The Horrifying & Brutal Reign of VACANT, Part 3
Three years on, and VACANT remains the winningest MMA champion ever.
Three years ago I put together a pair of articles about the MMA phenom simply known as VACANT, you can find Part 1 and Part 2 here to catch up.
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 (?)