about, leave you. Not for the next time but for forever.

I’ll be honest, my interest in mixed martial arts died three years ago thanks to the enshittification of the sport by the coward Dana White and his crew of boring, steroid abusing sycophants and their lust for greed. The sport stopped being fun a long time ago, which has made it harder to poke fun at because the soul has been sucked out of it.

Maybe Carl or Jess will provide the next edition, or we will just all agree the sport died here on this day.

Fin (?)

You’ve probably read Jess’ piece, which is good. I don’t intend to do a fight by fight analysis.

You probably have already read Carl’s piece, which is also good. I don’t intend to do a breakdown of how we got here (at least all too much).

I am just going to rant and try to get across the point that you should just boycott the ever living shit out of the UFC.

But first, I have a real quick question for you.

Remember when Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem as a silent form of protesting against police violence specifically aimed at black youths in the US?

Remember how he was told to just shut up and actually he’s being very anti-American by doing that?

Remember how he was, through no fault of his own athletic performance, forced out of the NFL for such a “politically divisive” act?

Remember when a Christian nationalist conspiracy theorist host on Fox News told other non-white athletes to just shut up and play sports because they dared to speak up on political and social issues?

Remember the number of times we were told to “keep politics out of sports” by people who actively endorsed and showcased politicians they favored?

Yeah anyway forget about that, because as was the case at the time, they do not actually believe any of it.

Which is now how we have UFC at the White House.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s breaking off from the British Empire to form its own equally destructive and harmful empire, the world is going to be subjected to a UFC event that US tax money is paying for to serve as a political prop for the current administration.

The same UFC and administration who spent every opportunity they got whining about how sports shousld be free from politics now really want us to watch a sporting event designed to pretend it is to celebrate a nation’s founding, but in practice serves as yet another edition of sportswashing for a politician.

Which, you know, is an entirely political act.

When not busy shooting Americans in the street, supporting and enabling multiple genocides concurrently, and randomly starting a war because their genocidal buddy wanted to, the current government administration and the UFC have worked for the past year to put on the amazingly mundane event titled UFC Freedom 250.

This is a company worth several billion dollars by the way.

Billions of dollars. With a “B”.

And all they could dribble out was “UFC Freedom 250.”

Scott Coker could do better.

As mentioned by Jessica, this isn’t even taking place anywhere close to the actual nation’s founding day.

Because that is how you celebrate America, by not caring about the actual date your nation was founded on.

“But, why?”, you may ask.

To which I respond: “Have you not paid attention?”

This has been planned to coincide with the current administration’s fixation on celebrating America and somehow tying a convicted rapist of a President, to the idea of “America” in the minds of everyone. In such a naked and blatant way that even an idiot like Bryce Mitchell would recognize. Trump tried to cash in on the NBA finals earlier this week and was, hilariously, boo’d so badly the response by his sycophantic dweebs was to recreate that Simpson’s scene.

Look, this whole spectacle is just another example of American-exceptionalism and arrogance.

While people are starving from SNAP benefits being cut, medical insurance being stripped away, the aforementioned outright murder of non-violent protestors by federal agents, rapists overseeing detainees in ICE facilities, and a newly created “Fuck You” war that has caused energy prices to shoot up around the world with no end in sight, American tax dollars are going towards hosting an invite only UFC event for the current administration and their friends.

Oh and for some added insult to injury, they’re offering a $1.5 million “partner investor” ticket for the event. Which, again, is being ran on tax payer money and on tax payer property. Remember, The White House belongs to the people and not these schmucks.

So what does this stupidly overpriced “investment” get you? Well you get to attend the UFC Freedom 250 reception party, which seems to imply there’s some degree of pay to play access with high access people within or adjacent to the current administration. So…probably a degree of corruption there.

Oh you also get access to reserved seating at the UFC Freedom 250 press conference. Because I guess watching people call each other various insults for an hour is worth that price of admission. I went to one of those for free for Diaz vs Henderson.

You also get access to the ceremonial weigh-ins, but its for the general admission section so again, lmao at this not being a blatant form of bribery.

Finally, you also get access to floor tickets at UFC 329 which is a month later and in Las Vegas. Oh also, ironically, UFC 329 is closer to July 4th than UFC Freedom 250 is. Which sort of tells you how stupid this whole event is.

$1.5 million dollars for all of…that.

Oh and just a reminder, based on the UFC’s antics throughout their history, that the money gained from these exclusive ticket sales will most assuredly not be going towards the fighter’s pockets at all.

Sure, they’ll talk about how they’re losing money. But they also don’t include any mention of this shit show being on a paid streaming service that they got a $7.7 billion dollar deal out of to put on half assed shows at the Meta Apex. No no, $30 million is all they want you to focus on.

Now, none of this is out of the blue. Dana White, and by extension the UFC, has long been an avenue to openly promote, support, and praise extremist right wing politicians organizing this. White himself spoke at the 2016 and 2020 Republican National Conventions despite all that whining about politics getting into sports.

The UFC put together a “we love Donald Trump so much, and actually he is why UFC exists” propaganda video for UFC Fight Pass during his first administration. Which then was taken down after the January 6th domestic terror attack on the Capitol when they were authorizing the 2020 election results, which their hero lost. It’s OK, they put it back up pretending that the domestic terrorism committed at Trump’s behest never happened.

However as the winds of pissed off people blow in their direction and as scrutiny of the White House card intensifies, the UFC’s figurehead is insisting that divergent political views shouldn’t drive fans away from the sport. The thing he actively did for the past decade.

He also doesn’t care if we watch or not so fuck him and fuck this attempt at trying to appease angry fans.

Let’s Just Boycott This Shit

I’ve wasted enough of your time so let’s just say it. Let’s boycott this stupid event. Seriously.

Go watch something else, literally anything else. Here, want a video game recommendation that’s going to be more worthwhile? Go play WrestleQuest. It’s a fantastic game and actually showcases something called “personality and charm.”

Don’t like that? OK well I’m playing Octopath Traveler II and it’s amazing, so you could just get that and play it all weekend.

In fact, let’s just all agree to boycott the UFC as a whole. Especially who needs a break from the psychic damage he inflicts himself with each week.

Go watch RIZIN or PFL. There aren’t many MMA organizations that are good, because let’s be honest no company is ever capable of being good. However, I can only name one that actively promotes a convicted rapist whose authoritarianism has led to a pointless war that kicked off by bombing a school full of children, and then shit talked the Pope for saying that war is bad.

The politicians organizing it don’t care about the fans. They actively call anyone who they don’t like subhuman and fantasize about their deaths on the regular.

The UFC doesn’t care about its ethical responsibility as a business, let alone their own individual morals. They actively involved themselves and their fighters, both domestic and international, with Ramzan Kadyrov, a literal war criminal who is sanctioned by the US Government.

The UFC doesn’t care about the fans either. They actively platform people who go on bigoted rants on their broadcast and just shrug and say “maybe if you pay us you can see him get KO’d once.”

The UFC doesn’t care about their fighters. They actively try not to pay them a decent wage while pocketing all the money for themselves.

The UFC doesn’t even care about putting effort into making their creative content with their shift to using “AI” made “music”, poster designs, and commercials. Telling people who don’t like it to “just shut the fuck up” when they point out how shitty it looks and sounds.

Simply put, the UFC do not care about how terrible their product has become because they no longer need to sell you on watching the event. As Carl has painstakingly noted each month for several years now, the UFC’s business model is now based around getting a bag for X number events per year and as long as they meet that lone requirement they make their money. The incentive to put on a show you feel was worth your time and money is gone. Welcome to the Dana White Slop League era of sports.

So, I repeat my “fuck you” earlier, and I think you should also join me in saying that.

Stop putting up with the UFC’s shit.

SUNDAY, JUNE 14 FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
MAIN CARD 5 PM PDT / 8 PM EDT

I’ve been thinking about this for months and I’m still not entirely sure what I want to say. Rather: I know what I want to say, but it’s a bit of everything and I don’t know where to start.

At least, I didn’t until today, which, as of this writing, is Monday the 8th. Ariel Helwani, the Only MMA Journalist That Matters, decided to chime in on the White House card with his enlightened point of view:

After my eyes stopped spontaneously spewing blood in three-foot arcs I went back to my giant folder of .txt files and deleted my notes on the spot, because I have never felt such a need for the honesty inherent to stream of consciousness.

So, if you are here for a breakdown of the fights as per usual: My apologies, we are not doing that this week, but Jess has you covered in her usually perfect style. If you are here for purely angry ranting, we’re not doing that here, either, but Eric’s gonna have you covered tomorrow.

If you are here to try to make sense of your persistent bewilderment about why, exactly, any of us are still here: You have come to the right place.

PART ONE: EVERYTHING IS BAD

I’m just so tired, man.

This card doesn’t fucking matter, so let’s just dispense with the idea that it does. We’ll just get it out of the way; it won’t take long. You’ve got a Lightweight title fight where the top contender is a guy who already lost to both of the actual top contenders but it’s fine because he beat Paddy Pimblett, a Heavyweight title fight where one guy has failed to win the title on three separate occasions and the other has never fought at the weight class and is on a winning streak of One, Sean O’Malley against The Only Remaining Top Contender They’re Confident He Can Beat, multiple-time retiree Derrick Lewis vs Josh Hokit, the only man too insufferable for the current state of things who also just got hit 214 times two months ago, a damaged Lightweight contender in Mauricio Ruffy getting some attempted rehab against Michael Chandler, who is inexplicably still ranked despite his only win in the last five and a half years coming against Tony Ferguson, a damaged Middleweight contender in Bo Nickal against Kyle Daukaus in the most “he plays golf with Trump and is vaguely bigoted so we need to find a space for him” matchup possible, and Diego Lopes, who lost two title fights in ten months, against Steve Garcia.

That’s it. That’s what this whole giant democracy-destroying fuckfest is giving you. Two bullshit title matches that exist solely for marketing reasons and a bunch of managerially-favored prospects in intentionally lopsided contests and then there’s one fight that’s Actually Neat so it’s the one getting the least attention or care. For the Biggest UFC Event Ever, it is bloodless and cynical.

Which makes it the perfect encapsulation of this moment in the sport.

I started writing these in January of 2022. For almost five years, we have been watching mixed martial arts die. The UFC has become a parody of itself, a ramshackle organization that has spent those years casting off its veneer of respectability or legitimacy in favor of turning into a gaping tumorous mass formed from sheer corporate id. There’s no semblance of meritocracy anymore. The head of the company beats his chest at public press conferences about sidelining #1-ranked competitors out of personal discontent. Veterans, successful prospects and even undefeated top contenders get fired if management dislikes them. Titlists are crowned by fiat. The last two Heavyweight champions of the world left the company in mid-reign, and with the growing acrimony between the UFC and Tom Aspinall, we appear to be heading for a hat trick.

But it’s not just them. The rest of the sport has been choked out in parallel. The American B-leagues of MMA are a smoldering crater. Bellator, the second-best we could do, is dead. The Professional Fighters League, the slouching trash compactor that consumed it, is such a mess that in 2026, the year they realized their huge, ambitious plans of jettisoning their tournament format and embracing life as a Real Organization with standing champions and a roster, they’ve only managed seven events in the first half of the year, and that’s with such big headline fights as Jay-Jay Wilson vs Darragh Kelly and Logan Storley vs Florim Zendeli. But don’t worry! More than a full month after their last card they’re coming back in style, featuring no less than Salamat “No Wikipedia Page Necessary” Isbulaev in their main event. Invicta FC, the only major women’s MMA promotion in stateside history, has been MIA for the last thirteen months while the company that owns it focuses on getting deeper into bed with the WWE, and, thus, TKO and the UFC.

And the international scene isn’t doing all that great! When I started writing these ONE Championship was genuine international competition with a major cable broadcast deal and now it barely promotes the sport. Rizin is fun as hell and doing their best to keep the flame alive for Japanese MMA, but the business has had to draw down to stay healthy, and over the same timeframe that turned ONE into a dead husk, Rizin has gone from thirteen shows a year to eight. The UK has been trimmed down to feeder leagues. Brazil has been fragmented to hell. Absolute Championship Akhmat is chugging along in Russia, but its only big move in years has been signing Jailton goddamn Almeida.

So when I see Ariel Helwani, the canonical voice of mixed martial arts journalism, extol the virtues of ignoring the political ramifications of the UFC holding an event at the White House in favor of celebrating just how far the sport has come, my second reaction was to say, motherfucker, that was ten years ago. The sport has come so far back down over the last decade that we’re swimming in the same primordial muck it started in, back when fans were stabbing Renzo Gracie through the cage and Gerard Gordeau was gouging out Yuki Nakai’s eye. Back when the presence of rapists and Nazis was not only accepted but expected. Celebrating the success of the sport in the present is like throwing a birthday party for a corpse.

But, again: That was my second reaction.

My first was to say, dude, you know perfectly well why you don’t feel the need to view this as a political event.

PART TWO: NOTHING IS REAL

I have not forgotten the years of keep-politics-out-of-sports discourse that came up every time someone dared to imply that anything happening in mixed martial arts had any significance outside of people punching each other for money. I have not forgotten the attempt to talk down Dana White’s early flirtations with promoting Trump or his first speech at the Republican National Convention that he ludicrously described as an apolitical act of friendly support. I have not forgotten the way the sport and pundits treated Fallon Fox as MMA’s only visible transgender competitor, nor the way that we have somehow fallen so far backwards that once upon a time the UFC disciplined Matt Mitrione for being transphobic and now Sean Strickland posts AI-generated bigotry violence porn of himself beating up Dylan Mulvaney to peals of laughter from the worst people on the internet.

I have not forgotten Dana White’s decade-and-a-half-old proto-cancel-culture woe-is-me video blogs about how he was silenced for throwing around the calibre of slurs I’m not going to type here, or repeatedly calling reporter Loretta Hunt a “dumb fucking bitch,” or his simpering “I’m sorry I offended the gay and lesbian community” non-apology afterward that apparently burned his ass so badly that he held onto it for more than a decade before gleefully joining the hell-march of 2020s CEOs celebrating that culture is back where it’s supposed to be because now they can shit on people with the forbidden words again without having to pretend they care, or ever cared, about anything past whatever sparked a couple picograms of dopamine in their wealth-rotted brains.

I have not forgotten the way fighter conduct used to matter so deeply to the UFC that Ultimate Fighter finalists would get made public examples of for being drunk and disorderly, and now the UFC roster proudly boasts litanies of bigots, domestic abusers and sex criminals, and Conor McGregor, a man who is on camera assaulting numerous people, a man who nearly destroyed a UFC pay-per-view by hurling a loading dolly through a bus window, a man who was found liable for the rape of Nikita Hand by multiple juries, is having the red carpet rolled out for his grand return against one of the sport’s biggest stars.

If that seems like a strange aside after two paragraphs of sociopolitics: It shouldn’t. They’re the same goddamn thing. Every abdication of responsibility, every cut contender, every piece of outrage marketing, every cost-cutting Apex event, every Contender Series fighter shoved sidelong into the rankings, every sordid fighter-abusing negotiation tactic, every side-eyed poke by a commentator at Tom Aspinall’s cowardice for wanting his eyes to work more than he wants to defend the UFC Heavyweight Title for 1/10th of what he’s worth, every Elon Musk ringside reaction camera angle they’ve ever shot, every octagon winner who’s ever had extra minutes tacked onto their post-fight interview because they chose to spend them singing the praises of special guest Donald Trump as he sat perpetually half-aware of his surroundings. The continuum of who-gives-a-shit that brought you the TKO merger and the cessation of so much as the appearance of sport is the continuum that brought you Perennial Title Contender Colby Covington and It’s Okay Because He Didn’t Actually Successfully Rape Anyone Gable Steveson is the continuum that tells you a UFC event held on a fucking Sunday on Donald Trump’s birthday on the lawn of the fucking White House can be in any way construed as an apolitical event.

Being unable to watch the UFC without being a part of that continuum is the reason most of the people I know who used to passionately love mixed martial arts can’t stand it anymore.

A little over a year ago, UFC veteran Bryce Mitchell started a podcast and failed to get more than one episode in before immediately going off on a rant about the way Adolf Hitler was a misunderstood hero who loved his country and simply wanted to save Germany from the perfidious Jews who were trying to turn all of its men gay. (Also, the Holocaust was a lie indoctrinated into us by the corrupt system of public education.) In response, the UFC pulled Bryce from a grappling match they’d agreed to let him do at Karate Combat and instead speed-booked him onto a pay-per-view against Jean Silva, because if anyone was going to capitalize on his controversy, it’d be them.

At the time, in the end, I said this.

By and large, I do not care what entertainment you like nearly as much as I care about what you do. Some of the best political demonstrators I know are fans of the WWE. One of the most tireless advocates for trans rights I’ve had the pleasure of knowing is a Harry Potter fan. Even in the right-wing cesspit of the mixed martial arts fandom I’ve made friends with a number of queer activists, leftists, and simply good people.

What you do and what you are matters more than what you watch. If something sparks joy in a cold world, I think that’s worth keeping.

But I cannot help understanding why anyone outside of the WWE, or MMA, or the NFL, or the World Cup, would be horrified by the idea that people still enjoy them.

And as someone who dreamed of mixed martial arts before they knew it existed, as someone who has passionately loved it for most of their life, I cannot help wondering how many pieces of that joy will be tarnished by what it has become, or how permanent some of those stains will ultimately be.

I cannot help thinking about how incredible it is that here, at the nadir of this sport, we’re adjacent to the nadir of another one from that quote. Even as we prepare to deal with the complete corruption of mixed martial arts into an engine for propaganda, the World Cup is about to start, and the world’s single biggest sporting event has been thoroughly pissed on by Trumpism before it could even begin. FIFA, whose primary identifying traits are “corrupt” and “pathetic,” somehow managed to debase itself even further by inventing its own equivalent to the Nobel Peace Prize just to kiss up to the emperor. After an entire year of ICE threatening to hound tourists, players and their families, hotels are reporting disastrous booking figures, fans are less motivated to watch the only sport that matters than I have ever seen them, and in the most passive-aggressive bit of pants-pissing dominance possible, America won’t actually let the Iranian team stay in the country. They get to sleep in Mexico, fly into America every time they have a game, and fly right the fuck back out when it’s done. And even that’s a step above referee Omar Artan, who was turned away at Miami and forced to leave the country because he happens to be from Somalia and the government currently requires you to believe that all Somalians are thugs and thieves if you want to have a job.

And there, once again, is that continuum. The UFC isn’t the end-all and be-all, it’s just our beat. One more arm of the same media octopus that strangled the Washington Post or hired Bari Weiss to hollow out CBS News; that turned Facebook into a platform that enables genocide and twisted Twitter to the ego of a man who stokes hatred against immigrants, trans people, and anyone else whose misery could earn him a nickel.

The continuum of who-gives-a-shit ruins lives. It erodes institutions. It strangles decency and lets you shrug away suffering and death and vote for Trump or Brexit because, hell, it sounds funny, and really, who gives a shit about anything else?

It entrenches itself in things you love and demands that you accept it. It’s not crazy! We’re not doing anything wild, here. It’s just a little speech at the RNC. It’s just a walkout for Donald Trump. It’s just the tacit endorsement of bigotry. It’s just the open endorsement of bigotry. It’s just the active advertising of bigotry as a desirable and marketable trait. It’s just the insistence that if you don’t love bigotry, you’re the one who’s wrong. After all, it’s been this way for years. It’s been this way forever. Anyone who tells you it wasn’t always this way is wrong.

And even if it’s not: So what?

Why can’t you just enjoy mixed martial arts as a celebration of the sport and its fighters?

PART THREE: WHAT YOU GIVE AWAY

I mean, you can. No one’s stopping you.

The problem with Ariel’s viewpoint is not that it is invalid. The problem is that Ariel Helwani is the one saying it. As the foremost figure in mixed martial arts journalism, you should have more to say about the UFC putting on a White House propaganda show. One would hope that after almost a quarter-century of covering combat sports as its most cherished little media guy, and after repeatedly selling off your credibility to get paid gigs from the same companies you’re supposedly objectively reporting on, you’d have something, anything to say about this outside of the most obvious ‘oh golly gee why can’t we just enjoy the sport’ point of view that most definitely has nothing to do with the event’s political values conveniently aligning with your own.

But that’s Ariel. That’s not the average person who remembers Anderson Silva or Brock Lesnar and wonders aloud once every five years if Ultimate Fighting still exists. That’s not you.

Just like it’s not me.

I started watching mixed martial arts because I liked professional wrestling and heard it was like that, but real. I liked Bruce Lee and Joe Frazier and the Surf Ninjas, but the idea that there was a thick line separating “fighting” and “grappling” seemed counterintuitive in ways I had neither the knowledge or experience to explain. My first full MMA event was a Blockbuster VHS rental of UFC 6; my first fight was Tank Abbott destroying John Matua in seconds before mocking his seizing body. Oleg Taktarov disassembling Tank and choking him out in the finals of the night’s tournament taught me about the missing pieces of technique I had been dreaming of.

I loved MMA before I knew it existed. I wound up loving the community I found from it, too, but that community wasn’t the Ed Hardy-wearing Just Bleed crowd the sport was trying to cultivate, it was the outsiders on its fringe. People who, as members of societal out-groups, found a sympathetic experience in following a societally-shunned sport that was trying as hard as it could to be accepted. One of the closest, dearest friends of my entire life is a non-binary jiu-jitsu black belt who used to love talking about martial arts, mixed and otherwise. They’re married to a trans woman now. The sport went from making them feel accepted and interested to openly propagandizing for their destruction.

Around the same time the UFC took off, I got sucked into the world of working for tech companies, which I eventually narrowly escaped. Someday, when there aren’t much more important things going on, we may tell that story in full. But I never stop thinking about the years I spent stuck in rooms with wealthy executives, a truly disconcerting number of whom are now billionaires, listening to them talk openly about minimizing the entirety of the world down to profit. People, minorities, concepts, societies. Rich fucks who have since positioned themselves as moral arbiters for America, if not the world, that used to openly discuss the joy they took in watching other people try to care about things like media consumption and ethical standards.

I have not forgotten the glee they took in watching people fight each other over how best to live ethically in the world they were buying out from under them.

Over the past couple of weeks, the UFC has been getting an unusual amount of attention. This was, of course, the deal. Trump, who is in reality whiny and pathetic, gets his big birthday fight party that cements him as The Most Masculine President for his base; the UFC, which is in reality ice-cold and ignored by the public, gets an unprecedented and unignorable level of spectacle that makes people perceive them as huge again. For the first time in years I’ve found myself talking to regular people about the sport--not for the sport itself, but for the reporting they read on noble heroes like Sean Strickland or Bryce Mitchell who’ve taken ethical stands against the White House card thanks to America’s alliance with Israel or the Trump cabal’s support for pedophiles.

Attempting to say ‘hey, as someone who still watches the UFC, please do not ally yourself with temporarily convenient bigots who hate everything you actually care about’ to people, as it turns out, almost universally ends in the same question:

“Why should I listen to someone who still watches the UFC?”

And: It’s a fair question. When I see the old guard of MMA journalism--the actual journalists--talk about their relationship to the sport these days, it’s almost always somewhere between heartbroken and antagonistic, and even that’s reflective of a fall-off that started in a basement. MMA has never been a place of honor. Whether it was UFC broadcasts on Spike TV sandwiched between commercials of slow-motion boobs and things exploding or watching pirated Pride broadcasts live from Japan at 4 in the morning and absorbing racist stereotypes you didn’t grow up with enough to parse automatically, or seeing Oplot Challenge go from a small little livestreamed fight club in Ukraine to a foothold for Russian ultranationalists to try to take over a country, this sport has been immoral and terrible far, far more often than it’s been a force for good.

But that’s not what MMA, by its nature, is. That’s what MMA is made to be by the terrible people who run it. MMA, even the UFC, can just as easily be a place of inclusion as exclusion. We know that, definitively, because that’s what Dana and the Fertitta brothers spent years trying to make it, right up to the point that it became more profitable to change their minds and turn the sport into something backed by so much right-wing money that they don’t have to care if they drive fans away in droves. They get their $7.7 billion streaming deal no matter what.

Eventually, that, too, will change. All of this, the bravado, the spectacle, the sheer audacity of putting on a UFC event at the fucking White House--that is, once again, that continuum. The one that demands you accept that it is an immortal, unstoppable force of nature. The one that desperately wants you think of it as the new normal, forever, rather than a handful of CEOs and apartheid billionaires celebrating a decrepit rapist’s 80th birthday while desperately hoping their stranglehold on society outlives him.

The one that wants consuming its media to be synonymous with supporting it, while it laughs in boardrooms and smoking lounges about getting the people it hurts to hurt each other.

As I said above: I don’t care what you watch, I care what you do, but I understand why anyone else would. It is particularly impossible to ignore that at this moment in time, when an entire sport swirls its way into a party at the bottom of the sewage tank that is America’s present political climate. But what you do isn’t just what you are doing with your life, it is self-awareness about what you are consuming and why, and that includes the awareness of what you are giving away every time you consume it. In a perfect world, it should just be time and attention. But when you expunge that self-awareness, on a long enough timeframe, you run the risk of becoming the kind of person that looks at an event named “UFC Freedom 250” on the White House lawn on Donald Trump’s birthday and says “I am perfectly fine seeing this as an apolitical event devoid of meaning.”

One day, as hard as it is to presently imagine, the sport, and the world, will not be this. One day we will have to again wrestle with the reality of things mattering, and one day the engines of bigotry will have cooled down to prepare for their next attempt to find a way to rebrand white nationalism, and one day the UFC will be run by an entirely new set of clueless corporate suits who are just as mystified by whatever the hell a Josh Hokit was as we are today. The phrase “hey, remember that one really stupid fucking time they held a UFC event at the White House?” will be a gag. And if you watched it, maybe you’ll have a funny anecdote about it. Maybe it will have been a timeless clusterfuck. Maybe you shared it with other friends who laughed at how craven and awful it was.

Or maybe you’ll be the guy who tried to convince everyone it was fine to view it as just another day in the sport.

I’m skipping this one. It costs too much for me. If you watch it, go with god, but please do not let them rifle through your heart while you’re there.

Alex Pereira faces Ciryl Gane for the interim disputed UFC heavyweight title in the co-main event of UFC America Football Freedom Apple Pie Monster Truck 250 With Bacon in June. You know, the month everyone is traditionally extremely patriotic in America.

They either think we’re too stupid to notice, or too complacent to care, or too weak for it to matter.

Sure, it’s a celebration of America’s 250th birthday. Except it’s not on July 4th, which actually happens to fall on a Saturday, the traditional day for UFC events. This is on Sunday, a month early, June 14th. Oh, which happens to be Trump’s actual birthday. Yay America.

The best part is the event is so accessible! Tickets are available as part of a Unique Investment Opportunity (bribe), a steal at just $1.5 million. Or, if you are A Troop, who meets certain physical requirements (Height, weight, overt Aryan-ness) and able to pay your own transportation, accommodation, and meals, you could attend for free!

If you can’t quite meet those exacting standards, good news! There’s an off-site watch location available that is also outside. All the fun of the DC summer swamp heat, humidity, and bugs, plus the added bonus of straining your neck to look up at a big screen for five hours.

And a moderate chance of severe thunderstorms!

Sorry, let me try that one more time:

All hail God Emperor Trump. May his reign crush ten thousand years of progress. May his bootheel grind out the last flickering sparks of dignity.

LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR.

Heavyweight Title - Alex Pereira vs Ciryl Gane

This fight is happening because Tom Aspinall has been rendered a sightless husk following the cruel ministrations of Gane’s outstretched and grasping fingers. Tom is on the shelf indefinitely as he struggles to recognize light and shadows. Meanwhile, various fighters and random MMA talking heads have been calling Tom a massive pussy for months on end for not simply risking his vision, money, career, livelihood, and potentially future quality of life by getting back into the cage while still extremely blind.

Gane, riding a two fight win streak not counting his vicious claw attack, is slotted back into title contention because why the hell not. If this feels all too familiar, it’s because Gane has had four heavyweight title fights and failed to come away with gold the last three times. He took a vacant interim belt by beating Derrick Lewis in 2021, and since then, lost to Francis N’Gannou, lost to Jon Jones, and went to a No Contest against Tom Aspinall because nobody let him know that the eyeball is a No Go Zone.

Alex Pereira regained the Light Heavyweight title last year and decided there were no more worlds left to conquer at 205 pounds. Honestly, he’s not wrong! Look at the arid wasteland and see if you can muster up the give a fuck to hit the gym. For Carlos Ulberg and Azamat Murzakanov? No thank you!

All that preamble out of the way, the UFC Heavyweight title is now destined for a stupid outcome. Either the former MIDDLEWEIGHT champ wins it, which is real fucking stupid. Or, the guy who has been turned away multiple times by champs and was last seen executing Pai Mei’s eye plucking technique will win it, which is also pretty stupid.

Thing is, if you contemplate any of it for about four seconds, you come to the realization that it is entirely deserved. It’s probably warranted. For the division, for the organization, for the fans. Long time coming, but by god if those chickens found their way in to roost at last.

Carl has written extensively and I’ve chimed in a few times about the dire state of heavyweights. Please read them, our children eat your precious clicks. Anyway, do those wretched beasts really deserve dignity and respect after the decades of floundering and flailing heavyweight MMA has wrought upon this world? No! Pereira versus Gane is the stupidity the division should aspire to for the rest of time.

Look at the current state of UFC as a whole. Guys still wet from the Howler Head spawning vats stumble into a Contender Series fight at 2-1, knock out another terrified, shrieking homunculus, and get fast-tracked to the top ten before their contract re-ups or their birthing slime dries into a flaky crust. Anybody can randomly get thrust into a main event fight with title implications, or worse, get a title shot based off the amount of racism and domestic violence they do on a given weekend bender. Why should the “premiere” title in combat sports have any merit or legacy attached to it any more? Minowaman’s SUPERHLUK belt has more gravitas than a UFC title at this point.

“It’s just a little racist, it’s still good. It’s just a little homophobic, it’s still good. It’s just a little bigoted, it’s still good. It’s just a little fascist, it’s still good. It’s gone.”

And now the mirror turns inwards. MMA fans have let the garbage pile and fester for years. Shrug our shoulders and close our eyes to everything outside the cage that we don’t like. “I just care about the fights, I don’t care what they do when they aren’t fighting” is a common refrain. Well, how do you like it now? Nobody has defense or cage craft, they just plod forward, looking for one shot knockouts. Grappling has become so vilified by the fans and promotions that it’s spilling over into judging and refereeing.

MMA fans, and I staunchly include myself in with that miserable lot, are pathetic. Just sit back and let the fascism creep into the sport. “It’s just a few people with some horrendous opinions, it’s not like it’s going to take over the upper echelons and turn fighters into horrible bigots. Oh, wait.”

Just like Brian Ebersole’s hairrow, my dander is up, buddy!

Think about it like this, if, at any point, in the previous 30 years of UFC history, had the sitting President of the United States been paraded out, at least a dozen people would have hurled beer cups at him, and he’d be lucky if the liquid sloshing around was just beer. But now Dana is best pals with the guy who gets him all the good deals and helps squash labor rights, so let’s fucking honor that turd.

Also, let’s not forget that while Trump Taj Mahal did host UFCs 30 and 31, Trump also was heavily involved in Affliction MMA, which ran directly counter to UFC. Dana White claims that UFC and Trump have been intertwined best pals since 2001, but Affliction was enough competition that UFC counterprogrammed an event with free Anderson Silva. Do you realize how wild that is? One of the coolest knockout artists at the time, who’s a reigning champ, going up in weight against a vaguely hard-hitting jabroni, for free? Unheard of at the time! Hell, its unheard of now, and that’s only because Alex Pereira vacated the light heavyweight belt before this fight.

Lightweight Title - Ilia Topuria vs Justin Gaethje

Here’s the other bullshit: the actual main event is pretty good!

Ilia Topuria vs Justin Gaethje for the Lightweight belt isn’t terrible. Should it be Arman Tsaryukan instead? Yeah, probably! Are Gaethje’s last two wins a little underwhelming? Yeah. Am I steadily realizing that Gaethje isn’t such an ideal contender? Yes. Do I need a nap? Of course, always.

Did I have a whole thing about this fight being like having a really good meal, but forced to eat it in a sewage ditch? Yes, but now it’s more of a third-tier Chili’s lunch, eaten in a sewage ditch. Not bad, but you could have gotten a lot better!

Granted, noted shit-stirring lunatic Arman Tsaryukan might have thrown a fireball, Terry Funk-style, at Ilia during the weigh-in face off, so maybe you don’t have him near heads of state. Sucks, but it’s kind of understandable.

Actually, the real reason Justin’s in this spot is two-fold: One, he is the only American fighter of high enough stock to fight for the title, and two, Ali Abdelaziz probably negotiated down to a fight purse of ten bucks.

Evaluating the fight for just the fight itself, it should be exciting. Justin Gaethje might have cleaned up some of his technique and isn’t purely a blind swinging brawler, but he still hits like a bomb and is more willing to trade than the average fighter at his level of fame and record.

Ilia Topuria has had about six minutes total time not blasting dudes into unconsciousness in his UFC career. His only minor speed bump came against Jai Herbert, who is a twelve foot tall lightweight, so that can be excused, especially since Topuria bounced back from getting dropped in the first round and knocked out Herbert’s giraffe body in the second.

Either man has the potential to put the other man to sleep. Topuria’s craftier at landing his shots, and he is willing to grapple outside of extreme danger situations.

All of that being said, Justin Gaethje is the Violence Idiot for a reason. He’s gonna inadvisably tank some shots just for the chance to throw his own hammers. If he connects, and I realize if is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but if he connects, how will Topuria fare against a man whose bones are so dense he sinks in water? Because if I remember one thing from the season of TUF that Gaethje coached, it is him trudging on the bottom of a pool.

Look, I’m not Carl, I’m not great at analyzing film and breaking down technique. I know what both guys do well and have a vague understanding of how they’re gonna try to Do Their Stuff. I would love to dive deep into the tape study and produce an eloquent summary of how Topuria reacts to a low-kick heavy attack, or what Justin will need to avoid as he swarms in.

However! As I frequently shout from the mountains, above all their skill and technique, fighters love to do the god damn dumbest thing possible. Maybe Topuria really wants to show off his grappling this time, so he comes out looking for Imanari rolls and gets booped to death with hammer fists? Stupid as hell, but I’ve seen dumber deviations from established gameplans to the detriment of fighters before!

All of that waffle and nonsense being said, Topuria more than likely by first round KO such that we all ask “why did we even bother with this fight?”

Bantamweight - Sean O’Malley vs Aiemann Zahabi

Then there’s O’Malley vs Zahabi, third from the top. You might ask, why is Sean O’Malley on this card, let alone in such a high profile spot, against a guy over ten spots below him on the rankings?

Sean’s a guy who got a big media push, should have been stopped early in his ascendancy but ran into an opponent too stupid to capitalize on an obvious advantage, got served up favorable match ups, and, lest we ever forget, has a deep friendship with a sex criminal. Other than that, I can’t see any particular reason for O’Malley to have a place of pride on the Big Boy’s Birthday event.

Zahabi was carefully hand selected to hopefully replicate his Ricardo Ramos performance.

Since this is supposed to honor America, which just means the military, let’s have a repeat of Fight for the Troops. A night of shockingly horrific brain trauma, plus a gross leg break. We’re due for one of those. Maybe O’Malley’s little flamingo sticks will get snapped.

Heavyweight - Derrick Lewis vs Josh Hokit

I realize this card, despite claims of being carefully crafted over 9 months, was mostly assembled at random, and somewhat recently at that.

Derrick Lewis vs Josh Hokit, a late addition to the card. Here we have Stupid Heavyweight in all its glory.

If his back feels okay, and he ate a salad sometime in the past six weeks, Derrick Lewis could easily nuke Hokit inside of four minutes, like how he turned Tallison Texeira away.

On the other hand, he might come out stiff and slower than usual, concede a takedown and just flop around until the ground and pound finishes it.

Either way, none of the possible outcomes of this fight hinge on anything Josh Hokit will do beyond physically being present across the cage.

Regardless of who wins, the post-fight interview will probably feature the n-word.

Lightweight - Mauricio Ruffy vs Michael Chandler

Oh boy. Gone are the days where Michael Chandler was seeing us at the top. Gone is the just around the corner fight with Conor McGregor. Now he’s just an angry red cube, screaming into a silent void as everything eclipses him. He doesn’t even get to welcome McGregor back to the cage, that fight goes to Max Holloway in July! Gonna Jib-Jab yourself into another The Purge clip to menacingly request a fight like you did against Brent Primus in Bellator?

Ruffy is pretty good, and he’s actually been fighting very consistently the past few years. He is far more prepared to fight Chandler than Chandler is to fight him.

Maybe now that there’s an opening, Chandler will embrace his true destiny and become El Hijo del Grande Americano Jr.

Middleweight - Bo Nickal vs Kyle Daukus

C’mon meteor.

Skip it. Skip this one. Don’t like it at all.

Featherweight - Diego Lopes vs Steve Garcia

Finally, some good fucking booking. Go time for Mean Machine. Either he’s the big puncher that has put it all together and is going to punch Diego big, or he’s not ready for the bright lights.

Lopes has really only lost to Volkanovski in the last few years, and damn if most of the rest of featherweight also loses to Volk.

In all likelihood, Lopes is going to prove the levality of This Shit and send Garcia packing. I am hoping to be wrong, but Garcia’s best wins are retroactively Melq Costa, who was last seen getting handily turned away by Arnold Allen, and five fight losing streak Calvin Kattar. Solid wins, but decidedly on a lower tier than Lopes.

All the stars are here!

I’m just surprised at some of the fighters left off this event, not even counting the ones who said they had no interest in Oligarch Fest 2026: Now with More Bugs!

Where’s Sedriques Dumas? Surely the Crimes President loves the man with the most crimes in UFC history!

Where’s Valentina Shevchenko? A dominant fighter who is actually a Russian spy? That’s precisely the person who needs unfettered access to the White House!

Where’s Renato Moicano? Surely he would pledge his winnings directly to Trump!

The actual hardcore MAGA fighters all suck shit and Trump wants nothing to do with them any more.

Ok, I think I typed most of my anger out. I’m gonna take a nap for a thousand years.

Wake me up when Iron Turtle has rightfully ascended to godhood and crushes all with his mighty flippers.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6 FROM THE CAREER ASSASSINATION DESTINATION THAT IS THE APEX
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM

I cannot help feeling like the next two weeks are one interconnected reckoning with the current nature of the UFC, and, thus, MMA. Next week is the White House card, the moral nadir of the sport’s history, and I’m still not entirely sure what I want to say about that one, but it’ll probably be long and unpleasant.

This week? A world champion two fights ago is in the Apex, a top contender is fighting an unranked man, a top prospect is fighting a Contender Series guy, a man who was just in a de facto title eliminator is on the prelims, and a Nazi walks among us.

I miss when this all brought me more joy than exhaustion.

MAIN EVENT:
WELTERWEIGHT: Belal Muhammad (24-5 (1), #5) vs Gabriel Bonfim (19-1, #11)

When this fight got announced back in March it provoked a forum discussion about whether Belal Muhammad being stuck in the Apex after losing two fights in a row was exceptional or not. My argument, at the time, was this:

Here’s the list of everyone (I think!) in the Apex era that lost a title fight, either defending or challenging, and proceeded to also one-sidedly lose their followup fight:

• Sergei Pavlovich

• Jamahal Hill

• Paulo Costa

• Israel Adesanya

• Colby Covington

• Jorge Masvidal

• Kamaru Usman

• Leon Edwards

• Belal Muhammad

• Alexander Volkanovski

• Renato Moicano

• Max Holloway

• Brian Ortega

• Petr Yan

• Henry Cejudo

• Brandon Moreno

• Steve Erceg

• Kai Kara-France

• Mayra Bueno Silva

• Alexa Grasso

• Rose Namajunas

Here’s who, out of that list, got relegated to the Apex in their next fight:

• Belal Muhammad

• Renato Moicano

• Rose Namajunas

Putting “welterweight champion who was one round away from beating Jack Della Maddalena” in an exclusive fuck-you club alongside “woman who had one of the worst championship fights of all time” and “guy who is only here because we needed a replacement on 24 hours’ notice” parses as pretty exceptional to me.

The mile of crap Belal had to wade through just to get his title shot was already the stuff of legend when we discussed it back in 2022, and even then, they moved Heaven and Earth to get Jorge Masvidal, Colby Covington or Khamzat Chimaev into position instead. Despite being their top-ranked contender, despite having not taken a loss in five years, despite knocking out Sean Brady before it was cool, the UFC wanted to keep Belal and his hard-scrabble wrestling away from the title picture until they no longer had any preferable options. When they did finally relent and book his shot at then-champion Leon Edwards, it wasn’t for Belal’s sake, but Leon’s. They went back to Manchester and put on a big ol’ British special with all the top UK stars they could muster. Arnold Allen got a win. Paddy Pimblett got a win. Tom Aspinall avenged his only (technical) UFC loss. After years of strife the UFC had accepted Leon as one of their next British stars and they wanted that main event to cement him as the top Welterweight on the planet.

Belal outstruck him, outwrestled him and dumped him on his head just to make a point, and that was fortunate, because his title reign was more or less doomed after that.

Shavkat Rakhmonov was supposed to get the first crack at Belal, but first Belal was injured, and when he was healthy, it was Shavkat’s turn. Instead, the UFC turned to Contender Series darling Jack Della Maddalena, who had established himself as one of the best boxers in the sport. I thought Jack, with his previous issues against good wrestlers, would get ground to dust by Belal’s endless double-legs. Instead, Belal boxed. He still tried to wrestle, but not as aggressively or constantly as in his past efforts. Maybe it was Jack’s massively improved counter-wrestling forcing Belal out of his gameplan. Maybe it was latent injuries. Maybe it was a desire to be marketable. It was a game effort, and Belal was only one round away from getting the decision, but it’s the single rounds that kill you. A followup bout with fellow darling Ian Machado Garry went even worse, with Belal getting shut out on scorecards for first time since 2019.

He made it to the top, he fell to two of the best Welterweights on the planet, and now he’s in the Apex.

Gabriel Bonfim? Well,

• He got signed off the Contender Series in 2022 and made a lot of noise by being undefeated and winning his first two UFC fights, which were against the 2-2 Mounir Lazzez and the 7-7 Trevin Giles

• He lost his undefeated streak after getting knocked out in two rounds by living enigma Nicolas Dalby, who went on to lose his next two fights

• The UFC embarked on a rehabilitation quest by giving Bonfim Ange Loosa, who had once lost to Lazzez, and Khaos Williams, a solid but inconsistent prospect

• Bonfim’s jump into the rankings came from a fight with former title contender Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, who was 1 for his last 5 and hadn’t beaten a ranked opponent in almost five years; Thompson proceeded to outland him, nearly knock him out and win 12 out of 14 media scorecards, only to lose what would ultimately be considered the second-worst decision of 2025

• The UFC followed this by booking one of the worst Apex cards of all time, with Bonfim having his first ever main event against the unranked Randy Brown on a one-fight winning streak, whom Bonfim stopped in the second round

This? This is why this sucks.

For all that I complain about it, bringing up talent is difficult. Margins are slim, fighter availability is questionable, turnover is harsh. There are arguments for putting your underheralded prospects up against your established quantities. There are reasons to book Belal vs Bonfim that aren’t inherently awful.

But those reasons are only less awful in a vacuum. In the context of the UFC’s Welterweight matchmaking? Michael Morales and Leon Edwards are unbooked despite having not fought since November. Sean Brady suffered one loss and is back to spinning his wheels in the bottom half of the top ten. Kamaru Usman, lifetime Welterweight, is leaving for the Middleweight division and an instant shot at its #2 contender. Joaquin Buckley has lost two consecutive fights without his #9 ranking changing. Mike Malott got into the top fifteen by beating a retiree. Uroš Medić got into the top fifteen by beating a man who was still #12 despite having one win in the last four years, which was over a man who also only had one win in the last four years. Michael Page is tied for #13 at Welterweight, but they had him fighting at Middleweight for the last two years, and when they finally brought him back to 170 it was to battle Sam Patterson, who was unranked and had never fought anyone remotely close to a ranking.

The talent at the division is incredible. The booking is gross. It is impossible to separate the context of giving Gabriel Bonfim a shot at the top five from the context of demoting Belal Muhammad as fast as is humanly possible, in front of as few people as humanly possible, and seeing it as a positive movement for the weight class gives me hives.

Besides, as I put it during our rankings special:

If Belal Muhammad cannot defeat a man who got knocked out by Nicolas Dalby, I am quitting mixed martial arts and the next time we meet we are going to be ranking competitive snorkeling.

Please don’t fuck it up. BELAL MUHAMMAD BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: DON’T DO THEM ANY FAVORS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Brendan Allen (26-7, #4) vs Edmen Shahbazyan (16-5, NR)

I started this section with “Brendan Allen, fire your fucking manager,” and then I decided to do a little research. The conclusion is still the same, but the reasons are different.

Initially, I just thought this was an irresponsibly stupid fight to take. And it still is! Brendan Allen has been struggling to make it as a top Middleweight for the last six goddamn years, and every time something’s gotten in the way, be it Sean Strickland or Chris Curtis or Brendan’s own inability to not tweet weird things about how child abuse is an ethical good. The last couple years weren’t much kinder: Allen got a rematch with Curtis and only barely managed to beat him, then dropped all the way down the ladder thanks to back-to-back losses against Nassourdine Imavov and Anthony Hernandez, both of whom would end up stuck in contendership amber themselves.

But the rest of 2025 wound up working out extremely well. Allen took on Marvin Vettori, who was on his own rapid descent, and managed to beat him when that still meant something. Much more importantly: Allen took a big risk by agreeing to be a short-notice fill-in for a main event with Reinier de Ridder. If Imavov and Hernandez were two points on the rising-contender triangle, RDR was the third: He hadn’t even been in the UFC for a year but had already worked up a four-fight winning streak that included choking out Kevin Holland, knocking out Bo Nickal and just barely winning a decision against former champ Robert Whittaker. Many people thought Reinier would get elevated straight to a title eliminator with Khamzat Chimaev, but his bout with Hernandez was just as logical a contest, and when Hernandez dropped out and Allen stepped in, most of the world looked at his grappling strengths against Reinier’s, thanked Allen for his service, and prepared to move on to RDR’s title shot in 2026.

And then Allen just beat the shit out of him.

The first round looked just the way people had anticipated, with de Ridder flinging Allen down, controlling him easily, and nearly submitting him several times. Midway through the second Allen took over, and Reinier fell apart on the spot. After three full rounds of Allen doing damn near whatever he wanted, hammering de Ridder with ground and pound, RDR’s corner threw in the towel rather than letting their man come out for the fifth. It was the best win of Allen’s career, it could not have been timed better, and it teed him up for instant relevance at the top of the division.

So he’s fighting Edmen Shahbazyan in a co-main event in the Apex.

Edmen Shahbazyan! Edmen Shahbazyan, the third-most exciting Middleweight striking prospect of 2019. Famed Ronda Rousey training partner Edmen Shahbazyan. Got-completely-destroyed-by-Derek-Brunson Edmen Shahbazyan. Edmen Shahbazyan, who lost four out of five times in a four-year span, took a year off from the sport, and was greeted with a rehabilitative matchup against AJ Dobson, one of the company’s least successful fighters. Edmen Shahbazyan, who promptly got strangled by Gerald Meerschaert in the latter’s only victory in his last six fights. Edmen Shahbazyan, whose best and most recent win is a 1-for-his-last-5 André Muniz whom the UFC cut immediately afterward. Edmen Shahbazyan, a man so tertiary in his importance that an official onscreen graphic once misspelled his nickname as “The Doglden Boy.”

Edmen Shahbazyan, who is going straight from that unranked victory to battling for a spot in the Middleweight top five.

Even by the UFC’s standards this is baffling matchmaking, and they know it, because Edmen was supposed to fight the unranked Iron Turtle himself, Jun Yong Park, this past April. Park got injured, they couldn’t find a replacement, and now, instead of a middle-of-the-pack bout against a man who only barely beat Brad Tavares, Edmen is fighting to be one heartbeat away from the world championship.

I wondered what kind of shit-ass manager Brendan Allen must have, to either encourage or simply allow him to take this kind of fight--no upside, all risk--and, after looking into it, it was, of course, Ali Abdelaziz, a man so notoriously unethical that Conor McGregor during his living cocaine elemental era was still able to score legitimate conversational points against him. I also wanted to know who could be managing Edmen Shahbazyan, that he gets booked so persistently well.

It was, of course, Ali Abdelaziz.

I’ve written a lot of words about the way folks like Dana White, Joe Silva, Hunter Campbell, Ari Emanuel and essentially every c-suite that’s ever existed in the mixed martial arts space have helped harm the sport, and they deserve it, but they couldn’t exert their total control without having an iron grip on its fighters, and they wouldn’t have that grip on the fighters without the complete obeisance of their management. The promoters who sign their promotions up to be feeder leagues; the managers that advocate for the UFC’s best interests instead of the fighters they’re supposed to be cultivating. Ali Abdelaziz alone constitutes half of that problem. He manages hundreds of fighters, he very openly pits them against each other for the UFC’s benefit, he was named as part of the antitrust lawsuits that are still plaguing the company, and when last I saw an update in February he was refusing to cooperate with a court order to turn over records of their negotiations with the UFC. But you can’t blame the corrupting influence of the big show, because when Ali was the matchmaker for the World Series of Fighting he was also managing a bunch of its fighters, which was perfectly fine and in no way a conflict of interest.

And you can’t even blame the corrupting influence of mixed martial arts, because before he even touched the sport, he got out of being convicted of forgery by working as an FBI snitch reporting on The Muslims of America, which the government was just certain were secretly harboring terrorists, for some strange reason.

When this fight was announced, Ali put out a tweet praising Brendan Allen for giving “a young guy” like Edmen an opportunity. Brendan is less than two years older than Edmen, and Edmen was fighting with the UFC a year before Brendan was even signed. There’s no mention of his representing both of them, no mention of the circumstances of the fight. He doesn’t even spell their fucking names correctly. He calls them “Edmund” and “Brandon Alan.”

But where’re you going to go when there’s only one game in town, and only a handful of people who can get you there?

Burn this sport to the ground and start over with something made by human beings again. BRENDAN ALLEN BY SUBMISSION.

MAIN CARD: A SERIES OF WHYS
LIGHTWEIGHT: Farès Ziam (18-4, #14) vs Tom Nolan (10-1, NR)

I don’t hate this matchup quite as much as Allen/Shahbazyan, but it’s not as far away as I’d like it to be. It took six and a half years for Farès Ziam to get here, and that’s after he spent the last four of them quietly assembling one of the best winning streaks in the Lightweight division. Michal Figlak was an undefeated Cage Warriors contender: Ziam beat him. Jai Herbert was a knockout threat who’d just come inches from beating the hideously underrated Ľudovít Klein: Ziam beat him. Claudio Puelles was a grappling threat that’d almost torn Dan Hooker’s knee apart, Matt Frevola flattened Drew Dober, Mike Davis hadn’t lost a fight in five years. Ziam beat every one of them. When last we saw Farès back in December he was in the cage with Nazim Sadykhov, the Ray Longo prodigy who hadn’t lost a fight since his debut in 2018. Ziam didn’t just beat him, he knocked him out. And half of those fights--including that last, biggest victory--happened buried in the prelims.

Tom Nolan’s been in the UFC for just a touch over two years. This is his UFC career, unabridged:

• Got knocked out in his debut by Nikolas Motta, who is 3-3 (1), hadn’t won a fight in years at the time, and, fun fact, got flattened by Nazim Sadykhov in his last matchup

• Was rehabilitated by a bout with recent knockout victim Victor Martinez, who is now 0-3 in the company; Nolan is the only man in the UFC who didn’t finish him

• Beat Alex Reyes, who is now 0-3 in the company and took seven years to accrue said three bouts; Nolan is the only man in the UFC who didn’t finish him

• Got a decision over Viacheslav “Slava Claus” Borshchev, who, as much as I love him, is 3-6-1 in the company and has one split decision victory since mid-2023 (although he did go to a draw with the aforementioned Sadykhov, which is very funny)

• Choked out Charlie Campbell, by far his best win in the company; Campbell is 2-1 and his best win was, and this may shock you, Alex Reyes

Ziam had to claw his way through a half-dozen genuine prospects over almost half a decade to make it to the rankings. Nolan got a series of layups, some of whom were defined solely by losses to men he’d already beaten, and two years later he’s got a shot at the top fifteen. If you hadn’t already guessed: Farès Ziam was signed back in 2019 as a short-notice injury replacement and Tom Nolan was a 2023 Contender Series winner.

The opportunities are not even, and most of the time they’re not even opportunities. FARÈS ZIAM BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Bryce Mitchell (18-3) vs Santiago Luna (8-0)

In some way, to some extent, I have to be grateful for Bryce Mitchell’s existence. We talk a lot about the barrel-bottom of ethics the sport is currently swimming in, and with the fucking White House one week away lord knows we’ll be discussing it even more this month, but in a sport where the Middleweight champion tells female competitors with whom he’s sharing a press desk that they belong in the kitchen and the head of the company was caught on camera slapping his wife, there is, still, a desire to maintain some semblance of the idea that there are limits somewhere. To kill that notion, we have Bryce Mitchell, who used a podcast to talk about how Adolf Hitler was a great man who loved his country and just wanted to stop the Jews from turning everyone gay, and in the year since he has been booked more consistently than just about any other point in his career. He is the living reminder that there has never been a worse time to be a mixed martial arts fan.

There’s a good side to that, though: I never, ever have to wonder who I’m picking in a Bryce Mitchell fight. He was supposed to fight Victory Henry here, the man known mainly for getting choked out by Charles Jourdain and punted in the crotch by Javid Basharat, and Bryce would almost certainly have beaten him, and by god, I would’ve picked Henry anyway. But Henry’s hurt, so with just a touch over a week’s notice, he’s been replaced by Santiago “Borderboy” Luna, a man whose entire UFC career thus far came from two fights: A wild back-and-forth one-round affair where he knocked out Quang Le, who was 1-2, and a measured 30-27 victory against Angel Pacheco, who was 0-1. Did he look amazing in either performance? Not really. Have we seen him deal with any kind of significant grappling threat? Nope. Does he have a wealth of pervious experience to draw on? Not even a little! He’s 21 and only barely three years into his career and he was fighting 4-6 guys before he joined the UFC. We just watched him struggle with the wrestling game of a man who got soundly outgrappled by Caolán Loughran. There’s absolutely no reason to think he’s prepared for a Bryce Mitchell level of competition.

But the alternative is picking Bryce Mitchell, which means life is simple, clean, and serene. SANTIAGO LUNA BY TKO.

CATCHWEIGHT, 130 POUNDS: Matt Schnell (17-10 (1)) vs Alessandro Costa (15-5)

Flyweight is still coming to save us, even if it’s not technically Flyweight anymore. Matt Schnell is clinging to life in the UFC by the worn-down tips of his fingernails. At one point he was a genuine contender at both Bantamweight and Flyweight, and he’s picked up a collection of good wins--maybe none more than Naoki Inoue, former Rizin champion--but that was quite awhile ago, and over the last five years he’s 2 for 9. Those wins have been just well-timed enough to keep him afloat, with the one over Jimmy Flick in April last year pulling him out of a three-fight losing streak, but immediately after that win he got himself choked out by Joseph Morales, so he’s right back in the danger zone.

They know it, too, because the original plan was to get Schnell put out to pasture by Imanol Rodriguez, the 26 year-old Morales choked out to win The Ultimate Fighter 33 (jesus christ) who is still technically undefeated because TUF fights aren’t real, but Imanol couldn’t make it, so with about 10 days of prep time it’s Alessandro Costa’s turn to get a win, which is why we’re fighting at pretendweight. His UFC career came from late replacement fights, his career losses keep coming from late replacement fights, he did, in fact, lose to Steve Erceg while replacing Schnell himself once, and now he craves the kind of revenge that comes only from finding the person in your office who keeps rescheduling meetings and getting paid an insufficient amount of money to punch them on camera.

Just send a fucking e-mail next time, Matt. ALESSANDRO COSTA BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Iwo Baraniewski (8-0) vs Junior Tafa (7-5)

You know, at this point, 130 pounds is closer to being a real division than Light Heavyweight is. Look at this. Look at what has become of Forrest Griffin’s division. Iwo Baraniewski is on a two-fight winning streak, which makes him one of the seven out of forty-three signed 205-pounders with multiple consecutive wins. Said victories? Ibo Aslan, who has dropped three in a row, and Austen Lane, who just retired from the sport after a 1-5-1 (1) UFC run. Junior Tafa is 3-5 in the company, it has been almost three years since he beat anyone with a single win in the UFC, he once assaulted Valter Walker in mid-cage because he was upset he got submitted, and even he is only here because Billy Elekana, the owner of a three fight streak in the division, couldn’t make it.

Who, you might ask, did Billy beat to earn that high acclaim? Junior Tafa. Who did Billy beat to earn his shot at Junior? Kevin Christian. You know who Junior Tafa beat to be here? Kevin Christian! More than half of the men to hold the Light Heavyweight title over the last decade vacated the belt, a statistic that might get even sillier if Carlos Ulberg’s injury is sufficiently severe, three people in the top fifteen are departing for the Heavyweight division and three more are sidelined with serious leg injuries, there are two ranked fights currently scheduled in the entire top fifteen and one of them is Nikita Krylov against the division-debuting Robert Whittaker, who used to fight at fucking Welterweight. But who can blame him, because he already holds a recent victory over the newly-minted #7 205-pounder in the world, Paulo Costa, who went from only barely surviving at the periphery of Middleweight to one fight away from the 205-pound belt.

It’s not enough to say that the division is cursed. The division is dead. There are zero up and coming prospects, there are no points of interest, the only person left in the top fifteen anyone in the audience cares about is Jiří Procházka and he’s already had three title shots in two and a half years and he got dumpstered in every single one of them. The UFC can’t even pretend to care about these non-prospects because they just have them fighting each other in an endless circle. IWO BARANIEWSKI BY TKO and then the ground opens up and swallows every fighter above 170 pounds and the WEC takes over the world.

PRELIMS: THE BIG DIP
BANTAMWEIGHT: Marcus McGhee (10-2) vs John Yannis (10-4)

Eleven months ago, the UFC made a really obvious, really gross attempt to jump a cheap, favored fighter into title contention by having Marcus McGhee, who was ranked #13 and only barely, at that, suddenly take on Petr Yan, former world champion, current world champion, man who has only ever lost against world champions, and, at the time, the #3 contender. It was blatant, it was nihilistic, and all it did was kill McGhee’s momentum so badly that he went from a man being talked about as a genuine prospect to so completely and wholly forgotten that he fell from sharing a co-main event with the best Bantamweight alive to the Apex prelims against John fucking Yannis. It was supposed to be Jakub Wiklacz, which would be better, but on the other hand, Wiklacz is an unranked dude with two UFC fights. Hell, the fact that McGhee is unranked is, itself, hilarious. It’s not like he fell off the ladder because an up-and-comer beat him! They threw him in there with Petr fucking Yan, he completely unsurprisingly lost, and the entirety of the matchmaking department went ‘ah, yeah, you got us, we had to try’ and over the next few months he just slowly slid down the ladder and out of sight and now he’s fighting the guy who got choked out by Austin Bashi. And don’t you dare fucking tell me you remember who Austin Bashi is. I barely remember who Austin Bashi is.

This is how it’s going to be for the next few years: People they think stand the slightest chance of surviving getting jumped up the ladder getting completely unearned shots at the big time, and if they make it, awesome, and if not, chuck them all the way to the back of the line again. Prepare for Top Ten Tommy McMillen, because it’s coming. MARCUS MCGHEE BY TKO.

FLYWEIGHT: Bruno Silva (15-8-2 (1), #15) vs Edgar Cháirez (13-6 (1), NR)

Good fighters getting ground to death by an extremely tough division is one of the oldest tales in combat sports. There is nothing wrong with Bruno Silva. He’s fast, he’s aggressive, he’s damned good at catching necks when given half a chance, and he’s also fighting to keep his job, because if he loses this one he’s 1 for his last 5. And that sucks, because those three losses were Manel Kape, the #2 contender, Joshua Van, the current champion, and Charles Johnson, the man that knocked said champion out. And hell, the Johnson fight was close! But when you have as many losses as you do wins, being close isn’t enough. Close gets you Edgar Cháirez. They’ve wanted Edgar in the rankings for awhile. Hell, they want him there so badly that this is the first time in five fights and three years that they haven’t booked him on the Noche UFC/Mexico City circuit, because they cannot miss the opportunity. Fortunately: He deserves it. He’s never boring, he’s always tough, and he’s only two fights removed from taking Van the distance and actually stumbling him on the feet.

Not all rankings churn is bad, just like not all marketing focus is unethical. Good fighters being booked well is a thing to be praised. EDGAR CHÁIREZ BY TKO.

WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Chelsea Chandler (6-4) vs Priscila Cachoeira (13-8)

Every single time we talk about Women’s Bantamweight I sing you the same song about how terribly mistreated it is; how underserved and poorly-matched; how all of its athletes deserve better. And it’s always true! Except here. Except this one, single time. Chelsea Chandler is 1-3 in the last three years, she’s only successfully made the Bantamweight limit once, and her only victory even technically at the division came over Josiane Nunes, the 5’2” Featherweight who collapsed the moment the 145-pound division closed. Priscila Cachoeira is 1-4 in the last three years, she has been outfought and often outright destroyed in each of those losses, and even that comes from a past history as a notoriously unsuccessful Flyweight. And her only win in this terrible time period? Also Josiane Nunes. If it weren’t for Josi somehow still having a contract these would be the two least relevant women in the least-healthy division in the world.

Which means it’s the perfect matchup. CHELSEA CHANDLER BY DECISION if they even make it to the cage.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Jordan Leavitt (13-3) vs Joanderson Brito (18-5-1)

Look, man. You know what we’re doing here. You know about me and Brito. He’s never going to win the big one and I’m going to keep picking him and my inevitable disappointment is a crop I will harvest like wheat left past its time. I will place my faith in him and emotionally overidentify with his successes and failures until they hold an unprecedented, outsized emotional impact on my day, which will in no way be a projection of my overall experience with this era of mixed martial arts. Eventually I will lose track of where the genuine fandom begins and my commitment to the bit ends, and I will become the same kind of irony-poisoned monster I have been trying to avoid aligning with for my entire adult life. My barometer for sense will fade, my ability to parse my feelings for earnestness will dissolve, and they will find me dead in my office, a victim of perpetual stillness, crumbling into rot.

And that’s still not enough to make me pick Jordan Leavitt. JOANDERSON BRITO BY SUBMISSION.

WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT: Jeisla Chaves (7-0) vs Yuneisy Duben (6-1 (1))

When Yuneisy Duben made her UFC debut in March 2025 I had a brief conniption about the way things had fallen so far that Duben made it to the Contender Series as a 5-0 (1) fighter whose opponents, before fighting her, had a combined record of 0, as every single one of them was making their professional debut. I wondered aloud how it could, and inevitably would, get worse. Like clockwork, I give you Jeisla Chaves of Bahia, Brazil, who walked into the Contender Series with a body of work consisting of seven opponents with a combined record of 0-8. That’s right, baby: Not a single fucking win among them. As a matter of fact, Jeisla’s last pre-DWCS matchup came from Bahia’s Demo Fight organization on a card wherein, out of fifteen matches, seven were people with winning records against people with no wins and the main event was an extremely competitively booked contest between the 28 year-old, 9-0 Joseilton Santos and the 45 year-old, 19-17 Nilton dos Santos. This is where your talent is coming from. This is the trajectory of the sport. We can’t get you Dakota Ditcheva or Liz Carmouche or Taila Santos, but we’ve got Jeisla Chaves and Yuneisy Duben, and what more could a division possibly need.

Yuneisy got knocked out in her debut. Chaves only barely beat Sofia Montegro, and I’m not going to insult you by telling you about her competition, too. I didn’t have faith in Yuneisy, and having watched Chaves I don’t have a ton in her either, but she seems to at least know where her hands should go when she strikes. JEISLA CHAVES BY TKO.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Ketlen Souza (16-6) vs Ariane Carnelossi (15-4)

Choose your fighter carefully. On one side: Ketlen Souza, former Flyweight queen of Invicta, who is coming off a victory against journeywoman Bruna Brasil, has one definitive UFC loss in the form of a kneebar at the hands of Karine Silva and who has since become maybe the only person to ever lose a dodgy split decision against Angela Hill and nearly beat Piera Rodriguez. On the other: Ariane Carnelossi, who has never directly defeated anyone with a victory in the UFC and whose one and only victory in the last four and a half years was a disqualification after the aforementioned Piera repeatedly, inexplicably headbutted her. Not really a hard decision, is it?

Well, more the fool you, because this is a rematch, motherfucker. Ariane and Ketlen fought back in Brazil in 2019, and Ariane knocked her out in the third with a deceptively gentle-looking push-kick to the body. So ask yourself this: Is seven years, Ketlen’s reinvention as a better, more well-rounded fighter, and Ariane’s years of terrible performances enough of a reason to make you pick the obviously correct choice, or are you a bad enough dude to side with the cyclical reoccurrence of comedy?

Be brave, not wise. ARIANE CARNELOSSI BY TKO.

Welcome to June. It’s not gonna be great. There are zero PFL title fights, there’s barely anything from ONE, Rizin’s real weird this month, and out of four UFC events one is in Baku, two are in the Apex, and the fourth is at the fucking White House. It is time to end this suffering, and I do, in fact, need a minute to myself.

THIS MONTH’S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

• UFC Fight Night: Muhammad vs Bonfim, June 6

• UFC Freedom 250, June 14

• UFC Fight Night: Kape vs Horiguchi, June 20

• UFC Fight Night: Fiziev vs Torres, June 27

• PFL Africa 2: Adeshina vs Campos, June 13

• PFL San Diego: McKee vs Isbulaev, June 27

• ONE Fight Night 44: Jarvis vs Rungrawee II, June 26

• Rizin Landmark 44: Ougikubo vs Shinryu, June 6

IS THERE ANY NEWS

After years of rumors, spitballs and false starts, Netflix hosted its first MMA event last month thanks to Jake Paul, who is, impossibly, one of the least odious promoters in combat sports. Was MVP MMA 1 a smooth experience? Not really: Like most organizations in their early days, its pacing was glacial. Were the fights great? Also no: For every Adrian Moraes vs Phumi Nkuta there were five horrible mismatches, including a main event that ended in seventeen seconds.

Was it a success?

According to a release from MVP, viewership peaked at 17 million for the featherweight headliner between Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano while drawing an average of 12.4 million viewers globally. In the United States, the fight card averaged 9.3 million viewers with a peak of 11.6 million for the evening’s headliner, making it “the most watched MMA event ever in the U.S,” per a release.

Should you be skeptical of those numbers? Of course! It’s a corporate press release about how great they are. Are they legitimate? Probably. It’s Netflix, they have like three hundred million subscribers, seventeen of them deciding to watch Ronda Rousey makes sense to me. It proves, if nothing else, that the audience is there. They just have to decide how much they want to invest in it. I cannot imagine MVP is ever going to want to be a fully-featured fight promotion with a full bench of fighters, but the UFC has left enough talent out there that they can run a solid handful of shows without having to put too much effort into it.

At least, as long as they don’t have competition.

On one hand, Scott Coker is the second-most heralded mixed martial arts promoter in American history. He made Strikeforce and took it from a little-known local kickboxing promotion to an international MMA organization that competed with the UFC. He spent a decade in charge of Bellator and helped it transition into a Spike-broadcast company with a year-long format. By any measure, he’s a success.

By similar measures, he is a failure. Strikeforce’s pocketbooks ran wild and it got bought out by the UFC. Bellator limped its way to a death that seemed simultaneously untimely and belated, acquired and buried by the PFL. Coker is widely agreed to be one of the fairest, kindest fight promoters, and he still complained about wrestling, and he still overbooked tournaments, and he kept fucking signing Fedor.

But the industry has never needed him more, and at the end of May, Coker announced that he’d attracted $60 million in funding--a chunk of it, for some reason, coming from Tony Hawk--for the purposes of launching a new global MMA league in 2027. Details are scarce and the majority of them are currently gleaned from a Zoom interview he gave from the front seat of his car, which is sort of tonally perfect for this moment in history, but if he wants to throw his hat back in the ring, that’d be dandy. I have never wanted him back more.

Just don’t fucking sign Fedor again.

In darker news, just a couple weeks after participating in and winning the main event of PFL Sioux Falls on May 2, Logan Storley, NCAA wrestler, Bellator titlist and PFL tournament finalist, was arrested on the 18th after allegedly being witnessed committing sexual battery on a woman in a street. When reached for comment, the PFL somewhat perplexingly said that despite being in said main event, he had been fired from the organization days earlier, which they offered no additional comment on or details about.

This shouldn’t be industry news. It is, obviously, news of a terrible crime, and the industry is not at all the point. That said: I cannot help reflecting on how far things have fallen that a top-ranked main-event fighter for the #2 promotion in America getting caught red-handed trying to sexually assault a woman, and being immediately disclaimed by the company that employed him, barely even lasted a day as a Reddit thread, let alone a news story. He bonded out, and I wouldn’t be shocked if we never get an update again, barring some random MMA journo like Luke Thomas or Suzie or, christ alive, me, chasing down the records.

WHAT HAPPENED IN MAY

We kicked off May on the 2nd with UFC Fight Night: Della Maddalena vs Prates, an attempt to appeal to the Australian crowd that went tragically wrong at the end. Your undercard bouts included Kody Steele making me a permanent booster of his by heel-hooking Dom Mar Fan, Jonathan Micallef beating and retiring Themba Gorimbo, Wesley Schultz choking out Ben Johnston, Colby Thicknesse narrowly outpointing Vince Morales, Jacob Malkoun winning the slow wrestle-off with Gerald Meerschaert, Junior Tafa knocking out Kevin Christian, and Cameron Rowston taking a one-sided call over Robert Bryczek. On your main card, Louie Sutherland won a pretty sad decision over Tai Tuivasa, Brando Peričić punched out Shamil Gaziev in two rounds, Marwan Rahiki crushed Ollie Schmid in one, Steve Erceg won a competitive but clear decision over Tim Elliott, and Quillan Salkilld did his job by destroying poor Beneil Dariush in three and a half minutes. But all of Australia’s hopes laid in former champion Jack Della Maddalena’s main event bid to maintain contendership against Carlos Prates, and unfortunately for Perth, Prates just beat the absolute brakes off him, ultimately handing Jack his first TKO loss since his debut fight a decade prior.

But the day also had PFL Sioux Falls: Storley vs Zendeli, which is extremely unpleasant given that a couple weeks later Storley would be arrested for rape. So we’re not gonna talk about the main event. But Taila Santos kicked Yan Qihui’s innards out in two minutes and Magomed Magomedov won a split over Leandro Higo and Sergey Bilostenniy continued the fall of Renan Ferreira by knocking him out in the third and Simeon Powell kneed Emiliano Sordi flat and Gadzhi Rabadanov managed to beat Aleksandr Chizov, and nothing else after that is important.

UFC 328: Chimaev vs Strickland came a week later on the 9th, and with it, we are back in the worst timeline. Your early prelims saw Baisangur Susurkaev choked out Djorden Santos while Jose Ochoa, Pat Sabatini and Roman Kopylov all picked up decisions--Sabatini’s was against William Gomis, which is fairly impressive--and your regular-flavor prelims were an all-finishes special, with Jim Miller guillotining Jared Gordon, Grant Dawson RNCing Mateusz Rębecki, Ateba Gautier punching out Ozzy Diaz, and Yaroslav Amosov absolutely styling on Joel Álvarez en route to suplexing and arm triangling him. On the main card of what would once have been pay-per-view, King Green destroyed an inexplicably present Jeremy Stephens, Sean Brady dominated Joaquin Buckley to the tune of multiple 30-25s and Alexander Volkov took an unsurprising decision over Waldo Cortes-Acosta. The co-main event was fight-of-the-year material, as Tatsuro Taira showed absurd levels of grit in a back-and-forth war with Joshua Van, but he ultimately lost it after getting TKOed in the fifth round. In the main event, Khamzat Chimaev and Sean Strickland turned in the dictionary definition of a coinflip fight, in part because neither managed to really accomplish that much, with Strickland avoiding most of the wrestling after the first round and Chimaev never really being in trouble from Strickland’s jabs, but with media scorecards split straight down the middle, Strickland won the great judging coinflip and is, once again, the UFC Middleweight Champion, god help us all.

Rizin 53 was later that night, and after the all-out blitz that was Landmark 13 last month this was a bit lower-key--and dotted with things like, say, the 12-13-3 Daiki Tsubota choking out the 2-0 Genji Umeno, or the 9-8 Keito Oyama beating 7-10 Katie Perez, or Shinobu Ota getting rehabilitated from his losing streak by beating the now 16-16-23 Yuto Hokamura, but, y’know, it’s Japan. But Sho Patrick Usami knocked out Tatsuya Saika, and Ren Hiramoto went to a draw with Koji Tanaka, and in the main event, Ilkhom Nazimov, the brand new champion who dethroned Satoshi Souza, lost his belt in his first defense after Luiz Gustavo knocked him out in two minutes.

ONE had a pair of events split across the 15th, as they continue to spiral into ever-weirder organizational decisionmaking. There were some kickboxing things of note, including Superlek getting beaten by Abdulla Dayakaev, and it should matter that Kade Ruotolo beat Hiroyuki Tetsuka, but the thing that mattered was the Heavyweight championship rematch between Reug Reug and Anatoly Malykhin. The fight was just as bad as the first time around, but this time, Malykhin found the exhausted energy necessary to knock Reug Reug out in the fourth round and reclaim his triple-champion status, at which point he immediately retired, which means 1/3 of ONE’s mixed martial arts championships are now vacant.

But the 16th was the big day for the month. ONE came back with ONE Fight Night 43, which was, as always, 1/3 MMA to 2/3 kickboxing, and for once, the kickboxing wasn’t too notable and the MMA took center stage. Lito Adiwang annihilated Eko Roni Saputra in just about thirty seconds with a flurry of punches, Fabio Henrique extendd former Shooto champion Yosuke Saruta’s losing streak to a painful five fights in as many years after Saruta busted his elbow, and in the main event, Tang Kai recorded his first victory in more than two years and successfully defended his Lightweight title after stopping Shamil Gasanov on leg kicks in four rounds.

The UFC’s offering was UFC Fight Night: Allen vs Costa, and it was, despite its Apex-flavored nature, actually ass pretty good time. Nicolle Caliari choked out Shauna Bannon, who is still here, Luis Gurule finally notched his first UFC win over Daniel Barez, Alice Ardelean managed to submit Polyana Viana with the incredibly rare capsule lock, Cody Brundage overcame the odds again and knocked out Andre Petroski, Ketlen Vieira beat Jacqueline Cavalcanti and then got released anyway because the UFC sucks shit, Tommy Gantt made his debut by pounding out Artur Minev, and Ivan Erslan took a decision over Tuco Tokkos only for Ivan, too, to be released following the weekend. On the main card, Khaos Williams dropped Nikolay Veretennikov in a round, Bernardo Sopaj absolutely ran through Timmy Cuamba on the ground en route to a rear naked choke, Modestas Bukauskas got a split decision over late replacement Christian Edwards, Juan Díaz pitched an upset by choking out the now-floundering Malcolm Wellmaker, and Dooho Choi overcame a tough first round and took out Daniel Santos in the second with some beautifully painful body punching. The main event was one of the most pleasantly competitive 50-45s I’ve seen, as Melquizael Costa put up a good fight against Arnold Allen, but was just a touch too outclassed.

For once, however, the UFC was not the big show of the weekend. That honor went to MVP MMA 1: Rousey vs Carano, the debut of mixed martial arts on Netflix, and it was a supremely goofy card with a lot of silly shit on it, and boy, did that not matter at all. For every Brandon Jenkins beating Chris Avila or David Mgoyan vs Albert Morales, there was Jason Jackson destroying Jeff Creighton in twenty-two seconds. You had Namo Fazil choking out Jake Babian and Aline Pereira taking a split over Jade Masson-Wong, but you also got one of the most controversial fight endings of the year, as Adriano Moraes notched a submission win over Phumi Nkuta that had to be called retroactively, as Nkuta didn’t go out until after the bell had ended the final round. The main card was mostly silly, though. Robelis Despaigne knocked out Junior dos Santos, which was tragically predictable. Salahdine Parnasse punched out Kenny Cross’s liver, which was also predictable but a lot less tragic and a lot more cool. Francis Ngannou returned to MMA and left poor Philipe Lins motionless on the mat in one round. Mike Perry battered Nate Diaz to a corner’s stoppage because all of his blood was coming out and he kept falling down repeatedly. And, in your main event, Ronda Rousey ended ten years of retirement and Gina Carano ended seventeen years of middling acting to have what was promised to be an epic fight that ended exactly the way anyone who’s actually paying attention could have told you it would: Ronda immediately, effortlessly taking Gina down and armbarring her in seventeen seconds. It is officially the most-watched MMA broadcast in American history. Congratulations.

The UFC’s week off left a hole for the PFL, and they tried to fill it with the greatest of MMA matchmaking choices: Today’s hot prospects destroying people who should really be retired. PFL Brussels: Habibora vs Henderson on May 23 was another of those events that are ultimately hasrd to recommend to people who aren’t real diehards of the sport--do you know who Movsar Ibragimov is, because if you say you do, I don’t believe you, but he choked out Shane Campbell, so hey. The thing that caught on most from the cart wasn’t even a cool finish, but rather the ending of kickboxer Donegi Abena’s MMA debut vs circa-2015 Bellator Kickboxing standout Joe Schilling, wherein Abena got Schilling on the floor and headbutted him--incredibly blatantly!--and when the referee attempted to restart them without making Abena sacrifice his position, Schilling cussed him out and simply left the cage. On one hand: Real bullshit judgment and Schilling got screwed. On the other: Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. The main card also saw former Rizin champ Naoki Inoue win a close split decision after a war with Marcirley Alves, Taylor Lapilus taking a lopsided decision over Jake Hadley, and in the main event, Patrick Habibora, who is 25, undefeated, has a near-total finish rate and is widely considered one of the best prospects in the world, fought former WEC and UFC champion Benson Henderson, who is 42, had been retired from the sport for three years, and arguably hadn’t won a ranked fight in a decade. Habibora knocked him out in twenty seconds.

PFL came back one day later for PFL MENA 9: Pride of Arabia, and, as is often the case, I’ll be honest, I’m not gonna make you read this. You don’t know who Hamza Kooheji is. I don’t know who Hamza Kooheji is. When I looked up Hamza Kooheji and saw that he was 15-4 I stopped to think about my assumptions and if I should be more critical of my lack of knowledge when it comes to MMA in the EMEA, and then I went through his record and realized almost all of his victories are people at, near or below 50/50 records, which they earned against people who, themselves, barely beat anyone, and it’s all just one giant fucking circle. The best way to put it: Do you remember Mohammad “The UAE Warrior” Yahya? The guy who got booked on UFC cards every time they went to Abu Dhabi, even though he got his ass kicked in progressively more and more embarrassing performances? He was in the main event. his opponent had only two fights against people with winning records, and Yahya lost a split decision that had 30-27 scorecards in either direction. MENA: Not even once.

And the 30th ended the month on UFC Fight Night: Song vs Figueiredo. It was the UFC’s return to China after last August’s run to Shanghai failed to deliver the Chinese superstardom they’d hoped for, and I’m deeply appreciative, because it went even fucking worse. They threw every Chinese fighter they could at the card and almost all of them failed. Zhu Kangjie got knocked out in two minutes by Rodrigo Vera, Aoriqileng got his liver kneed out by Cody Haddon, Ding Meng dropped a split decision to José Henrique, Yisak Lee got knocked out by Luis Felipe Dias, Jingnan Xiong made her UFC debut but got completely outclassed by Angela Hill, Sumudaerji was actually about to beat Alex Perez but he kicked him in the dick and drew a No Contest instead, and the co-main event was an attempt to rehabilitate their Light Heavyweight star from China, Zhang Mingyang, after Johnny Walker beat him in two rounds last year, and they fed him an even less successful fighter in Alonzo Menifield, and all it accomplished was Menifield chucking Zhang in a dumpster in 4:15. In other comedy on the card, Jaqueline Amorim nearly snapped Loma Lookboonmee’s arm, Rei Tsuruya made short work of a Luis Gurule who’d just been in a three-round fight two weeks prior, Jake Matthews took a really obvious decision over Carlston Harris, Kai Asakura knocked out Cameron Smotherman, and the UFC’s latest attempt to elevate Tallison Teixeira into a top ranking ended with Sergei Pavlovich walking through him in thirty-nine seconds. But the main event, at least, went right to plan: A progressively older-looking Deiveson Figueiredo got in the cage with Song Yadong and got himself beat up and choked out in two rounds.

WHAT’S COMING IN JUNE

We start where all terrible things live: The Apex. UFC Fight Night: Muhammad vs Bonfim is on June 6, and it features a bunch of fights that should be somewhere else. Jordan Leavitt vs Joanderson Brito should be in front of a crowd. Priscila Cachoeira vs Chelsea Chandler should be in Invicta. Bruno Silva vs Édgar Cháirez should be in Mexico. Bryce Mitchell vs Santiago Luna should be in a garbage can. Brendan Allen vs Edmen Shahbazyan should be on a drawing board, being reconfigured into two much more sensible fights. And your main event, Belal Muhammad vs Gabriel Bonfim, should be in a court record as Exhibit B in the UFC’s active sabotage of Belal’s career.

That night also brings us Rizin Landmark 14, which continues Rizin’s recent trend of having slightly lower-key cards with a couple big matches up top. This time around, your anchoring fights include Black Panther Beynoah vs GRACHAN champion Bilal Kai Haga, Yusuke Yachi vs Isao Kobayashi, a very funny Heavyweight matchup between 15-14 former DEEP champion Ryo Sakai and 3-4 former sumo Takakenshin, and a co-main event slot featuring former contender Yuki Motoya taking on Rizin’s favorite Canadian, Tony Laramie. In the main event, Flyweight champion Hiromasa Ougikubo defends his belt against Shinryu Takahashi, whom he already beat in July of 2024.

June 13 brings us PFL Africa 2, the quarterfinals of this year’s African tournament, and I’d like to tell you that I am selling it to you because of the immense drawing power of Wasi Adeshina and Ignacio Campos, but in truth? I talk a lot about how dire things are for women’s MMA right now, and this is a deeply unfortunate example. Elisandra Ferreira is Invicta FC’s Atomweight champion. Fantastic fighter, great all around. But Atomweight doesn’t exist anywhere else but Rizin, and their opportunities are few and farbetween, and having an Invicta belt isn’t even enough for a ticket to the UFC anymore, and Invicta, itself, appears to be in a coma. So Elisandra is stepping up to Strawweight so she can fight Juliet Ukah, a former Featherweight who is half a foot taller than her, and it’s on the prelims of this PFL Africa card. Not even headlining the prelims. It’s bad out there, man.

UFC Freedom 250 is on the 14th.

Six days later, the UFC is back in the Apex for UFC Fight Night: Kape vs Horiguchi. There’s a really irritating number of solid matches on this card that are stuck in the fucking fight warehouse. Karol Rosa vs Luana Santos, Farid Basharat vs Ethyn Ewing, Allan Nascimento vs Mitch Raposo, Bia Mesquita vs Melissa Mullins, André Lima vs Kevin Borjas, Hyder Amil vs Christian Rodriguez, Vinicius Oliveira making his 145-pound debut against Giga Chikadze--all of that is really, really good. And the main event, a Rizin rematch betweeen Manel Kape and Kyoji Horiguchi, is stellar. So it fucking sucks that it’s all in the godforsaken Apex.

That day also brings us ONE Fight Night 44: Jarvis vs Rungrawee II, and like all ONE events, the card is not yet fully announced despite being less than a month away--which is less of a big deal than, say, ONE Friday Fights 158 on the twelfth, which as of this writing is less than two weeks away and has no fights announced--but it has three MMA matches, including a Heavyweight bout between Paul Elliott, best known for being 1-2 (1) in the company, and Regan Upshaw, who has never had a professional fight, a 125-pound bout between Karen Ghazaryan and Hisashi Ezaki, and former champion Ok Rae Yoon taking on Lucas Gabriel. Your main event is a Muayu Thai rematch between George Jarvis and Rungrawee Sitsongpeenong, for people who are into that.

And this weird, terrible fucking month ends with the UFC in Baku for UFC Fight Night: Fiziev vs Torres on June 27, which is a suitably weird fucking card. Ikram Aliskerov, on a two-fight winning streak, faces Brunno Ferreira, who just got knocked unconscious three months ago. Asu Almabayev, who is on a two-fight winning streak including choking out Alex Perez, is facing Charles Johnson, who is just a handful of months separated from getting knocked out by Alex Perez. Shara Magomedov and Michel Pereira are fighting in the UFC’s non-canonical Middle Eastern-only series. Rizvan Kuniev, who just became the UFC’s #8 Heavyweight after earning his first UFC win, is battling Tyrell Fortune, who just became the UFC’s #10 Heavyweight after his first UFC fight. And in the main event, Rafael Fiziev, who is 1 for his last 5 and just got knocked out in February, is facing Manuel Torres, the guy who knocks everybody out.

CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Tom Aspinall - 15-3 (1), Either 1, 2 or 0 Defenses Depending On How You Look At It

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 he made his first undisputed one against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on October 26--and, because this division is fucking cursed, it ended in a No Contest after Gane poked him in both of his eyes at once. The UFC has decided this is mostly Tom’s fault, which has nothing at all to do with Tom’s dad talking about how he shouldn’t sign a new contract. A rematch has been vowed, but Tom had to get eye surgery to regain his sight and the UFC doesn’t want to wait when there’s marketing to be done, so Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira will fight for an interim title at the godforsaken White House.

Light Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Carlos Ulberg - 14-1, 0 Defenses

It’s so hard not to skip to the punchline on this one. Carlos Ulberg’s combat sports career is more mixed than MMA alone would lead one to believe. He started as a mixed martial artist all the way back in 2011, but after winning his debut fight, he decided to give fighting a break for almost half a decade. Then it was boxing, and then it was MMA again, and then it was kickboxing, and for a brief period of time it was both at once. The rise of Israel Adesanya led the UFC on an all-out talent search for big, credible strikers from Oceania, and that is how despite being just 3-0 as a mixed martial artist, Carlos wound up on the Contender Series in 2020, and just a few months later, in March of 2021, he was debuting in the UFC. They hyped him, they gave him a spot on the pay-per-view prelims, they booked him against the 1-1 Kennedy Nzechukwu and despite having half his experience Ulberg was the heavy betting favorite, because everyone knew they wanted him on top. Which was unfortunate, because Kennedy knocked him out in two rounds. Carlos described the loss as the most important moment of his career--half for the lesson of the loss itself, half for the $50,000 bonus that gave him his first taste of actual profit as a professional. He vowed to take his career more seriously, he vowed to prepare for his fights as though every one mattered rather than simply being happy to be in the UFC, and four years later, he was the top contender for the Light Heavyweight crown. A testament to determination and a good mindset? Absolutely! But also a bit of a testament to the careful cultivation and protection of a prospect. Carlos did his job and beat everyone the UFC put in front of him, but the people put in front of him tended to be carefully picked. At one point he beat a genuine prospect in Nicolae Negumereanu, and the UFC followed it up by giving him Ihor Potieria, the man Nicolae had just knocked out in his previous fight. Stiff prospects like Aleksandar Rakić and Azamat Murzakanov flew past in the background, but Da Woon Jung and Alonzo Menifield had to be destroyed. The UFC spent a year and a half trying on three separate occasions to book Ulberg against Dominick Reyes, and by the time they finally got there, it was, somehow, impossibly, a title eliminator. But Ulberg won, just as he’d won every fight since his meeting with Kennedy Nzechukwu, and he proceeded to his title fight with Jiří Procházka for the championship Alex Pereira had left behind to try his hand at the Heavyweight division. It was fun, it was fast, it was dramatic and it was definitive. In just a hair under four minutes, Jiří was flat on the canvas and Carlos Ulberg, five years after his debut, was the Light Heavyweight champion of the world. He also very visibly tore his ACL in half right in the middle of the fight and could barely move. If Jiří had simply backed away, hacked a few leg kicks and kept his distance, the fight would’ve been stopped between rounds, but he chose to engage and got flattened by a left hook counter for his troubles, and the result was a brand new titleholder who proceeded directly to the emergency room after the fight and had knee surgery less than a week later. For the third time in six title reigns, the new champion has an injury so bad it will prevent them from defending their title for at least the rest of the year. Will we get an interim title? Will yet another champion have to give up the gold? Will Paulo fucking Costa wind up technically a 205-pound champion? Stay tuned.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Sean Strickland - 31-7, 0 Defenses

After all of that time, we are back where we were. When Sean Strickland got his first shot at the UFC Middleweight Championship back in 2023, it was under particularly thin circumstances. Strickland had just come off back-to-back losses against Alex Pereira and Jared Cannonier, his title prospects seemed slim, and a short-notice victory over the then-unheralded Nassourdine Imavov and one-fight UFC veteran Abus Magomedov seemed unlikely to get Strickland anywhere. But then Dricus du Plessis wanted another month to prepare for Israel Adesanya, and the UFC wanted to keep their pay-per-view main event, and suddenly, Sean Strickland was beating one of the sport’s biggest stars and becoming its top Middleweight. It was a stellar performance, it was a career-defining victory, and it was one of the shortest title reigns in UFC history, as just four months later Strickland lost the belt to du Plessis in his first defense. But it was a split decision, so his argument for a rematch was sound, and after a pretty dubious win over Paulo Costa, Strickland got du Plessis back in the cage, where he vowed vengeance, justice, and a return to greatness. Dricus beat him 50-45. It would be a full year before Strickland returned, and in that time, the Middleweight division had changed shape. Nassourdine Imavov was in pole position. Israel Adesanya was a shadow of his former self. Anthony Hernandez was the fastest-rising contender in the class. And Strickland’s nemesis Dricus du Plessis had lost his title to Khamzat Chimaev. On February 21, 2026, on the back of a bunch of bigot bullshit that was growing ever-more tired by the day, Sean returned to the cage and walked right through Hernandez, not just beating him but knocking him out in the third round, and just like that, Imavov’s work didn’t matter, Dricus beating Sean twice didn’t matter. The UFC has its favorites, and Sean got the shot. Khamzat, as he did, hadn’t fought in nine months, and had been busying himself making threats about moving to Light Heavyweight and chasing a superfight with Alex Pereira, who had, himself, already moved up to Heavyweight altogether. Chimaev swore he would outwrestle Sean, smash him, and move on with his life. And for one round, he looked completely correct. After the first, suddenly, Strickland evened things up. Khamzat was never able to assert his wrestling game again, so the rest of the title fight became a boxing match, and in that sense, it was surprisingly even, with Khamzat arguably landing the bigger punches but Strickland landing at a higher clip, and the scorecards were split right down the middle. But the coinflip went Sean’s way. For the second time, Sean Strickland is a world champion, and we are all bastards for it. A rematch seems almost inevitable, but Sean has a shoulder injury to rehabilitate, so we’ll see what the future holds.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Islam Makhachev - 28-1, 0 Defenses

The prophecy has been fulfilled. Khabib Nurmagomedov was considered by many to be the greatest Lightweight of all time, but in the later stages of his career he began to repeatedly reference his lifetime friend and training partner Islam Makhachev as not just his successor, but the man who would break the mold he’d left behind. And the fanbase was more than willing to buy another Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov protege coming in and wrecking shop--until he got knocked out by Adriano Martins. Khabib’s aura of invulnerability came from the simple, so-obvious-more-people-should-try-it factor of simply never losing a damn fight. When Islam got torched in under two minutes by a man that couldn’t beat Donald Cerrone, that aura vanished. A lot of folks still thought he could be a champion, but most felt the greatest-of-all-time lane was closed to him. It turns out there’s another way to regain that sense of unbeatable awe, though: Just don’t lose for so goddamn long people forget it ever happened. In the ten full years since that Martins bout, Islam has not lost a single fight. Most of the time, he hasn’t even lost a round. He worked his way up the Lightweight ladder and began to rack up incredible achievements. He tore through top prospects with virtually no effort, he choked out one of the best MMA grapplers ever in Charles Oliveira, he outlasted and later knocked out one of the two men with a claim to the all-time Featherweight crown in Alexander Volkanovski, he choked out Dustin Poirier and he broke the Lightweight title defense record after stomping Renato Moicano. And then he traded in his record-breaking reign to challenge for Welterweight gold. Jumping divisions is always difficult, but the 15-pound leap from Lightweight to Welterweight is a mountain, and no Lightweight champion had ever managed it. Even BJ Penn, the canonical first man to hold gold at both, had to do it in reverse: He failed at both of his attempts to win Lightweight gold and shocked the world by abruptly taking it at Welterweight instead, and it would be five more years before he finally got his shit together and won a title in the division that made him famous. His subsequent attempts all ended in defeat, half because Matt Hughes and Georges St-Pierre were both great and half because BJ was just a Lightweight. Even though Islam was Islam and widely agreed to be a monster in the cage, Jack Della Maddalena had won the Welterweight title with some of the cleanest boxing the UFC had seen, and his championship victory over wrestler Belal Muhammad had people convinced that Islam, at best, would struggle. They met in the main event of UFC 322 on November 15, 2025, and there was absolutely no struggle. Islam kicked Jack’s leg to pieces, landed some surprisingly big punches, and took the fight to the ground almost at will, and by the time the fight ended, it felt like Jack never had a chance. The shadow has been stepped out of. Islam Makhachev is a two-division champion. And now he has a brand new horde of contenders beating down his door.

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. Ilia is, however, dealing with some personal issues related to his divorce, so he’s going to be out of action until the Spring, which means the UFC made an interim title bout between Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett for UFC 324 on January 24. Yes, really. How’d that one wind up going, you ask?

Interim Lightweight Champion

Justin Gaethje - 27-5, 0 Defenses

One of the foundational subjective mixed martial arts questions, right alongside ‘who’s the pound-for-pound best’ and ‘what if Cro-Cop ducked that kick,’ is ‘Who’s the best fighter to never win a championship?’ There are different answers for every generation, and one of the complicating factors is the inevitable debate over whether interim titles count. Was Carlos Condit a UFC champion? What about Colby Covington or Yair Rodríguez? It’s still an incredible achievement, but it’s just not quite real the way an undisputed title is. And I cannot imagine what sort of a backhanded career accomplishment it is to be the only person in UFC history to win their division’s interim title twice. Justin Gaethje has been right on the edge of the top for so long he’s got two half-championships in his closet. Back in 2020 he fought Tony Ferguson, then arguably the scariest Lightweight in the world, and beat him so horrifically that his career never recovered, and that netted Gaethje his first interim belt, which he promptly lost to Khabib Nurmagomedov in the latter’s retirement bout. Two years later, Gaethje got his second shot at the undisputed title against Charles Oliveira and he wound up strangled in three and a half minutes. Three and a half years after that, Gaethje was still right there at the precipice of the top, Ilia Topuria needed a break from the sport, and the UFC needed an aging veteran to propel their marketing star Paddy Pimblett to the top, and at UFC 324 on January 24, 2026, they threw Paddy’s big party and Justin crashed it. The UFC will tell you the fight was close, and it was in the sense that it went the whole way and one judge only gave Justin three rounds, but Paddy got brutally beaten and dropped repeatedly. Once again, Justin Gaethje is the interim champion, and because everything sucks, he’ll try to unify the belt against Topuria at the White House.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 28-4, 1 Defense

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’ve been Movsar Evloev, but the UFC was busy trying to get 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 wasn’t done yet, so Noche UFC 3 got moved to the most Mexican of places, Las Vegas, in October, and Alex’s manager said he had an eye injury that needs time to heal, so he took the rest of 2025 off. Good news, though: That left time for the UFC to get new contenders going. Lerone Murphy wound up fighting and knocking out Pico! Aljamain Sterling beat Brian Ortega! Hell, Movsar Evloev is still right there! The UFC looked at all of them and gave them all the finger. At UFC 325 on January 31, fresh off his title victory over Diego Lopes, Alexander Volkanovski had his first title defense against Diego Lopes. Unsurprisingly, the guy who beat Diego Lopes beat Diego Lopes again. The UFC had Evloev and Murphy fight in March and Evloev won a contentious decision, and now Jean Silva is lobbying as hard as possible for the fight, so we’ll see who gets it.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Petr Yan - 20-5, 0 Defenses

Petr Yan’s road to the top has been incredibly circuitous. When Yan initially won the Bantamweight title back in 2020, no one was particularly surprised. He’d been one of the best in the world for years, he’d put together a six-fight winning streak on his road to the title shot, and the UFC had fed aging legend Urijah Faber to him in an attempt to make him a known quantity. Felling an even greater legend in José Aldo and taking the belt felt like an entirely expected passing of the torch, and a long reign as the division’s standardbearer seemed all but assured. And then, as they so often do, things went wrong. In quite possibly the most infamous title change in UFC history, Yan became the first champion to ever lose his title by disqualification after drilling Aljamain Sterling in the face with an illegal knee. Yan’s team cried foul and the world turned on Sterling, but when they had their rematch a year later, Sterling beat him by decision and that was that. But it was a split decision, and it was close, so the UFC gave Yan another theoretical title eliminator with Sean O’Malley, and this time the world was almost unanimously convinced Yan won--except for two of the three judges, who split in O’Malley’s favor. To top it off, Yan’s attempt to stay in the contendership conversation ran into the brick wall that was the rising Merab Dvalishvili, who handed him the most one-sided loss of his entire life. In the space of two years, Petr Yan went from being perceived as a generational champion to 1 for his last 5 and seemingly eliminated from contendership. After a year off to cope with injuries, reassess his career and figure out how to turn things around, Yan proceeded to take the path that most commonly leads to success: Just fucking beating everyone. He battered Song Yadong, he outpunched Deiveson Figueiredo, he won an exceedingly weirdly-booked matchup with Marcus McGhee, and suddenly, he was on a winning streak and right back in contendership. It might have taken him longer to get an actual title fight were it not for Merab Dvalishvili being a crazy person. Merab was on the greatest championship run the division had ever seen, and after clearing out most of his to contenders and recording a blistering three defenses in a single year, he announced his intention to break a UFC record and cement himself as the greatest 135-pounder of all time by recording a fourth--just two months after the last one--and Petr Yan was available and ready. The world saw the fight as a foregone conclusion, given how one-sided their first match had been, and the world was wrong. Yan put on the best performance of his career, not just battering Merab but outwrestling him, and in one of the best career comebacks we’ve seen, almost five years after he’d given it away, Petr Yan got his title back. He’s on top of the world again, and in all likelihood, the rubber match with Merab will be next. But it’s gonna have to wait until the second half of the year, because Yan’s having back surgery.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Van - 17-2, 1 Defense

It would be disrespectful as hell to Joshua Van to say that no one saw this coming, as many people perceived it as a possibility, but I don’t think anyone saw it coming like this. Van was the Flyweight champion of the Fury Fighting Championships when the UFC came calling, as a 21 year-old regional titleholder with a penchant for collecting knockouts despite fighting at 125 pounds so thoroughly ticks all of their boxes that Van couldn’t have been a more perfect fit without also having a history of racist tweets, and his Contender Series debut was set for August of 2023. But the UFC needed someone to fill in against Zhalgas Zhumagulov, so Van got called up to the big show early and proceeded to justify their faith by beating Zhalgas, and then beating the man he was originally slated to Contend against, and then facing off with Legacy Fighting Alliance champ Felipe Bunes and handing him the first TKO loss of his entire career. In the space of six months, Van went from a little-known regional fighter to a borderline-ranked Flyweight in the UFC. And then he got atomized by Charles Johnson. It was the second loss of Van’s career, the first time he’d ever been knocked out, and the snapping of an eight-fight winning streak, and in many cases, that would’ve permanently ended his momentum. But Van was smart enough to learn from his mistakes, and the UFC was invested enough in him to bring him back up to speed with a gentle hand, and eleven months later he was on a four-fight winning streak again and had successfully made his way to the top ten after knocking out Bruno Silva, which left him in the perfect position to take advantage of an abrupt opportunity. Top contender Brandon Royval had just lost his opponent and needed a replacement, and Van was game to fight for the second time in three weeks if it meant a shot at the belt. It was a close bout, and if Van hadn’t knocked Royval down at the end of the third round he may well have lost, but he did, so he didn’t, and suddenly the prospect was next in line for the title. All but one month of Joshua Van’s UFC career took place during Alexandre Pantoja’s reign as the Flyweight king. His streak was monstrous and he was a sizable favorite coming into his defense against Van, but many were waiting to see if Van’s boxing could defuse Pantoja’s aggression. As it turns out: We’re gonna have to wait a bit longer. Twenty-six seconds into the bout Pantoja busted his own arm on the mat after a head kick gone awry. So Van’s the champion, but it’s under some real weird circumstances, and it means a number of people are immediately gunning for him. Alexandre Pantoja presumably has a rematch as soon as he’s back, but Tatsuro Taira just pounded Brandon Moreno out and got his crack at Van at UFC 327 on April 11. It was an amazing fight, but ultimately, Van got the knockout in the final round.

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--actually, this got delayed so much it’s only now finally booked for UFC 324 on January 24, 2026--maybe never? A couple weeks before the superfight Kayla had to pull out for apparently fairly major neck surgery. No word on when she’ll be back or what on Earth happens now.

Women’s Flyweight, 125 lbs

Valentina Shevchenko - 26-4-1, 2 Defenses

After almost two years of suffering, we have gone back to the start. At the end of 2022 Valentina Shevchenko was so thoroughly ensconced as The Greatest Women’s Flyweight that a sizable segment of the fanbase had built an honest-to-god antipathy for her over it. Sure, she won, all the time, and sure, her only losses in almost a decade and a half came to the greatest of all time in Amanda Nunes, and sure, Shevchenko arguably won their second fight, but familiarity breeds contempt, and after watching the purported greatest struggle with a split decision to Taila Santos that could easily have gone the other way, too, a big chunk of the mixed martial world was ready to move on from Val. And then, unexpectedly, it did. Valentina was a -900 favorite when Alexa Grasso shocked the world, choked her out, and took her title away on March 4, 2023. An instant rematch was obligatory, given Val’s long history on top, so half a year later they ran it back at Noche UFC in 2023, and, awkwardly, it ended in a draw. If the rematch had been obligatory, the threematch was mandatory, but a hand injury on Val’s part and the UFC’s desire to put an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter behind their promotion meant a full twelve months passed before they got back in the cage. That’s a long goddamn time, and it left a lot of air, and that air was filled by doubt. Alexa won the first fight, after all--but she was on her way to losing a decision before Valentina made a costly mistake, threw one of her trademark nowhere-close-to-landing spinning back kicks, and got immediately jumped on and choked out for her troubles. Alexa didn’t lose the second fight--but based on the scorecards, she should have, and would have, were it not for one judge handing her a completely indefensible 10-8 in the final round. When the third fight came on September 14, 2024, it was seen as Alexa’s chance to cement her legacy: Either she was the superior fighter and the herald of a new generation for Women’s Flyweight, or the whole thing was just a weird episode. Unfortunately for Alexa, it was the latter. Valentina dominated her. She outstruck her and outwrestled her with almost comical ease, the fight was a complete shutout, and despite their series being now tied at 1-1-1, no one has any doubts about the winner, nor any desire to see them fight again. Once again, much to the internet’s chagrin, Valentina Shevchenko is a champion. 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 was a long-awaited champion vs champion affair against Zhang Weili at UFC 322 on November 15, 2025. After years of watching Zhang dominate her competition, the world felt she had genuine double-champ potential and could be the woman to unseat Valentina. As it turned out: Not even close. Val dominated her in every aspect of the game, Zhang got completely shut out, and her Flyweight hopes are dead in the water. Valentina has multiple title defenses again and is now tied with Amanda Nunes and Anderson Silva for the fourth-most wins in title fights in UFC history. We’ll have to see who they give to her next, but Natália Silva feels like a safe bet.

Women’s Strawweight, 115 lbs

Mackenzie Dern - 16-5, 0 Defenses

On a long enough timeline, the house always wins. Mackenzie Dern signed with the UFC as a 5-0 fighter all the way back in 2018 and they’ve been trying to get a belt on her ever since. She came into mixed martial arts with a pre-existing pedigree as one of the more decorated women in the history of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Gi championships, no-gi championships, pan-Am championships, Asian open championships, world championships, ADCC championships, she took them all. And the UFC marketed her as a grappling champion who was bringing some of the best submission offense in the sport to the Strawweight division! But they also marketed her as an extremely conventionally attractive woman who frequently wore bathing suits. It was one of the touchiest things to comment on with her career: Where other women would have to struggle for their matchmaking and featured spots, Mackenzie’s opportunities kept coming, and they were almost always on the main broadcast and, on multiple occasions, in the main event slots women almost never received. And she needed them, because despite being legitimately quite good, she just wasn’t great. She could make it into the top fifteen, and sometimes even brush the top ten, but every time they tried to get Mackenzie into title contention, she’d falter. It was Amanda Ribas in 2019, it was Marina Rodriguez in 2021, and between 2022 and 2024, Mackenzie had the worst run of her life, winning only one out of four bouts, getting shut down by Yan Xiaonan and Amanda Lemos, and taking the first stoppage loss of her career after being knocked out by Jéssica Andrade. She managed to get her way back up the ladder again by outgrappling Loopy Godinez and submitting a struggling Amanda Ribas in a six-years-belated rematch, but with so many losses to top contenders, her path to the title still seemed closed. Then a funny thing happened: Zhang Weili gave up the Strawweight belt to move up to Flyweight and challenge Valentina Shevchenko. Suddenly, the door was wide open. And conveniently, the UFC had booked all the women who beat Mackenzie into other matches, leaving Mackenzie with just one contender left--and it was Virna Jandiroba, a career grappler whom Mackenzie had already beaten back in 2020. The two met at UFC 321 on October 25, and after seven years of effort, the UFC finally got its way. Mackenzie beat Virna again, fair and square, in a close and hard-fought but ultimately clear decision. She is, at last, the Strawweight Champion of the World. And she’s in the exceptionally weird position of being a newly-minted champion that has very recently lost to several of her own top contenders. If Zhang Weili fails to beat Valentina Shevchenko, it’s very likely the UFC will try to pressure her back down to 115 for a money match with Mackenzie, in which case Dern would almost certainly be a big underdog in her own first defense. If not, at this point, it’s either a rematch with Yan Xiaonan, a grappling match with Tatiana Suarez, or the UFC stops pretending entirely and has Mackenzie beat Contender Series women until she turns a profit.

NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Luiz Gustavo - 16-4, 0 Defenses

Sunrise, sunset. Luiz Gustavo is not new to Rizin. He made his debut all the way back in 2018, when he was an undefeated, 8-0 22 year-old who’d only barely started fighting real competition down in Katana Fight. Rizin threw him straight into a main event in the hopes of completing the ascension of their rising star Yusuke Yachi, who’d just capped off a six-fight winning streak that included torch-passing matches with Japanese legends like Satoru Kitaoka and Takanori Gomi. Gustavo was supposed to be Yachi’s victim. Instead he knocked Yachi out in two rounds. Suddenly, Gustavo was the star and the man folks had flagged as Rizin’s next big Lightweight champion. He proceeded to go 1-3 over the next year, which culminated in the first knockout loss of his life against Patricky Pitbull and, ultimately, an almost three-year hiatus while the world struggled with COVID. When Rizin tried to get back to its wholly-international ways in 2022, they had Yusuke Yachi waiting for a rematch, and once again, Gustavo knocked him dead in two rounds. In two years Luiz had a winning streak and a shot at longtime champion Roberto “Satoshi” de Souza, and the world expected a classic striker-vs-grappler clash. Satoshi shocked him with a right hand and knocked him out in twenty seconds. Having lost his shot, and followed it with an unsuccessful bout against Shunta Nomura, Gustavo’s hopes for the top of the heap were so distant that Rizin booked him into a fight with living legend Kazushi Sakuraba’s son, the 2-1 Taisei. Gustavo punched him out in seven and a half minutes. Barely two months later, Rizin needed a challenger to stand opposite Ilkhom Nazimov, the man who had unseated Satoshi during their big New Year’s Eve special, and Luiz was available. Once again, the world underestimated him, and once again, they were wrong. Luiz punched Nazimov out in two minutes to finally take his title home.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Razhabali Shaydullaev - 18-0, 3 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 was Shaydullaev making his first defense against Viktor Kolesnik at Rizin 51 on September 28: He knocked Kolesnik out in just thirty-three seconds. His successful murders got him the main event of 2025’s Japanese New Year’s MMA special, where Rizin secretly hoped their big national star Mikuru Asakura would get the job done; Shaydullaev chain-suplexed him, grounded him, and laid an unconscionable amount of ground and pound on him in one of those Japan-likes-to-let-its-heroes-die moments before the ref finally called the fight in just shy of three minutes. Shaydullaev’s the best guy in the company, and now there’s a question of what’s left for him to do. For now, inexplicably, the answer was carrying the murder of the 5-2 Yuta Kubo at Rizin Landmark 13 on April 11, which is wild because they already fought at the end of 2024 and Shaydullaev destroyed him in seven and a half minutes. Try to control your shock: This time it only took Shaydullaev four.

Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Danny Sabatello - 18-4-1, 1 Defense

When Naoki Inoue won Rizin’s Bantamweight title I wrote that Rizin was one step closer to its dream of an all-Japanese championship roster, and it’s fitting that as gaijin once again take over the majority of the championship belts in the biggest organization in Japan, Danny goddamn Sabatello is one of the men to do it. Sabatello has been dogged by a reputation as a grinding wrestler without a ton to offer since 2020, when he got the call to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series, won, and was notably not offered a contract on the grounds of Boring Grappler. He made the move to late-stage Bellator instead, where he attempted to establish himself as their own personal Chael Sonnen: An indefatigable wrestling machine whose mouth ran just as hard as his double-legs. But it never quite caught on. The talk seemed a bit forced, the wrestling wasn’t that fun to watch, and all his 1980s wrestling promos about the bums in Bellator’s Bantamweight Grand Prix ended with an elimination at the hands of Raufeon Stots. Sabatello swore he’d won and that he’d get revenge; instead he ended his Bellator tenure getting choked out by Magomed Magomedov, decisioned again by Stots, and losing out on a shot at the PFL after going to a draw with Lazaro Dayron, who would’ve won the decision were it not for a point deduction. It was a bit of a shock when Sabatello signed with Rizin in 2025, but it seemed to have paid off when he scored his first knockout in six years during his debut against Shinobu Ota and swore he’d reinvent himself as Japan’s new American superstar. Then he went back to wrestling. It was still enough to get him his shot at Inoue’s belt at 2025’s New Year’s special, and despite the common wisdom of judging favoritism, a very close split decision went Danny’s way. It took three years longer than he intended, but Danny Sabatello is holding gold. Now we see if he can, in fact, become Big In Japan. His first title defense was against Joji Goto at Rizin Landmark 13 on April 11, and, unsurprisingly, he wrestled Goto to a broad decision.

Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Hiromasa Ougikubo - 30-8-2, 0 Defenses

It’s been an incredibly long road to gold for Hiromasa Ougikubo. He was a teenager when he made his professional debut all the way back in 2006, and even at 19, he was notable for the tough, gritty way he handled his grappling. Within a year he was a Shooto rookie tournament winner, within a dozen fights he was a regional champion, and a year later, he was Shooto’s Bantamweight World Champion. And then he immediately lost it after getting choked out by some guy named Kyoji Horiguchi. Having faced a level of force he didn’t feel he could contend with, he dropped down to Flyweight, where he was an immediate success, winning the Vale Tudo Japan tournament and, ultimately, the 125-pound Shooto title. That win got him called over to America for the most talent-rich season of The Ultimate Fighter ever, 2016’s Tournament of Champions, where he distinguished himself as one of the best fighters in the house and even beat a young Alexandre Pantoja on his way to the finals. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get past Tim Elliott. He returned to Japan, where, in his absence, Rizin had been reborn in the ashes of Pride FC, and as one of Japan’s best fighters, he got immediately called to the show--where he was immediately defeated by some guy named Kyoji Horiguchi. Ougikubo went back up to Bantamweight and fought his way to a title shot at company star Kai Asakura, but Asakura lanced him with a knee and ended his title hopes again. Undeterred, Hiromasa entered Rizin’s 2021 Bantamweight Grand Prix and stormed the bracket, winning four fights in a year and two in the same night, including the sweet revenge of a championship final where he defeated Asakura and staked his claim as the best Bantamweight in Japan. And then South Korean Kim Soo-chul beat him. So Ougikubo dropped back down to Flyweight for 2022’s massive Bellator vs Rizin supercard--where he was, for the third time, beaten by some guy named Kyoji Horiguchi. Someone should find out if that dude’s any good at fighting. Ougikubo still got his shot at Rizin’s Bantamweight title, but Juan Archuleta beat him, and for the first time in seventeen years of fighting, Ougikubo found himself on a three-fight losing streak. But Horiguchi, Rizin’s Flyweight champion, left the company to return to the UFC, and with the throne empty, Ougikubo wanted one more shot. He went back down to 125 pounds, he entered the 2025 Flyweight Grand Prix, he ran the table one more time, and at the 2025 New Year’s Special he faced and defeated Yuki Motoya to win the tournament and, with it, the vacant belt. It took several tries and almost twenty years, but by god, Hiromasa Ougikubo is the world champion. He’ll try to defend the belt for the first time against Shinryu Takahashi at Rizin Landmark 14 on June 6.

Rizin Women’s Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

VACANT - The source of life and death

The world has long wondered who or what could beat Seika Izawa, and as it turns out, the answer is childbirth. At Rizin Landmark 13 on April 12, 2026, Seika took to the ring and announced her pregnancy and, accordingly, her hiatus from the sport. After four straight years as the undisputed best Atomweight in the world, the queen has abdicated the throne. She vowed to one day return and take back the belt from whichever unlucky woman gets it in her absence, but obviously there’s no timeline for said return, nor should there be. All eyes now turn to the rest of Rizin’s Atomweight division, which is, like, four people. Ayaka Hamasaki’s back in Rizin, but she got armbarred pretty easily by the debuting Natasha Kuziutina. Moeri Suda and Saori Oshima are always around on loan from DEEP. I’m sure they’d love to belt up RENA, but she spends half of her time closer to Strawweight. It’s a loss for mixed martial arts, we are all happy for Seika and wish her well, and god bless Rizin, which can never, ever have a full complement of champions.

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs

ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs

VACANT - The inevitable end of hubris

We were always destined to end here. ONE’s heavier title belts have always been more suggestion than reality. All three have seen at most five champions apiece in their decade-plus of existence--in Light Heavyweight’s case it’s just four, which makes sense, as after ten goddamn years there have been exactly five Light Heavyweight title fights. The belt-padding era began in earnest when ONE made Reinier de Ridder the double-champion over a division that barely existed, and when he fell on hard times with ONE management, they one-upped him by having Heavyweight champion Anatoly Malykhin drop to 225 and 205 thereafter just to beat him out of the company entirely. Over the past two years there was exactly one championship fight across all three weight classes, and it saw Oumar “Reug Reug” Kane take Malykhin’s Heavyweight title away, and it was a portent of the future that Marcus Buchecha won #1 contendership on that same night and opted to leave the company rather than fight for its title. Kane and Malykhin wouldn’t have their scheduled rematch until May 15, 2026, when Malykhin got his revenge by knocking out an exhausted Kane in the fourth round. Having won back his belt, he retired immediately, and in so doing rendered 1/3 of ONE’s MMA championships vacant. I’d bet we will, eventually, see another Heavyweight champion in ONE; I doubt we’ll ever see the other two belts again.

ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs

Christian Lee - 18-4 (1), 0 Defenses

ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs

Christian Lee - 18-4 (1), 1 Defense

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, 2024--and it ended in a No Contest after two rounds thanks to Christian unintentionally gouging Rasulov’s eye. They ran it back almost a full year later at ONE 173 on November 16, and this time Lee knocked him out in the second round, marking Lee’s first win in three years.

ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Tang Kai - 20-4, 2 Defenses

Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China’s WBK (after investigating, we THINK it’s World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz “Ong Bak” Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai’s weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai’s Dragon Gym and Phuket’s legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It’s worked out quite well: He hasn’t lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China’s Rebel FC got ONE’s attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he’s held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare, and 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 cut Abdullaev anyway rather than give him another shot. After almost another year and a half of inactivity Tang Kai finally defended his title on May 15, this time knocking out Shamil Gasanov.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

Engh-Orgil Baatarkhuu - 14-3, 0 Defenses

By god, ONE had an MMA title change hands in 2025. Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu is one of the precious few success stories for ONE’s feeder system. He was a 5-2 champion in the small (but competitive!) regional scene in his native Mongolia, which put him on ONE’s talent-scouting radar for their Warriors of the Steppe tournament in 2022. Enkh won two fights in six days to earn his contract with ONE, where he quickly discovered that no matter where you go in the wide world of sports, being a grappler-type Pokemon makes companies less invested in promoting you. Enkh went 6-1 across two years--8-1, if you count those aforementioned tournament wins--and finished most of his opponents, but title contention eluded him in no small part thanks to ONE’s turn away from mixed martial arts as a whole. It wasn’t until December 6 that Enkh finally got his long-belated shot at Fabricio Andrade’s Bantamweight title, and the first round and a half looked pretty thoroughly one-sided in Andrade’s favor, as most had figured it would be given the gap in Enkh’s striking game, and Andrade battered him to a near-stoppage on a couple occasions. But Enkh, as it turns out, is tough as shit. He weathered the storm and used his grit, his power and his wrestling to turn the tables, and towards the end of the fourth round, an exhausted Andrade gave up the ghost and got himself strangled. Enkh-Orgil Baatarkhuu is ONE’s Bantamweight champion, and his very first act as a champion was to call for a cross-class title match with Tang Kai, because weight classes aren’t real.

ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs

Avazbek Kholmirzaev - 16-2, 0 Defenses

There’s a certain kind of tragedy in winning a championship during what certainly seems to be the waning days of a promotion’s time with mixed martial arts. Avazbek Kholmirzaev is by no means new to ONE, his title victory came a whole eleven fights into his time on their roster, but he spent a great deal of that time nigh-unto invisible. He got his start in his native country’s Uzbekistan MMA Association, but like so many of his countrymen, the successes that built his career came from the bigger, more popular Alash Pride FC, Kazakhstan’s biggest promotion, which is large, well-populated, and also the kind of bullshit record-padding organization that books main events between promising prospects and 5-11 guys who mysteriously always lose within three minutes. But he was on the positive side of the equation, and he knocked people out with spinning kicks, so ONE scouted him for their expansion across the East and he proved to be a natural fit--for the prelims. Avazbek almost never left the first few fights of the cards he was booked on, right up to his championship-opportunity-earning victory over no less than the 11-10 Jeremy Miado this past December curtain-jerking an Amazon Prime card, and an unkind man would probably intimate that his shot at Yuya Wakamatsu’s Flyweight Championship was an attempt to get Yuya a win, being as it was ONE’s big Ariake Arena show in Tokyo and they were attempting to showcase as much of their Japanese talent as possible. It was going well for Yuya right up until he ate a spinning elbow to the dome and went down in a heap just moments before the second round was about to end. Avazbek is a champion and he should be duly proud, and now we’re just left to see what being an MMA champion in ONE means in 2026.

ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Pacio - 23-5, 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, of course, challenged for the 135-pound title next. Pacio vs Wakamatsu happened at ONE 173 on November 16 and ended in Pacio getting smashed in six minutes.

ONE Women’s Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

Denice Zamboanga - 12-2, 0 Defenses

Denice Zamboanga, to be clear, is not the problem with ONE’s women’s divisions. 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. Stamp lost and Denice has yet to be rebooked. 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 Heavyweight Championship, 265 lbs

Vadim Nemkov - 19-2 (1), 0 Defenses

When the PFL announced that it was going to crown a standing Heavyweight champion, they had a raft of interesting options. Oleg Popov, their 2025 tournament champion, had a strong argument. Denis Goltsov, 2024 champion and the only man in almost ten years to beat Popov, could’ve called dibs. Hell, the PFL still technically has Francis Ngannou, the best Heavyweight on the planet, under contract. They, of course, did not choose any of those men. They chose Renan Ferreira, the 2023 tournament champion whose only fight in almost two years was a TKO loss to Ngannou, and Vadim Nemkov, Bellator’s best Light Heavyweight. Nemkov, a Fedor protégé, hadn’t lost since 2016, when he got himself punched out by Jiří Procházka and narrowly edged out by Karl Albrektsson, and it’s a testament to both his skills and the world’s dim view of the Heavyweight division that when the PFL acquired Bellator and Nemkov announced he was leaving 205 for the 265-pound world, instead of the expected fretting about how a 6’1” man would contend in the world of the big boys, more or less everyone said “Yeah, that’s fine.” And lo: It was. Nemkov choked out 2021 PFL champ Bruno Cappelozza, and then he choked out the ever-pained Timothy Johnson, and when he fought Renan Ferreira at PFL Champions Series 4 on December 13, 2025, shockingly, he choked him out, too. Nemkov’s now the only major Heavyweight champion in American MMA outside of the UFC. Hopefully it pays off.

PFL Light Heavyweight Championship, 205 lbs

Corey Anderson - 20-6 (1), 0 Defenses

One of the best Light Heavyweights in the world isn’t in the UFC, and they have only themselves to blame. Corey Anderson was the precise kind of fighter the UFC wanted when they first got ahold of him in 2014: Big, young, athletic, talented, undefeated. He had all the makings of a future champion, and his victory on The Ultimate Fighter 19 (jesus christ) cemented him as a prospect to watch. Unfortunately, he had also barely been in the sport for a year and only had four professional fights to his name. In short order he’d suffered his first loss, and a couple years later, a pair of back-to-back knockouts in 2017 sent him to the realm of afterthoughts. But a recommitment to his wrestling style, an extremely well-aged victory over Glover Teixeira, and a devastating knockout over Johnny Walker got Anderson back in the title picture, and in 2020, he fought Jan Błachowicz to determine the #1 contender to the soon-to-be-vacated belt. They’d done battle once, five years prior, and Corey had won a clear decision. This time, Jan flattened him in three minutes. Despite his top-ten ranking and the four consecutive fights he’d just won, the UFC decided to dump Corey, sending him from main event to unemployment in a week. Corey went straight to Bellator and proceeded to become one of its best stars, and he would have become the first man in America to beat Vadim Nemkov had they not banged their heads together and ended the fight prematurely. Corey lost the rematch, but he became the last man to hold Bellator’s Light Heavyweight title after beating Karl Moore, and on October 3, Corey had a champion vs champion match against the PFL’s 205-pound tournament champion, Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov. Corey had pounded him out in Bellator four years prior, and while he didn’t get the stoppage in the present, he did get the win, and in so doing he became the inaugural PFL Light Heavyweight Champion. What that actually means going forward, we’ll have to see.

PFL Middleweight Championship, 185 lbs

Costello van Steenis - 18-3, 1 Defense

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 he became the second man to defend one after knocking out Fabian Edwards on March 20.

THE PFL WELTERWEIGHT CONUNDRUM

Yeah, I don’t quite know what to do here. On February 7, the (technically) final Welterweight champion of Bellator, Ramazan Kuramagomedov, beat 2024 PFL tournament champion and undefeated favorite Shamil Musaev and became the first official PFL Welterweight Champion. In his post-fight interview he immediately retired. On one hand, the PFL still lists him as their officially reigning champion. On the other, the PFL’s Youtube channel has a video on it named RAMAZAN KURAMAGOMEDOV ANNOUNCES THIS WAS HIS LAST FIGHT and in their own description phrase it as “announcing his retirement.” Does the PFL have a Welterweight champion? I don’t think even they know. So, as of March 1, 2026, I’m leaving ol’ Matthew Lesko here until the PFL clarifies its own title situation and I am on pins and needles to see how long it’ll take before I remove this section. UPDATE, JUNE: The PFL has announced that Ramazan has officially been stripped, which sure does feel like a ‘you can’t quit, you’re fired’ kind of move, and Thad Jean vs Shamil Musaev on July 25th will crown the second Welterweight champ. Matty Lesks can stick around for another two months, as a treat.

PFL Lightweight Championship, 155 lbs

Usman Nurmagomedov - 21-0 (1), 1 Defense

The Nurmagomedov family is trying to run the sport, and Usman is their B-league beachhead, but that assault has proven to be an awful lot rockier than the rest. As the kid brother of Umar and the cousin of Khabib, Usman had great expectations thrust upon him very early in his career, and he dealt with them the way regional talents with great camps traditionally do: Squashing severely overmatched competition until you get a contract from one of the big companies. Bellator won the Usman bidding war and brought him over in 2021, and he proved to be one of the breakout stars of their final days, blitzing his way up the Lightweight ranks, knocking off several contenders and ultimately beating Patricky Pitbull to win the 155-pound championship and securing his reign by retiring former star and UFC champ Benson Henderson. It was 2023, and even though Bellator’s upcoming death was clear, Usman was a name and widely considered one of the best Lightweights in the world. Unfortunately, then, things got weird. He was a massive, -2200 favorite to beat Brent Primus in the waning days of Bellator, and he did--and it became the first non-win of his career after failing a drug test for something that was never disclosed. He carried Bellator’s title over into its new life as a colony of the PFL, and he immediately ran into controversy after barely scraping a majority decision off of Irish superprospect Paul Hughes. The world wanted a rematch for the inaugural PFL Lightweight Championship fight, and on October 3, at the PFL’s big Dubai show, they got it--and this time, it waws even closer, with media scorecards split right down the middle. This, by itself, is not that unusual, nor is one fighter winning a controversial decision unusual. It is unusual when the decision is not only unanimous, but one judge scores the entire fight as a 50-45 shut-out. So Usman’s last two wins were dubious, and his future as part of the PFL depends on how they treat their own championship, but for now, he is the damn champion. He notched his first title defense by choking out Alfie Davis on February 7.

PFL Women’s Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Cris Cyborg - 29-2 (1), 1 Defense

Are you noticing how all of the inaugural PFL champions are just Bellator’s champions? Funny, that. Cris Cyborg is the greatest Women’s Featherweight of all time, and we all just kind of have to deal with that, because Women’s Featherweight has only barely ever existed. Strikeforce set the standard back in 2006 because Gina Carano was one of their biggest stars, and that star lasted right up until 2009, when they attempted to put a belt on her and failed because Cris Cyborg punched the shit out of her. In the following sixteen years Cyborg’s only lost one mixed martial arts fight, and it took Amanda Nunes, the greatest Women’s mixed martial artist of all time, to do it. Aside from that one loss, she’s run the table. She was the Strikeforce Featherweight Champion until it closed, and then she was Invicta’s Featherweight Champion until they let the UFC have her, and then she was the UFC’s Featherweight Champion until Amanda dropped her, and Cyborg promptly went to Bellator and won their title, too. When the PFL brought her over in the Bellator buyout, they set her up for an interpromotional superfight against Larissa Pacheco, a two-time PFL tournament winner and the only woman who’d ever beaten Kayla Harrison. On one hand, Pacheco’s one of just six women to ever make it to the final bell with Cyborg. On the other, she lost 4-1. In the ultimate act of promotional cowardice, the PFL promoted Cyborg to champion status three days before her appearance at the PFL Champions Series on December 13, 2025, meaning her fight with Sara Collins was, technically, a title defense. It was as one-sided as you’d expect. In theory, this is great! The biggest female fighter outside the UFC has a belt and the PFL is bringing back a division the UFC threw in the garbage. In practice, Cyborg didn’t even get out of her post-fight interview without noting that after her next fight she’s going to retire from MMA in favor of focusing on her boxing career. So welcome back, Women’s Featherweight. I hope you still exist by 2027.

SATURDAY, MAY 30 FROM THE GALAXY ARENA IN MACAU, CHINA
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 1 AM PDT / 4 AM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 AM / 7 AM

Western viewers, welcome to your second Card You’re Probably Not Gonna Watch of the month. It’s not quite the annual trip to Macau, as they skipped 2025, but they took Deiveson Figueiredo and Zhang Mingyang to China in 2024 and by god, they’re gonna do it again. If you are staying up until 7 AM to watch Jake Matthews, god bless you.

MAIN EVENT: ROUNDING OUT THE RANKS
BANTAMWEIGHT: Song Yadong (22-9-1 (1), #5) vs Deiveson Figueiredo (25-6-1, #7)

When Song Yadong fought Henry Cejudo back in 2025, I wrote about the troubles of never quite making it to the top of the mountain.

Song Yadong needs this. Song Yadong has needed this for quite some time. Song’s run in the UFC is nearing its eighth year, and it, too, has been a success by any measure. You do not last nearly a decade in one of the hungriest shark tanks in the sport without being good; you do not knock out most of your UFC opponents and hang around in the Bantamweight rankings without being great.
(...)
But he still lost. That makes two failed runs at the top--three, if you count Kyler Phillips knocking him back down the ladder in 2021--and at a certain point, you start running out of bodies to climb. If Song wants to fight his way back to contention, he needs to beat a top guy, and with his longevity, there are precious few he has yet to battle.

Song beat Henry Cejudo that night, albeit with the controversy of an extremely weirdly-officiated eye-poke-based loss, but it was enough to earn him that third or fourth shot at Bantamweight’s pole position. It took almost an entire goddamn year, but this past January, Song walked into the cage with Sean O’Malley and gave it his best effort, and the result was an extremely close bout that split public and media scorecards right down the middle.

You can, I hope, surmise for yourselves who wins a close decision in a Sean O’Malley fight.

Cheap shot? Cheap shot. Probably a cheap shot. It’s not Sean O’Malley’s fault that his path to the title was astroturfed by some of the most egregious marketing and matchmaking favoritism in memory, nor that his title eliminator win over Petr Yan was a robbery, and in either case, the Song fight was no robbery. It was close, it was even, and as so often happens, the cosmic coinflip just happened to go the way of the wide marketing favorite.

And that means Song Yadong is stuck on the outside looking in, yet again. There’s this unfortunate phenomenon with trying to prove yourself as a contender: Every time you fail, it becomes harder to envision your success. After a certain point you stop looking like a contender and you start looking like a gatekeeper.

But that point comes for some fighters sooner than others, and I think Deiveson Figueiredo is already there.

People had high hopes for Figgy as a Bantamweight, as they generally do whenever a former world champion decides to take on another weight class, but as much as I enjoy Deiveson as a fighter, I was skeptical from the beginning. At Flyweight he was a physically imposing, power-punching monster that could hurt anyone he touched. At Bantamweight he was the second-smallest man in the division and already entering the back half of his thirties. But he snapped off a three-fight winning streak, and just like that, he proved that he belonged in the contendership conversation.

Except said streak came against Rob Font, the division’s peripheral gatekeeper, and Cody Garbrandt, a fallen champion at the tail end of going 3 for 10--one of those losses coming at the hands of, hilariously enough, Rob Font--and Marlon Vera, who is now 1 for 6, and even that victory was a widely derided decision. Over the year and a half he’s spent fighting competitively relevant Bantamweights, Deiveson’s gotten beaten handily by Petr Yan, had his knee shredded to pieces by Cory Sandhagen, and lost a wide decision to Umar Nurmagomedov after blowing his weight cut by three and a half pounds.

His sole victory, the only thing keeping him afloat in the top ten, was a split decision over Montel Jackson that stands as one of the most baffling fights I have ever seen, a match-up that bordered on performance art in its sheer tribute to the power of negative space, where only one man landed double-digit strikes in one, single round, and somehow, he was the one that lost.

That’s it. That’s the only good news for Deiveson in the last two years. He won a fight that only barely qualified as a fight, and since then he’s gotten trashed by a top contender after failing--badly--to make the divisional limit despite being one of the shortest Bantamweights in the sport. He is losing frequently, he’s looking awful even when he wins, he’s struggling to get his body where it needs to be, and at the end of this year he’ll be 39 at one of the fastest weight classes in the sport.

Deiveson’s dream has all the hallmarks of being over. It was beautiful while it lasted, but it is quickly gathering dirt, and if he wants to get it back he needs a win that is both big and definitive.

Which is why the UFC has booked him against the one and only ranked Chinese man on the entire roster during their trip to China.

Song is an enormous favorite and he should be. He’s bigger, he’s faster, he hits harder, he hits more often, his only stoppage loss in the last decade came because the referee refused to let him keep fighting when his entire eyebrow was falling off of his face. Song landed 36 significant strikes in his fight with Sean O’Malley, arguably the best striker in the division, which is just one less than Deiveson scored in his last three fights combined. He can wrestle, he can box, he can tank punches and he does not appear to be actively, visibly crumbling more and more into dust every time we see him fight.

Figueiredo’s still absurdly tough, and I think this is the fight where that’s going to cross the Rubicon from “impressive” to “uncomfortable.” SONG YADONG BY DECISION after what could be depressingly lopsided.

CO-MAIN EVENT: TAKE TWO
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Zhang Mingyang (19-7, NR) vs Alonzo Menifield (17-6-1, #15)

The last time the UFC was in China was much like this one: Sergei Pavlovich was risking his top contendership against an undeserving but managerially-beloved Heavyweight, Sumudaerji was being positioned for a jump into the rankings, and Zhang Mingyang was being fed a chronically troubled Light Heavyweight in the hopes of making him a contender.

Johnny Walker has looked pretty bad for quite awhile. He gave up a round to late-period Anthony Smith. He got completely walked through by Magomed Ankalaev--twice, under Pride rules. He’s the only man Volkan Oezdemir has knocked out in more than six years. The optics of making Zhang’s fourth UFC fight a bout against yet another struggling, winless fighter are about as obvious as the choice to book it in Shanghai in the first fuckin’ place. Johnny Walker is not here to test Zhang, he’s not even here to put up a fight. He is here to lose.

And god, I really want to pick him anyway.

I’ve noted on several occasions that my insistence on choosing winners with my heart rather than my head has cost a pretty sizable chunk of my picks percentage, but in this cursed era of the sport, the hope means more to me than the average. And buddy, I’ll tell you: Waking up and seeing that Johnny Walker ruined the entire event by knocking Zhang out in a round and a half? That’s worth every lost pick for the entire damn year.

They moved Heaven and Earth to get Zhang on the safest possible path to the rankings. His contract fight was against Tuco Tokkos, who was known mainly for getting knocked out in Bellator. His followup was Brendson Ribeiro, who the UFC still employs despite being 2-5 with four stoppage losses because they know exactly why they chose to employ him in the first place. After that? Ozzy Diaz, a man who was getting knocked out on the Contender Series at Middleweight. And to earn his number? Anthony Smith, a retiree on his final fight with a long history of terrible losses. All Zhang had to do to finish the job was beat Johnny Walker, who’d been doing nothing but getting knocked out over and over for two full years.

And he couldn’t fucking do it. He is Walker’s one and only win since the Spring of 2023.

Which means they have to try again, and they’re being so thoroughly unsubtle about it that despite their longstanding tradition of organizing their cards by standing--the highest-ranked fighter first, the lower-ranked fighter second--Zhang Mingyang is first as Hell on this card listing, and Alonzo Menifield, the #15 Light Heavyweight, is second.

Which, if we’re being really honest, is fine. It’s absolutely fine. I was a big Menifield booster once upon a time. I liked his aggression in the pocket, I liked his composure, I liked the way he teased the world into thinking Jimmy Crute could still be relevant only to effortlessly smash him in a rematch. But the last couple of years haven’t been kind to Alonzo.

Crushed by Carlos Ulberg in twelve seconds? He’s the champion now, so I guess that’s less embarrassing than it could be. Atomized by Azamat Murzakanov? Tarnished a little after watching Azamat lose to Paulo Costa, but it could be worse. Just barely beating Julius “Juice Box” Walker by split decision? That’s not great.

But getting punched completely stupid by Volkan Oezdemir in one round? That’s when they single you out as a reliable loss machine. And we know this, because the last thing Johnny Walker did before they booked him against Zhang was, shockingly, get uppercutted to death by Volkan in two and a half minutes.

The mistake from their first attempt at propping Zhang up was evident. Johnny Walker is a talented, multifaceted striker with a big range advantage. He was able to hobble Zhang with leg kicks before he could even begin to pose a threat. Alonzo’s shorter and less technical and his best wins come from overpowering his opponents. He can’t play the range game and his crushing attacks in the clinch are a liability because using them means staying right where Zhang wants the fight to be.

Every part of this is built for Zhang to win.

So. Y’know.

ALONZO MENIFIELD BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: GIVING UP ON PRETENDING
HEAVYWEIGHT: Sergei Pavlovich (20-3, #3) vs Tallison Teixeira (9-1, #15)

So we’re just done, right? We’re just giving up completely on even pretending to have a functional Heavyweight division?

Like, we did this already. We did this specific thing with both of these specific guys. Sergei Pavlovich is one of the best knockout artists in Heavyweight history, but he got beat by Tom Aspinall and Alexander Volkov and the UFC decided he was persona non grata. Despite being the #3 man in the division, despite his only losses in almost eight years coming against the champion and his top contender, in the past sixteen months, Sergei has been booked to fight exactly twice. The first time was the last time the UFC went to China, where he was placed up against the #6-ranked marketing darling Waldo Cortes-Acosta. Pavlovich won an extremely clear decision, which is why since said fight he’s been stuck on the shelf while Waldo got booked all the way to a Heavyweight title eliminator. On the plus side: Sergei easily beating him looks even better now, right? That means Sergei beat a man the UFC considered was worthy of a top contendership bout, so he’s going to get a top-tier matchup now, right?

Nope! It’s Tallison fucking Teixeira. We’re gonna recap the complete Tallison Texeira UFC career arc, because it takes roughly thirty seconds:

• Wins his contract on the Contender Series by knocking out Arthur Lopes, who has one win over a man with a winning record; said man fights at Welterweight

• Makes his UFC debut by knocking out Justin Tafa, who is 7-5, unranked, and hasn’t won a fight in almost three years

• Gets immediately booked into a top ten main event against #8-ranked Derrick Lewis, who effortlessly destroys Tallison in thirty-five seconds

• Rebounds with a main-card bout against the #12-ranked Tai Tuivasa, who has the longest losing streak in UFC Heavyweight history; Tallison beats him in one of the gassiest, least impressive Heavyweight fights in years

• Is rewarded with a fight against the #3-ranked man in the Heavyweight division

I’ve talked about an awful lot of marketing pushes in my time doing this, but Tallison’s is one of the most blatant. He’s the Typhoid Mary of the We Want Less Expensive Heavyweights experiment. He managed to look good once, and it was against a man that once managed to lose a fight to Jared Vanderaa. Tallison’s victory over Tuivasa was so uninspiring that it spawned thinkpieces around the internet regarding the ethical need to shut down the Heavyweight division until we figure out where on Earth we all collectively went wrong, but he’s tall, he’s statistically likely to get a knockout, and he’s on a cheap-ass Contender Series contract, and buddy, in this terrible era of corporate capture, that plus maybe a little conversational bigotry is all the matchmakers could ask for.

And it’s Heavyweight, so it’s going to work every once in awhile. You roll the dice enough, you wind up with Top Ten Tyrell Fortune. Sergei can be clipped, Tom Aspinall proved it, and if a 6’7” guy can sneak just one good punch in there, suddenly, a title match costs 1/10 as much to book as it used to.

Don’t you love being a mixed martial arts fan right now? Isn’t it great to watch an already-borderline sport get driven into the dirt by men in boardrooms that have already made billions but just won’t be content until titles are handed out by marketing fiat, rankings are built by ChatGPT and the roster is paid in company scrip?

Push back the dawn, even if just for a few more hours. SERGEI PAVLOVICH BY TKO.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Kai Asakura (21-6) vs Cameron Smotherman (12-6)

For as much as I chide the UFC for their business practices, I must also acknowledge that sometimes they do everything right and, as happens in sports, it still doesn’t work out. Kai Asakura was an excellent pickup. 135-pound champion in Rizin, half of the Youtube-famous Asakura brothers, one of three men on Earth to ever stop Kyoji Horiguchi in a fight, just a fantastic bit of talent poaching. Which made it weird when he announced his intention to fight at Flyweight, a weight class he hadn’t participated in since 2017. Did it sap him? Probably! Would it have stopped him from getting wrestled and strangled by Alexandre Pantoja and Tim Elliott? I dunno how much of a difference those ten pounds would make when it comes to some of the best grapplers in the game.

Fortunately, Kai is no longer fighting said grapplers. When I first wrote about Cameron Smotherman in 2024 I cursed the gods for naming a man Smotherman while allowing him to stylistically focus on striking, and true to form, he has not shot a single takedown in his time under the UFC’s corporate banner, and for denying the gift the Gods gave him, he is 1-2 and probably fighting to keep his job. At this point, his only victory was as a late-replacement opponent for Jake Hadley, who got cut after Smotherman took him to a particularly punchy decision. Other than that, Smotherman dropped a fight to Serhiy Sidey, got beat up by Ricky Simón, and, more famously than any of his actual bouts at this point, he had a matchup with Ricky Turcios cancelled this past January after his weight cut went so badly that, seconds after stepping off the scale, he passed out in mid-stride and fell facefirst on the stage.

But don’t worry, the UFC assured everyone that there’s nothing wrong with cutting weight and he probably just got nervous. No, really. Dana White said that shit. They are here in the hopes of quietly sweeping Smotherman into a corner so they can forget they ever had to be embarrassed, and if Kai can’t pull it off, he probably shouldn’t be here. KAI ASAKURA BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Jake Matthews (22-8) vs Carlston Harris (19-7)

I don’t know why we’re here. I really don’t. Jake Matthews is entering year thirteen of his UFC tenure, and he enters it having once again failed to overcome his perpetual not-quite-a-gatekeeper status, with his latest winning streak having gone down the tubes after Neil Magny choked him out in September, meaning Matthews is, yet again, not ready for primetime. Carlston Harris was signed up for the legendarily cursed Michelle Waterson-Gomez vs Marina Rodriguez card back in 2021, an event so plagued with replacements that initially Diego fucking Sanchez was supposed to be on it, and now it’s 2026, and Harris is a month and a half away from turning 39, and he’s only fought twice in the last three years and both times he got brutally knocked out.

And this is on the main card. In China. Jake Matthews vs Carlston Harris is a match the UFC decreed deserving of a main card berth. Angela Hill, one of the longest-tenured fighters in UFC history across any gender, and Jingnan Xiong, one of the best female fighters outside of the UFC and one of the best Chinese fighters on the planet, are fighting on this card, in China, for a spot in the rankings, and it’s six fights down from here, buried in the preliminary section.

And we’re here. Jesus wept. JAKE MATTHEWS BY DECISION.

FLYWEIGHT: Alex Perez (26-10, #11) vs Sumudaerji (19-7, NR)

Sometimes, all it takes is one good win to make people forget about the rest of your career. Alex Perez has been the dwindling afterthought of the Flyweight top fifteen for the last six goddamn years. Until this past January he wasn’t just 1 for his last 6, he had been, more often than not, completely trashed. If getting choked out repeatedly wasn’t enough, having Tatsuro Taira climb his body and break his knee in mid-backpack was more than enough for most people to write him off entirely. But this past January saw Perez take on Charles Johnson, a man with knockout victories over multiple top contenders and even the current champion, and Perez blew him out of the water and punched him out in three minutes. Fantastic win! So good people forgot that he also botched the shit out of his weight cut. But who cares? He’s back, baby.

The UFC cares. The UFC would rather someone more reliable get the spot. I’m not complaining one bit, though: Sumudaerji has more than earned another shot at a ranking. He wasn’t quite up to the task in 2022, and after very nearly flunking out of the company on the heels of a subsequent three-fight losing streak he came into 2025 angry and active, and having snapped off three straight wins in eleven months and not dropped a single round in the latter two, he’s finally ready to try again. He hits hard, he wrestles fast, he’s never been knocked out, and after years of practice with the shirtless battle-monks of Urijah Faber’s Team Alpha Male, he has reached partially-nude enlightenment and knows, inwardly, that the path to progress is paved with punches.

That or I’m just kind of bored of writing about him not really making it and I want him to win the big one already. SUMUDAERJI BY TKO.

PRELIMS: GENUINELY, WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Yisak Lee (8-1) vs Luis Felipe Dias (17-5)

Let me lay this preliminary headliner on you. In one corner: Luis Felipe Dias de Assis, who is no less than the Shooto Brasil champion! At Welterweight. Two fights ago he had his first Middleweight bout in years, and it was against the incomparable Helison “Nego Velho” Cruz, who is 2-14 and so clearly fraudulent that the Tapology database doesn’t even count him as a real fighter. He fought one more time in July--three years ago--and choked out a 2-0 man who is now 2-4, and that earned him his Contender Series shot last October, where he defeated no less than Donavan Hedrick, who on that night had his first-ever bout against a fighter with a winning record. And Hedrick almost won! Until he didn’t. In the other corner: South Korean prospect Yisak Lee, who has a whopping two victories against men with winning records so long as you don’t mind that one of them is 8-5-1 and the other is 5-3, and if you need to ask me if the 5-3 guy had, himself, battled anyone with a positive career ratio, you have not been paying attention to the rest of this paragraph.

I obsess over records because they’re the easiest, simplest shorthand for understanding where a fighter has been, what they’ve had to deal with, and how those experiences may have helped them grow as competitors, but they’re never the whole story. Really good fighters can have really unimpressive records. When Merab Dvalishvili entered the UFC he was three years into a 7-2 career with only three decent fights under his belt, on paper. Numbers aren’t everything and sometimes you have to watch the tape to know when someone’s better than their record would indicate.

But, in this case, I have watched tape on both guys and I am completely unimpressed. YISAK LEE BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Ding Meng (35-9) vs José Henrique (8-1)

When I talk about the degree to which numbers lie, this ostensibly lopsided fight where one guy has five times the experience of the other is a case in point. In some ways, China has one of the bigger, more vibrant regional mixed martial arts scenes in the world, between companies like Kunlun and Wu Lin Feng and, in today’s most relevant case, Jue Cheng King, better known as JCK MMA. The bulk of Ding Meng’s career, and the stuff that brought him to the UFC’s attention, came from JCK. And ten of his sixteen JCK opponents had less than ten wins. Five of them had, at most, two. When Ding Meng tried out for ONE Championship during their 2019 Chiense trials, he got knocked out in a round by an opponent with 1/5 as many fights as he did at the time; when the UFC brought him in for the Contender Series in 2024 he got beaten by Rami Hamed, who noticeably did not get a contract. José Henrique’s record is much shorter, but there’s a solid argument to be made that just by hanging out in Shooto Brasil and the Legacy Fighting Alliance and the Centurion Fighting Championships he’s fought consistently tougher competition.

At least, I hope he has, because the last time anyone here saw him it was when Yusaku Kinoshita knocked him the fuck out on the Contender Series four years ago, and Kinoshita went on to wash out of the UFC in a year, so fingers crossed that he’s learned his lessons. JOSÉ HENRIQUE BY TKO.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Aoriqileng (26-12 (1)) vs Cody Haddon (8-1)

Forget China vs America, forget veterans vs prospects, this is a rubber match against the entire institution of Codies. Aoriqileng’s second-ever UFC fight back in 2021 was a decision loss to Cody Durden, and that left a burning fire of vengeance in his belly that took four years to quench. When last we saw him this past October, Aoriqileng enacted his need for justice by knocking out Cody Gibson with one punch in twenty-one seconds. It wasn’t too long ago that we talked about Daniel Santos and his inexplicable war on every South Korean fighter in the Featherweight division: There are four Codies at Bantamweight, and right now, Aoriqileng is 1-1 against them. He needs this tiebreaker. He needs this glory.

I do not care that Haddon is a big favorite. I do not care that Haddon is probably going to win. This is about more than mixed martial arts. This is about fate. AORIQILENG BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Rei Tsuruya (10-1) vs Luis Gurule (11-3)

I really hate this shit, and I hate that it comes up so often. Rei Tsuruya isn’t the problem here, he’s fine, I’m sure they want to rehabilitate him after he finally losing his undefeated streak when last we saw him--more than a year ago, jesus--but it was Joshua Van and he’s the Flyweight champion now, so honestly, if you’re gonna lose to anyone, it might as well be him. Luis Gurule is the problem. Gurule was on a three-fight losing streak and competing to, in all likelihood, keep his job, but he finally managed to put it together and notch a solid win over Daniel Barez so now, after four attempts, he finally has momentum! Which would be great! Except the distance between that fight and this one is fourteen days. This wasn’t a quick knockout or a first-round submission, it went the distance. A professional fighter struck Luis Gurule 113 times just two weeks ago, seventy-nine of which went straight to the dome, and the world of mixed martial arts has no problem with sending him right back out there.

It’s completely baffling that this is normal now. REI TSURUYA BY DECISION.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Angela Hill (18-16, #14) vs Jingnan Xiong (19-2, NR)

I feel like I am running out of words to properly express my exasperation about ranked women’s fights being stuck on the prelims, and this is one of the most maddening cases.

We already talked about this during the main card, but I’m going to repeat it, because it bears repeating. Angela Hill is the greatest journeywoman in UFC history. She was there for the debut of Women’s Strawweight. She shared the cage with its first-ever champion in 2014 and its current champion almost ten years later. When she makes her walk this weekend, it’ll be her thirtieth UFC fight, which ties Jéssica Andrade for the most in UFC history and puts her just two bouts behind Max Holloway, Dustin Poirier and Diego Sanchez. Jingnan Xiong was the greatest female fighter in the history of ONE Championship, the UFC’s Singaporean competitor. In eight years and eleven fights she went 10-1, with her only loss coming from a failed attempt to drop a weight class and become a double-champion opposite ONE’s other best female fighter, Angela Lee, who Xiong ultimately went 2-1 against, beating her both times they fought at her home in the 125-pound division.

The UFC is happy to spend half of every given year acting as a regional promotion these days. Get paid to come to Australia; stack your card with Australians, even if it means an Ollie Schmid sneaks through. Fight night in Abu Dhabi? Time to book Mohammad “The UAE Warrior” Yahya, even though he’s never won a UFC fight. Despite being arguably the world’s only major global promotion, they book these events like a regional promotion trying to get regional attention, because, for that one night, that’s what they are and what they’re desperately trying to do.

Jingnan Xiong is one of the greatest Chinese mixed martial artists on the planet. This is her UFC debut after a near-decade as a reigning world champion. She is fighting one of the best-known women in the company on a Chinese card airing on Chinese time for a Chinese audience.

They’re three fights into the prelims.

Jake Matthews vs Carlston Harris is on the main card.

At a certain point I think you just have to stop pretending and add a No Girls Allowed sign to the main card graphics. Both women deserve better. I’m very, very worried about Xiong cutting back down to 115 after all of her success in ONE came at 125 and I hope it doesn’t bite her in the ass. That said, JINGNAN XIONG BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Zhu Kangjie (21-4) vs Rodrigo Vera (21-1-1)

Welcome to your third, final, and probably best double-debut fight of the night. Zhu Kangjie was 2025’s Featherweight Road to UFC winner, which everyone has forgotten because, for one, all three of his tournament wins were decisions, for two, the tournament took an entire goddamn year, ended an entire goddamn year ago, and an entire goddamn year later Zhu is only now making his UFC debut, and for three, it’s Road to UFC and the company practically stopped acknowledging its existence after its inaugural season. Ramon Taveras was supposed to be here, but he possibly wisely decided not to head off to China to fight a Chinese tournament winner while already on a two-fight losing streak, so in his stead, the UFC hired Rodrigo Vera, who I am weirdly excited to see get a shot at the big show. Vera has, for the most part, been fighting and performing well against very legitimate competition in Mexico, Brazil and his native Peru. Moreover, he’s sporting one of my favorite fighting styles: High-pressure, up-close, in-the-pocket you-will-breathe-when-I-allow-it work, whether it’s grinding takedowns, phone-booth boxing or some particularly vicious clinch knees.

Prospects I actually care about are a rare and finite resource these days. RODRIGO VERA BY DECISION.

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Loma Lookboonmee (10-4) vs Jaqueline Amorim (10-2)

Oh, Loma. I believed in you, Loma. I knew Alexia Thainara was probably going to beat you back in September but I just didn’t have the heart to pick against you, and now we’re in Macau and you’re an underdog again. Jaqueline, even if I did not already hold it against you that being an English student has poisoned my brain so badly that I have to backspace over the C I put in your name one out of every four times I type it, I would be obligated to root against you because the world is better when Loma Lookboonmee is ranked. Granted, the world would be much better if the UFC had a damn Atomweight division, but it’s more important that we budget that money and card space for Contender Series Middleweights named things like Joseph “The Land Animal” Kropschot.

For the record, that’s not one of the ones I made up. You can go look. We are all bastards now. LOMA LOOKBOONMEE BY DECISION.

Carl: I think it’s important to note, before anything, that rankings are bullshit and that’s what makes them fun. Company rankings are always going to be marketing machines meant more to say You Should Care About Michael Chandler than to give you any educated idea of what’s happening in a given division; media rankings are always going to be biased by whoever’s making them and how seriously they think people should take Costello van Steenis.

Rather than trying to mash our thoughts together into a sterile, anodyne list made of boring, objective consensus, we’re going to try to have fun with subjectivity. Jess and I have ranked every relevant, active weight class in MMA--sorry, Women’s Featherweight, it’s just not happening--and we’ll be putting those rankings side by side and talking about the differences in our thinking.

Jess: I suppose I should address my methodology before I get too far. I fully expect this process to change slightly as I hone my ranking abilities, but here’s how I got to the people in the places I did.

I first compiled a list of names, mostly from UFC’s rankings, plus Tapology, because I am prone to bouts of forgetting that oh, hey, Jailton Almeida does exist.

Then, I look at the previous five fights, and the last three years of fights. Then, review who on my list beat who else on my list and do my best to sort it out that way. Going forward, I will probably end up incorporating additional factors, like title wins and defenses, finishes, and “did this person get beat by someone real bad who isn’t even on my list?” because that should mark you down some points. But oops, I forgot!

Carl: So, because I am this kind of giant fucking nerd, I already had my own rankings sitting around waiting to be updated for the quarter. I have made certain choices with my time on this Earth.

Rankings are the one thing in life for which I am particularly conservative. With the amount of work it tends to take to get into the top fifteen, and the degree to which comparative analysis makes up my mixed martial worldview, I tend to wait for people to either accumulate too long a string of losses to be tenable as a ranked fighter, lose to people who were so far below them in the rankings that it invalidates their standing, or, most commonly, a mixture of both.

Carl: Heavyweight being bad is not new, Heavyweight has done been bad for most of its time on Earth, but we’re entering this extremely weird era of Heavyweight wherein the UFC is treating the division so poorly that it’s almost kind of interesting again. It’s awful, and it’s especially egregious to be doing shit like booking Curtis Blaydes against rookie marketing prospects over and over until you finally get a Josh Hokit in the top five or canning Jailton Almeida while employing a Tafa brother, but it’s weirdly beneficial for the rest of the world. Half because you get guys like Alexandr Romanov out there serving as a measuring stick for talent instead of being wasted in the UFC, half because it’s a lot fucking easier to campaign for an Oleg Popov or a Phil De Fries to be taken seriously as a top Heavyweight when the UFC is insisting Tallison Teixeira deserves to fight one of the three best men in the world.

Jess: We are deeply, uncomfortably in the squishy, squishy dregs of what is considered Top Tier heavyweights. Pretty soon, Phil De Fries is going to be defending the KSW title against a couch.

Also, I’m confident that both Brothers Tafa are only gonna be around long enough to give Gable Steveson a boosty-uppy to “divisional relevance’.

Carl: I wonder how far beating a Tafa gets you towards the rankings. Funnily enough, in the last few hours word’s come out that Valter Walker, whom the UFC currently ranks at #13, is in talks to fight Thomas Petersen, who is unranked, which makes that Teixeira/Pavlovich fight even funnier.

So, before anything else, I gotta ask: I know I’m already dipping my toes into the waters of subjectivity by still ranking Alexander Volkov above Ciryl Gane given my disagreement with MMA judges, but is having Gane above Tom Aspinall part of your personal vendetta against eyeballs?

Jess: I like eyeballs just fine! Sadly, Tom suffers from a two-pronged problem. Low activity and hasn’t beaten people I have regarded as highly. He’s 1-1 (1 NC) in the last three years, and that one win is Curtis Blaydes. If I consider Blaydes a quality win, it helps Tom more, but it also sadly elevates Josh Hokit. That bridge is mighty tough to cross.

My own issue against putting a thumb on the scale of “yeah, but we all know the other person really won the fight” is that I’m incapable of not just leaning my entire bodyweight on the scale and putting Iron Turtle top 3 at 185. I respect, you, Carl, for being able to maintain professionalism.

Also, I have to go by official results because I’ve honestly not watched so many of these fighters, I don’t have the ability to nudge things towards Cage Justice (My favorite Olek Taktarov movie, by the way).

Carl: My favorite Oleg Taktarov movie is, and will always be, the .wmv rip of YAMMA Pit Fighting I keep on a USB drive around my neck while I sleep.

The Aspinall situation is kind of a pickle. I think the combination of having not really lost and having blown through Volkov, Pavlovich and Blaydes in about five minutes keeps him there for me, but it is also possible that I simply dislike Ciryl Gane and the GameShark that he is using to get infinite title shots. It is Volkov’s turn with the controller and you need to stop being so dang selfish and go to wrestling practice.

The topic of activity brings up a point on your rankings that pained me not to share, and that’s Francis Ngannou. I do not know what to do with him. Lineally-speaking he’s still the top of the heap and I think he could easily be back on top, but he’s got one MMA fight in the last four and a half years, and it’s already going on two years old, and when he does finally break his drought at Rousey/Carano this weekend, even in a best-case scenario, he’s knocking out a Philipe Lins that hasn’t even competed at Heavyweight since 2020 when Tanner Boser knocked him out. Does it matter, or is his simply still being around enough?

Jess: For Big Fran, the pip of activity is good, but the relevant opponent metric is not impressed one whit by Phil Lins. At least a guy like De Fries has the modicum of title fights to bolster his nothing opponents (KSW catching all the strays from me today!)

Regarding Tom, though my horrendous numbers have him at 3, I have the utmost confidence in his ability to beat both our top 5s in short order, and do things that can only be classified as Crimes Against Humanity to the rest of the rankings.

Carl has a few fighters on his list that didn’t make my top 15 cutoff, but the only person he fully has that I did not consider is Jailton Almeida. Applying my rubrics, we have:

2-3 in his last 5 fights, 4-3 in his prior 3 years. Wins over Spivac (20th), Lewis (18th), Romanov (13th), losses to Bladyes (19th), Kuniev (17th), Volkov (2nd). No big wins, clipped by 3 other men on the list. I probably would have slotted him somewhere between 16 and 19.

Carl: I think, for me, the concept of how hard it is to get into the rankings--or at least used to be, before the Josh Hokit/Tyrell Fortune/Tallison Teixeira era--adds a little bit of drag to what it takes to get removed from them, and Almeida’s an interesting case. His best win is either Spivac, Lewis or Rozenstruik, which is middling even if I think Jairzinho is underrated, but his worst losses were Blaydes, who was a top ten lock until recently, Kuniev, whose only loss in a decade was Blaydes, and Volkov, who we both agree is top two and whom Almeida took to a really close split decision. He’s fallen, but I’d still keep him up there. Though what that means for his future as the top Heavyweight prospect of Akhmat or something, who knows.

I also think it’s a damn shame that we both agree Vadim Nemkov rules and we both struggle to get him any higher than the periphery of the top ten because, realistically, what the hell is he going to do for the next few years? I don’t want him stuck in the conglomerated glut of the UFC, but in the PFL his best Heavyweight hopes now come from joining the Pokemon weaknesses graph whereby Popov loses to Goltsov and Goltsov beats everyone but Ferreira and Ferreira loses to Bilostenniy and Bilostenniy beats everyone but Moldavsky and Moldavsky breaks Romanov’s groin so Romanov can lose to Popov. It’s a vicious cycle, Jess, and we are its prey.

Jess: Light Heavyweights, what the hell are we going to do with you. We make you a nice title fight, one guy throws it away out of overwhelming sense of Bushido pride, and the winner tears his knee to smithereens, requiring surgery and a year on the shelf. Was it folly to include Pereira on the rankings after he vacated the belt and moved up to heavyweight? Probably, but I figured I can’t rank a guy in a division he’s never competed in, so here he is at my number 2 spot.

Had I remembered Dovlet or ShoeFace, they probably would have ended up just inside the top 10. Good recent records, but no notable wins, and Dovlet has only lost to Anderson. Carlos Junior a little lower because the loss to EZ Polizzi should be a bigger demerit, though as I explained earlier, I kinda didn’t think of those repercussions initially. Whoops!

Carl, high five on a perfectly placed Corey Anderson!

Carl: Corey Anderson may have forsaken the art of Beastin, but we do not, and cannot, forget. We will Beast for him, 25/8, until there is no more Beastin to be done.

I think ranking Pereira makes sense, or at least as much sense as bothering to rank Light Heavyweight makes these days. The best guy at the class is gone, the UFC is waiting as long as possible to book Ankalaev, Paulo Costa is one win away from a UFC title shot and everyone who wins the belt is immediately struck down by Nike for their hubris and the PFL has a bunch of guys who barely fight to the point that Corey won the belt almost eight months ago and meanwhile Shoeface is fighting Luke Trainer in June. There is so little rhyme or reason to 205 that almost anything is defensible.

But I do need you to tell the people about your deep, abiding love for Bogmen and its role behind Bogdan Guskov, #4 Light Heavyweight In The World.

Jess: The Bogman is honestly a little high, now that I’m giving my list some more scrutiny. But, I think he deserves to be on it. He’s 4-1 (1 NC) in the last three years, with a win over Krylov and a loss to Oezdemir. Those are both middle of the road outcomes. Maybe not deserving of a spot inside the top 5, but definitely on the full 15.

Turning things around on Carl, I do want to know what is keeping Rakic and Walker in your rankings? They don’t have any wins that could be considered relevant, and they’ve mostly been blasted all to hell in their numerous losses.

Carl: I’ll cop to overrating Rakic. I am still stuck on the way he almost beat Jan, and almost beat Jiri, but he didn’t and I should stop giving him the credit for what could have been. Besides which I believe he’s moving to Heavyweight anyway, so one way or another, I must part with my Serbian brother’s 205-pound ranking.

Johnny Walker, I will defend. He benefits deeply from how bad Light Heavyweight is right now. I’ll agree that beating Zhang Mingyang is not a top ten-worthy thing, but on the other hand, you have our other persistently difficult buddy Dominick Reyes at #6, and he just won a tragically uneventful split decision with Walker that was the dictionary definition of a coinflip. But for the whims of a D’Amato, Walker could be your #6 Light Heavyweight right now without having done a single thing differently. So while I do not rate him very highly, I cannot bring myself to drop him entirely from the top fifteen. It’s not that he’s great, it’s that it’s Light Heavyweight.

Carl: Let me introduce the Middleweight division by saying: Fuck Middleweight.

I know we’ve been working on this long enough that your rankings were before Chimaev/Strickland happened, so let me say that I envy you for the time machine that lets you not have Sean Strickland at the top of your rankings. I already miss those days. Despite the likelihood that we will now get multiple title defenses in a year, a thing that was impossible so long as Chimaev held the gold, I would still trade it back in a nanosecond to not have to think about #1 Fighter Sean Strickland again. I am old and cold and the bears are closing in.

I like that Costello van Steenis is up there because I like typing Costello van Steenis. I think there’s a really good chance Eblen’s about to kick him back down the ladder in their rematch, but maybe he’ll surprise us again. I also have to ask you about Top Ten Rodrigocop.

Jess: Gregory Cop is on my list because he’s 6-1 in the past 3 years, with a win over CLD and a loss to Cannonier. Highly cromulent Middleweighting, in my world. It is kind of hilarious that, per Tapology’s UFC rankings, Greg Robot has beat the #24, the #24, and the #24 UFC middleweights over the last three fights.

Hunter Campbell told me that Gregory Rodriques keeps beating his #24 middleweights and I asked him how many #24 middleweights he has, and he said he just goes to the Contender Series and gets a new #24 middleweight afterwards, so I said it sounds like he’s just feeding Contender Series guys to Gregory Rodriques and then Mick Maynard started crying.

So I ask you, Friend Carl. Are Fabian Edwards’s wins over Dalton Rosta better than Roman Kopylov and Bruno Ferreira?

Carl: See, this is where the balance of wins and losses gets to me. I deeply adore Robocop’s world of bionic fistitry, but that knockout loss to Jared Cannonier looms. Ol’ Jerry Crystals has been getting the crap kicked out of him over and over across the last three years, so the sole exception being his knocking out Rodrigues complicates things, because I can’t even bring myself to rank Cannonier right now. Kopylov’s decent but his best win is Chris Curtis, and Ferreira’s best win is a Marvin Vettori who is also on a three-year losing streak, so I need Gregory to beat someone a bit higher before I can find the courage to love again.

But then, this is Middleweight, where the guy we both agree to be #3 hasn’t fought in almost a year for no apparent reason and, if rumors are true, his next bout will be Kamaru Usman. This is a division where Kamaru Usman could be 1-1 as a Middleweight and also the #2 contender to its title. Rhyme nor reason have purchase here, this is simply a Place where things Happen and we must hide in the storm cellar until they tell us who the new Anderson Silva is this time.

I think, to some extent, my desire for competition makes me overrate the PFL’s competitors simply because it’s the division they’re putting actual effort into, but I do think Johnny Eblen could beat most of the UFC’s 185-pound division, so the combination of Edwards going the distance with him and smashing Impa Kasanganay, who almost beat Eblen, still does a lot for me.

Jess: I was unaware of that Dricus/Kamaru matchup rumor. I would like to lay down, now.

At least we both seem to agree that Joe Pyfer is vaguely fraudulent. I’m just glad we’re out of the doldrums of the Bad Divisions and can move on to talking about actually good fighters.

Carl: Seriously, though, Welterweight is so fucking good. Going from Middleweight to Welterweight is like Andy Dufresne crawling out of the Shawshank sewers right now. Every single person in the top ten is great and with the unfortunate example of the slowly falling Jack Della Maddalena, you can make a solid argument for how any one of them could credibly be a top contender within, at most, one more fight. It’s so easy to get deservedly cynical about the state of mixed martial arts right now, so having one weight class with a rock-solid top ten is great.

Like, even the differences in our top tens are fine. It’s a little unfortunate that Ramazan Kuramagomedov is officially retired now after finally getting his moment in the sun, but he definitely deserved to be there. Thad Jean’s got a ton of top ten potential. Myktybek Orolbai’s an awesome prospect. And, most importantly, neither of us ranks Mike Malott, because we are good, holy people.

I was going to ask about Kamaru Usman not making your list, but given the aforementioned likelihood that he’s a Middleweight now, I don’t know that it matters. So, instead, I’ll open with: Isn’t it nice when this sport doesn’t suck, is Thad Jean about to embark on a lengthy reign of PFL terror, and will you ever forgive Yaroslav Amosov for getting killed by Jason Jackson?

Jess: I do wish I had made the list after UFC 328, because Amosov dismantled Joel Alvarez so thoroughly, I would be obligated to put him just outside the top 10.

But look at these men. Not a dud among them! Islam Makhachev needs to get booked, but otherwise, the division is solid! And hey, I get it, if we’re talking inactivity, Shavkat has only fought twice in the last three years. Another guy that hopefully gets back in the cage more regularly.

Usman and Leon Edwards were at the bottom of my complete list, missing out on the top fifteen due to their recent slate of losses and only wins coming against Buckley, who’s okay but not great, and the stinkably bad Colby Covington. Though I know the slightly more older past speaks a lot for both men, but I put in a shorter cut off for evaluations.

Carl: I do miss Shavkat, but more than missing him, I am terrified of what happens when Shavkat comes back after multiple reconstructive surgeries and multiple years of gathering dust and it turns out now his knees don’t bend and he can’t beat Uros Medic.

Whatever my feelings on Usman and Edwards, I am okay rating Colby Covington for nothing, ever again. I have had too much of him for one damn lifetime. I can’t even enjoy him theoretically getting beaten up anymore. We’ve already seen it. There is nothing left for him to offer. Get thee hence. (Editor’s note: What do you know! He did.)

I think there’s one overarching question: How the hell do you unravel the contendership space? It seems like we’re headed for Islam vs Garry later this year, so where do you think Prates and Morales end up? Is there anything left to be done with Della Maddalena now that he’s in freefall? Does Sean Brady deserve another crack at the top? Are we about to have to deal with Top Ten Gabriel Bonfim?

Jess: Surely UFC’s welterweight division won’t see another promising prospect get a title shot postponed due to injury and then injuries and when he returns he’s a shell of his former self, right? RIGHT?

I think the question of UFC’s 170 lb title picture has two answers. There’s the logical answer we would provide, and then there’s whatever bullshit Hunter Campbell does.

Assuming Islam and Ian Machado lock horns, let me dig into the other questions. If you’re content burning a contender, Prates vs Morales in Brazil could be a possible title eliminator.

If JDM truly is on the downward arc of his career, you either let him gatekeep, against a returning Shavkat or possibly Amosov, or you use his “former champion” status as the last foothold bump for someone on the cusp of title contention, though I guess that’s what the Prates fight was.

I think we both know that Sean Brady lost his opportunity at the top with the loss to Michael Moraes. He will have to go on a Jon Fitchian level of dominance to get another shot. He’ll probably just get booked in rock fights with young guys until he stumbles again and then get black holed out of the top 15 per UFC decree.

Bonfim was one of about a clump of seven guys who have a decent win rate over recent years, but haven’t beaten anyone of consequence, so they just missed a spot in my rankings. I guess we’ll see how decrepit Belal Muhammad is in a few weeks.

Carl: I think you are right about Sean Brady and it irritates me deeply. They’re going to try to get Mike Malott in the top ten, and it’s going to involve either Brady, Buckley, or Leon Edwards, and preemptively, everyone involved should feel bad.

But I’ll also say this: If Belal Muhammad cannot defeat a man who got knocked out by Nicolas Dalby, I am quitting mixed martial arts and the next time we meet we are going to be ranking competitive snorkeling.

Jess: Lightweights, my beloved!

I went really hard on the B-League guys for Lightweight, but I abide by the WEC rule, which states that the little guys are really good everywhere. That being said, I am fine with the argument that everyone from Pimblett on down could get dumpstered for an Alfie Davis or a Salahdine Parnasse, whom, I fully admit: I forgot about you, dawg, I’m sorry!

The next time we convene for rankings, Arman Tsarukyan will have: More or Less Real American Freestyle wrestling matches than UFC fights? As we have another strong candidate for “matchmaking is trying to motherfuck this guy.”

Honestly, my only quibble with your list is Dan Hooker, and running it through, it turns out my question is actually: how good do you rate 2026 Jalin Turner? Hooker’s got split decision wins over him and Gamrot, and I’m fine with Gamrot, though he just missed my top 15 cut-off.

Carl: The Salahdine Parnasse situation is weird anyhow. He’s clearly, obviously one of the best Lightweights on the planet, but he’s also in that Phil De Fries position where there just isn’t much competition above him unless he gives up his freedom to sign with a bigger company, most of whom appear to be persistently lowballing him. I get the sense we may have him as a #10-15 fixture for a long time.

Arman has become the locus of my anger with Lightweight. We should be talking about 155 in the same breathless terms of endearment we use for 170, the talent is incredible and the matches are fantastic, it’s just the matchmaking that’s killing everything. Gaethje’s getting the title shot, Ilia wants to go to 170, Arman is banished to the negative zone, Oliveira’s stuck twiddling his thumbs and Holloway is, in theory, fighting Conor fucking McGregor at fucking Welterweight. The only people getting any matchmaking love are Benoit Saint-Denis and Paddy Pimblett and both of those statements are depressing in their own ways.

I think Hooker, Turner and Gamrot form an incredibly complicated Megazord at the outer rim of the top ten. Turner, himself, is a very similar case to the Dominick Reyes/Johnny Walker discussion we were having a few divisions ago: But for the coinflip whims of the judges, Turner could have been riding a split decision streak into the top five, and instead he got sad and let Renato Moicano beat him with libertarian economics and retired for a lil’ bit. So Hooker beating him counts some for me, but it’s the Gamrot win that’s really keeping him afloat right now. I don’t hold getting trounced by Arman against him too bad, but the Benoit loss really sent him down the ladder. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to hold him back for a big tall giraffe battle with Quillan Salkilld the next time they’re in Australia.

Similarly, let me ask you: Are you really willing to wound me, personally, emotionally, by rating Paddy Pimblett? Do you want me to cry?

Jess: I did say I’m willing to dumpster Paddy. The clump of “good amount of recent wins but nobody actually good” strikes again. At least Alfie Davis beat Gadzhi Rabadanov! At least I’ll be able to drop Pimblett after he loses in July, either to Saint-Denis, or more likely, Max Holloway after Conor pulls out of that fight.

Man, Sallkild versus Hooker makes me think of Shawn Michaels vs Ric Flair, only with far more use of the c-word.

If I get one Fantasy Booking wish for Lightweight, its an Oliveira vs Tsarukyan rematch for five rounds. My guess is that’s going to be sitting in UFC’s back pocket, ready for Ilia to head up to 170 after Fascism Fest in June.

Carl: I feel so bad for Alfie for running into the Usman Nurmagomedov wall. Honestly, instead of reflecting on Parnasse getting stuck, maybe we should’ve spared a thought for Usman. We’re both in agreement that dude’s on the shortlist of the best in the world, but unless he leaves the PFL, what on Earth is there for him left to do? His future is Paul Hughes rematches until the PFL finally gets an Irish champion five years too late for anyone to care.

Oliveira/Tsarukyan 2 feels plausible but I think in their heart of hearts the UFC is hoping a window of opportunity opens up for the house to win again. If Topuria goes to 170, if Gaethje retires like he’s kept talking about after he gets murdered by a Spaniard in front of the White House, if Max is busy at 170 with Conor, if Paddy beats BSD, all they have to do is say Arman vs Oliveira is for the #1 contendership, but in the meantime, Paddy Pimblett vs Michael Chandler 2 for the vacant Lightweight title. Unrelated to anything, by the by, I don’t sleep much anymore.

Also: I really liked that you ranked Akbar Abdullaev and that made it intensely hilarious when ONE cut him like 24 hours after you sent me your rankings.

Jess: I think Usman Nurmagomedov is in a similar spot as mid-title run DJ. His upcoming challengers are going to be pushed too fast, go into the fight underprepared for his skill set, and when Usman wins, the victories will be dismissed because “who was that, anyway?”

As for Akbar, clearly Chatri hates me, personally and is simply A Hater. For Abdullaev and the amorphous collection of ONE, PFL, KSW, and Rizin guys, they’re all just going to flounder for a while, I fear. Well, maybe Akbar can wriggle his way onto the Absolute Championship Akhmat card in June, which just so happens to be headlined by Alexander Shlemenko. That’s a new, viable career path, right?

If only we could have solidarity in the international regional scene and just get all these guys mushed together into one division.

Carl: The Jake Paul NWA model of mixed martial arts. God help us all that that’s our best hope for the future. And godspeed to you, Ilkhom Nazimov, who had one shining moment and will probably never be relevant again.

Carl: There’s a lot of neat things going on in the Featherweight division right now, but none of them mean as much to me as Movsar Evloev getting a title shot. It’s been silly for years now that he’s had to wait, it has progressed to being entirely beyond parody, and if somehow the rumors about Jean Silva getting the next crack at Alexander Volkanovski wind up being true the entire division is obligated to find him and throw him into a moat. I do not care which moat. It can be Ganryujima or it can be a twelfth-century castle. Get it done already. Christ alive.

Over the course of this discussion Arnold Allen reminded everyone that he does, in fact, still belong in the top Featherweight conversation by beating up poor Melquizael Costa, but there’s an awful lot of potential movement still happening, what with Aljo beating Yousef and Steve Garcia about to fight Diego Lopes. Speaking of: I gotta ask you about #3 Steve Garcia. Sing to me of the many punches with which he has punched punchmen.

Jess: The thing I like about the Steve Machine is when he punches a featherweight, they stay having had been punched. As for why he’s so high on my list, let me note that of the 17 featherweights I reviewed, 11 did not have a win over another fighter on my list. I probably should have cleared my head and pulled some more names, but that’s a lesson learned for next time.

Volk and Evloev were the obvious 1 and 2, it’s just a matter of how strongly the losses to now-larger Topuria and always larger Makhachev count against Volkanovski. For me, a little, but only just. The remaining fighters with wins over other notable opponents were Khizriev, Silva, Lopes, and Garcia.

Lopes is in a weird spot. He’s 6-Volk over the last three years, which, hell, any featherweight should be so lucky. He does have a win over Jean Silva, so I understand the argument that he should be higher. It’s not his fault that anyone Alexander Volkanovski is having a bad time, he goes down the street to beat a few more shades of shit out of Diego.

Silva has a gaudy 7-1 record in the last 3 years with the aforementioned loss to Lopes and a win over Arnold Allen. Allen’s stock has definitely improved, as I had him outside my top 15 due to limited activity, and only having managed a win over Giga Chikadze, while losing to Evloev and Jean Silva, a double whammy. Again, not damning losses, but most everyone else at 145 has much glossier records.

Khizriev is 6-0 in the past 3 years, a benefit of PFL’s tournament system. His notable win is Gabriel Braga, who in turn, is notable for his 7-3 record dating back to May 2023.

We finally get to Steve Garcia, with his own 5-0 run and a shiny win over Melq Costa, who is 7-1 over 36 months. Of the fighters discussed, Silva and Lopes have strong cases to usurp Garcia’s spot, and I probably will deemphasize the importance of a big fancy record if there’s nothing in it to offer structure or support.

I’m intrigued at your inclusion of your quasi-nemesis, Pat Sabatini. Glad to see you can put aside your utter indifference of him to recognize his storied accomplishment: beating Tucker Lutz.

Carl: Man, that is a thoroughly comprehensive breakdown. Middleweight could never. I am a big Mean Machine fan and I’m very interested to see how Garcia/Lopes goes, but it’s funny that I still rate him low when his best win is the same best win as Arnold Allen, whom I rate considerably higher, it’s just when Allen beat Calvin Kattar he still looked like he could potentially be a divisional staple and by the time Garcia did it Kattar’s career was a BJ Pennian tragedy sans the horrifying delusions and my deep-seated Chris Benoit redux fears.

I think, the way I look at rankings, it takes both a number of losses and/or some auspiciously poor losses to really jettison you once you’ve earned a top spot. Allen’s path to the upper echelon of the division was middling in name but long on execution, and since getting there the only people he’s lost to are champions or top contenders and he didn’t look bad against anyone but Max Holloway, who does that to everyone. Hell, some people had Allen beating Movsar. Am I among them? No. Do I think they need to accept the love of wrestling into their hearts? Probably! But he still did well enough that it’s thinkable by humans.

Similarly: Volk gets the top spot until someone knocks him out of it. However much I love Movsar, Volk’s Volk. He earned it. Or, y’know, reinherited it after Ilia neatly disposed of his undead body.

I like Timur Khizriev a lot, but I dropped him from my rankings in my last update because the flip-side of the “6-0 in the past 3 years” thing is he’s barely fought in the last three years. I know when we started the PSP rankings we had a rule that fighters got dropped after a year of inactivity, and with the realities of matchmaking and injuries I think that’s a little too strict, but I do think a year and a half is reasonable, and Khizriev’s right about at 18 months since his last fight. I’ll welcome him back with open arms when he’s ready, but until then, we need to see other people.

I do not want to rate Pat Sabatini. I really don’t. It rankles me. It darkens my humours. But he’s on a solid run, his only loss in almost four years was Diego Lopes, and Jonathan Pearce->Joanderson Brito->Chepe Mariscal->William Gomis is a really good run over the periphery of the UFC’s Featherweight roost. It’s not going to get him into the top of the heap--I think he’s stuck until he shows he can hang with someone who’s actually on the list--but it’s worth scraping the bottom of the barrel. Fuck you, Pat. Welcome to the party.

Let me riposte with the Rizin representation on this list. Razhabali Shaydullaev is a bad motherfucker and I think he absolutely deserves his top ten hype. He’s already calling out Luiz Gustavo for the Lightweight title and I’d favor the hell out of him in that fight, and should he win I’m not sure there’s anything left for him to do in Japan. But: I have to ask if Top Ten Kyoma Akimoto exists for a reason other than how hard it is to finally, truly give up on Patchy Mix.

Jess: I will disavow Patchy Mix when I go into the fucking ground.

Carl: We have to give Patchy up. We gotta. We must protect our hearts. The Patchy days are lost.

Jess: I do feel awkward rating Rizin fighters because I have become incapable of either staying up late or getting up so early to actually watch Rizin live any more. I can maybe manage a little bit of NYE JMMA, but I know I can maybe make it to about 1:30 AM otherwise, and I don’t see the point in watching the first five prelim bouts, before the first of three intermissions kicks off. I’m so sorry, Rizin, I’m so sorry Nobuhiko Takada, and I’m sorry most of all to Lenne Hardt for failing you.

I would ask for a PFL vs Rizin crossover, similar to the Bellator X Rizin experiments of a few years ago, but knowing PFL, they would put it on a card in Qatar on a Tuesday morning and I still wouldn’t be able to watch.

But, hey, I’ve got AJ McKee and you’ve got Aaron Pico ranked to keep a flicker of the Bellator flame still burning. And both of those guys have too much of Bellator lore baked into them for me to evaluate either of them properly. I think my brain automatically wants to push Pico aside for his losses as a hyped prospect, while I subconsciously lift up McKee for the cool finishes he no longer pulls off.

Carl: Honestly, given how the PFL is struggling to get traction, I think crosspromotion would do them both good. What’s left to lose? Give me Shaydullaev and McKee. Let’s see if he can steamroll people who are a bit better at wrestling.

I gotta say, I resent ranking Pico almost as much as I resent Sabatini. I hate it any time such a conscious attempt at forced marketing works out. But he beat Pitbull, so what can you fucking do. I can’t wait for them to force Brian Ortega to put off his 155 move for yet another year so Pico can get one more win over a broken husk. Bellator never die, but as it did in life, Bellator never improve, either.