THE PUNCHSPORT REPORT FOR AUGUST 2025

We made it through July, and our reward was Costello van Steenis.

Welcome to August. The Summer is waning, the trees are breathing their last easy breath, and you should already know what your Halloween costume this year is going to be. Rizin and Invicta are taking a break and ONE's only got one 'real' show, so this month is all about the PFL ending its first official regular tournaments and a handful of UFCs, although the last of the month will be starting at like four in the damn morning.

THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

• UFC on ESPN: Albazi vs Taira, August 2

• UFC on ESPN Dolidze vs Hernandez, August 9

• UFC 319: du Plessis vs Chimaev, August 16

• UFC Fight Night: Walker vs Zhang, August 23

• ONE Fight Night 34: Eersel vs Jarvis, August 2

• PFL 8, August 1

• PFL Africa 2, August 9

• PFL 9, August 15

• PFL 10, August 21

IS THERE ANY NEWS

As we have long feared, thanks to congressfolks Brian Jack and Sharice Davids, we were introduced to the UFC's attempt to kill the Ali Act, maybe the only substantive form of legal protection combat sports have to offer. The Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act is exactly the kind of bullshit one would expect from something that deceptively named, and you can read it for yourself here, but Zach Arnold over at The MMA Draw has a solid breakdown of just how bad this is. In short: Private companies get to make their own sanctioning bodies that do whatever they want, at the cost of a mandatory minimum pay of $150 per round for its boxers and the use of the UFC's gyms. This is in fact so specifically meant for the UFC that you have to operate your own network of gyms/health centers to qualify.

It is essentially Fuck You, Pay Us in legal form, and watching the rest of Congress inevitably shrug and pass it is going to give me an aneurysm. Look forward to continuing coverage from my hospital bed.

As announced by the fucking President, the UFC is planning to put on an official event at the White House next year for Independence Day. Jon Jones and Conor McGregor have both jumped at the chance to be relevant again, and in our beyond-parody world a mixed martial arts event being put on as a Republican propaganda campaign on the paved-over Rose Garden is somehow just a regular thing. We'll probably have to talk about this multiple times over the next twelve months and there'll be plenty of time to get mad about it, but at this point, all I really want to express is my endless, withering wellspring of exhaustion at all the people who used to get mad at sportswriters for 'making the sport political' who have nothing to say about this.

On June 29, Sean Strickland training partner Miles "Gunslinger" Hunsinger got choked out by Luis "The Stache" Hernandez at a Tuff-N-Uff event in Vegas. Having already traded barbs back and forth, Luis celebrated the win by crotch-chopping in Strickland's general direction, and Strickland (and Chris Curtis) replied by storming the cage. Curtis got in Luis's face to yell at him; Strickland immediately assaulted Luis with a pair of suckerpunches. (Unsurprisingly, they didn't do much.) The Nevada State Athletic Commission was supposed to hear Strickland's case for punishment this month, but they shoved it off to an indeterminate point in the future and chose to simply suspend Sean Strickland indefinitely, pending whatever decision is ultimately made. As always: Fuck 'em.

Last November, Conor McGregor was found civilly liable for sexually assaulting Nikita Hand. He swore he would appeal the ruling and prove to the world that he was innocent and that his victim was a gold-digging liar. On July 31, he lost the appeal. Conor McGregor is still a rapist and he still owes Nikita Hand a quarter of a million dollars.

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WHAT HAPPENED IN JULY

PFL MENA 2 started the month on the 4th, but for one, I do not know a single person who watched it. I'm sure MENA is getting headway for them in the market and I'm sure they're getting cash from the KSA, but I did not see a lot of discusssion about Omar El Dafrawy tapping out Daniele Miceli, and I hope it means something to their bottom line. PFL Europe 2 was a day later on the 5th, and it was kind of tghe same story. It's cool that Taylor Lapilus won a fight, and the PFL wanted the debut of Danny Roberts to be a big deal so it's unfortunate that Patrick Habirora kicked his head off, but what can you do.

Similarly our one ONE appearance for the month came from ONE Fight Night 33: Rodrigues vs Persson, and I feel like every month I fight a war against b-league summarization and every month I lose a little more ground. ONE released a bunch of fighters this month and several of their top MMA fighters made tongue-in-cheek social media posts wondering aloud how they could get released too, because the state of their booking is just so fucking bad. Allycia Rodrigues knocked out Johanna Persson to retain the ONE Women's Atomweight Muay Thai Championship and I guess that's fine.

The UFC's late start to the month came on July 12 with UFC on ESPN: Lewis vs Teixeira, a particularly weird card with a lot of particularly weird stuff on it. On the prelims, Fatima Kline knocked out an inexplicably non-wrestling Melissa Martinez, Mike Davis kneed Mitch Ramirez to death in two rounds, Valter Walker scored his third consecutive Heavyweight heel hook over Kenned Nzechukwu, Eduardo Moura retired Lauren Murphy with a decision, Jake Matthews choked out Chidi Njokuani in just about one minute and Chris Curtis managed to edge a split decision past Max Griffin. Up top, Tuco Tokkos managed to arm triangle Junior Tafa, Vitor Petrino choked out Austen Lane, Morgan Charrière punched out Nate Landwehr in the third round, Steve Garcia pitched a shut-out against Calvin Kattar, and Gabriel Bonfim won a controversial decision over Stephen Thompson. The main event was the UFC's attempt to launch Tallison Teixeira as an instant main-event talent by feeding Derrick Lewis to him, and Lewis knocked him out in thirty-five seconds instead.

The PFL held their second 'real' show of the year, PFL Champions Series 2: Eblen vs van Steenis, on the 19th. The first half of the show consisted of the quarterfinals for the 2025 PFL Africa tournament, and it was a real, real good time that managed to cram a between-rounds stoppage, a DQ, and a 30-25 round into just nine fights, but most eyes were on the main card. Corey Anderson went up to Heavyweight and pounded out 2024 PFL champion Denis Goltsov in two rounds, Makkasharip Zaynukov got a decision over Takeshi Izumi, AJ McKee dropped back down to Featherweight to outgrapple Akhmed Magomedov, and Dakota Ditcheva beat the stuffing out of Sumiko Inaba and won a clear 30-27 but couldn't find the stoppage. The main event was for the first-ever PFL Middleweight World Championship, as undefeated Bellator champ Johnny Eblen fought to convert his title against Costello van Steenis, but Eblen gassed in the closing rounds and ultimately got choked out with just nine seconds left, making Costello the first-ever standing PFL champion.

Our single pay-per-view for the month came in Dustin Poirier's swan song, UFC 318: Holloway vs Poirier 3, later that day. On your early prelims: Carli Judice chewed up Nicolle Claiari before stopping her with a real nice step-in knee to the body in the third round, Bruno Ferreira notched an armbar over Jackson McVey, Ryan Spann choked out Łukasz Brzeski, Jimmy Crute got through some kicks to tap Marcin Prachnio, and Islam Dulatov knocked out Adam Fugitt in a round. On the regular prelims, Ateba Gautier destroyed Robert Valentin in a minute and change, Nikolay Veretennikov got a close split over Francisco Prado, Brendan Allen got the duke over Marvin Vettori, and Vinicius Oliveira won a surprisingly competitive decision against Kyler Phillips. The main card was 100% decisions: Michael Johnson getting the upset over Daniel Zellhuber, Patrício Pitbull narrowly passing Dan Ige, Daniel Rodriguez getting a comeback decision over Kevin Holland, and Paulo Costa laying a shellacking on Roman Kopylov. But the main event was the one that mattered, and Dustin Poirier put up a real good brawl in his retirement fight but ultimately ended it by losing to Max Holloway.

The last UFC for the month was UFC on ABC: Whittaker vs de Ridder on the 26th, a card that was, uh, mostly weird and infuriating. Down below: Martin Buday won a gassy Heavyweight decision over the debuting Marcus Buchecha, Steven Nguyen broke the knockdown record in his savaging of Mohammad Yahya, Billy Elekana won a deeply uneventful bout with Ibo Aslan, Tabatha Ricci broke Amanda Ribas with elbows in two rounds, Davey Grant managed to outstrike Da'Mon Blackshear to a 29-28, Muslim Salikhov flattened Carlos Leal with one punch in about forty seconds, and Bryce Mitchell got the nod over Said Nurmagomedov. Up above: Bogdan Guskov knocked out Nikita Krylov, Asu Almabayev got a decision over José Ochoa, Shara Magomedov survived getting his nose flattened to still shut out Marc-André Barriault, and Petr Yan battered Marcus McGhee to a unanimous decision. The main was a back-and-forth between Robert Whittaker and Reinier de Ridder that included a bunch of body-mangling knees, some real distressing gassing, and Reinier having to cheat and hook Rob's gloves to survive after Rob dropped him, but ultimately RDR came away with the split decision.

But the month itself ended with Super Rizin 4 on July 27. As with their usual Super Rizin format, the card was a behemoth that came in at 18 total bouts, but the first real highlights were the quarterfinals of the Flyweight Grand Prix, which saw Yuki Motoya, Hiromasa Ougikubo, Yuki Ito, Alibek Gadzhammatov and Makoto Takahashi all advance, and the semifinals of the Heavyweight Grand Prix, which were much less fun and saw Marek Samociuk and Alexander Soldatkin move on. Your pre-intermission main card saw Moeri Suda armbar Noeru Narita, Tatsuya Ando choke out Ji-yong Yang, Seika Izawa easily subbing Yu-jin Shin and Naoki Inoue defending his Rizin Bantamweight Championship with a decision over Ryuya Fukuda; your real main card saw Kyoma AKimoto beat Koki Akada, YA-MAN knock out a retiring Masanori Kanehara, Shunta Nomura get the nod over Patricky Pitbull, and Mikuru Asakura notch a split decision over Kleber Koike Ebrst.

WHAT'S COMING IN AUGUST

We're off to a start on the 1st with PFL 8. Unlike the way previous seasons have worked, thanks to our new single-elimination format, we're already to tournament finals, which means a lot of other fights on these cards aren't really much, unless you're really into Nathan Kelly vs Frederik Dupras or Jakub Kaszuba vs Sergio Cossio. Your main card here will have Jordan Newman vs Eslam Abdul Baset and Asaël Adjoudj vs Yves Landu, but your actual finals have Movlid Khaybulaev and Jesus Pinedo fighting for the 2025 Featherweight tournament, and in your main event, Thad Jean vs Logan Storley at Welterweight.

August 2 gets us ONE Fight Night 34: Eersel vs Jarvis. Did you hear that the whole thing with Stamp Fairtex getting stripped of her title won up being pointless? I have this conspiracy theory that they were simply evacuating her from their MMA divisions as they continue to slowly shoot them behind their great Singaporean barn. There are two separate Heavyweight MMA matches on this card, which is pretty funny, in Ji-won Kang vs Ryugo Takeuchi and Ben Tynan vs Kirill Grishenko, and Garry Tonon is fighting Shamil Gasanov in the co-main, which should be funny. Your main event is a Lightweight Muay Thai Championship match between champ Regian Eersel and Georges Jarvis, which I know virtually nothing about.

Later that day, we're back to the Apex for UFC on ESPN: Taira vs Park. This has been tortured with pullouts and replacements, and as of now and, god willing, fight night, your prelims are highlighted by Piera Rodriguez vs Ketlen Souza, Rodolfo Vieira vs Tresean Gore and Rinya Nakamura vs Nathan Fletcher, and your main card will have Danny Silva taking on Kevin Vallejos, Neil Magny and Elizeu Zaleski doing battle in a fight that could have happened a decade ago, Karol Rosa vs Nora Cornolle, Elves Brenner vs Esteban Ribovics, and Mateusz Rębecki vs Chris Duncan. Tatsuro Taira was supposed to meet Amir Albazi for a top ten contendership matchup in the main event, but Albazi couldn't get medically cleared, so now it's the unranked Hyun-sung Park instead.

August 9 brings us PFL Africa 2. I waited until the last minute to keep updating this and there are still only six fights announced. It's the quarterfinals of the PFL Africa Featherweight and Welterweight tournaments and they don't currently have enough fights to fill out a bracket and the month ends in twelve hours. God bless reckless expansion.

That evening, we are finishing our two weeks of purgatory in the Apex with UFC on ESPN: Dolidze vs Hernandez. This card is coming in hot, too, with prelims like Julis Walker vs Raffael Cerqueira and Joselyne Edwards vs Priscila Cachoeira to hold it down, but don't worry, because the main card has Eryk Anders on it. Eryk Anders! Also, Miles Johns vs Jean Matsumoto, Andre Fili vs Christian Rodriguez, and Iasmin Lucindo vs Angela Hill. But the Roman Dolidze vs Anthony Hernandez main event should rule.

On the 15th, we are back to the PFL for PFL 9. There are a couple fun fights on the prelims this time around--mostly Biaggio Ali Walsh trying to get a quick turnaround form his first career loss against Adryan Grundy and Juliana Velasquez vs Ekaterina Shakalova--and the main card has one fun fight on it in Mads Burnell vs Robert Watley. But you are mainly here for three finals: At Bantamwieght, it's Marcirley Alves vs Justin Wetzell, at Women's Flyweight you've got Liz Carmouche vs Jena Bishop, and in your Lightweight main event, Gadzhi Rabadanov vs Alfie Davis.

The month's pay-per-view comes the next day on the 16th in the form of UFC 319: du Plessis vs Chimaev. This card, for once, is an all-bangers affair. Down on the early prelims, it's Karine Silva vs JJ Aldrich, Bryan Battle vs Nursulton Ruziboev, and Edson Barboza vs Drakkar Klose. On the regular prelims, you've got Chase Hooper vs Alexander Hernandez, Jéssica Andrade vs Loopy Godinez, Gerald Meerschaert vs Michał Oleksiejczuk, and King Green vs Diego Ferreira. Your pay-per-view main card: Tim Elliott vs Kai Asakura, Jared Cannonier vs Michael "Venom" Page, Geoff Neal vs Carlos Prates, and Lerone Murphy vs Aaron Pico. In your main event, Dricus du Plessis defends the UFC Middleweight Championship against Khamzat Chimaev, and we all hold our breath to see if we have a champion who's only capable of fighting once a year.

Your final PFL event for the season is PFL 10 on the 21st. They're blowing it out a bit at the end so you've got a few more fun matches--Josh Silveira vs Murad Ramazanov, Sergey Bilostenniy vs Karl Williams and Impa Kasanganay vs Andrew Sanchez among them--and, in a moment of hilarious disrespect, the Heavyweight tournament final, Alexandr Romanov vs Oleg Popov, is currently scheduled for the prelims instead of the main card. Your Light Heavyweight final will see Sullivan Cauley vs our good buddy Shoeface, and the main event slot this year goes to Middleweight, where Fabian Edwards fights Dalton Rosta.

And the monith ends in Shanghai, with UFC Fight Night: Walker vs Zhang, on the 23rd. This starts at 4 AM Pacific, so this card is not really meant for the American audience, but it's got some real fun stuff on it. Sumudaerji vs Kevin Borjas, Lone'er Kavanagh vs Charles Johnson, Marco Tulio vs Michel Pereira, Rongzhu vs Austin Hubbard, Song Kenan vs Kiefer Crosbie--you could do worse. Your topline has Sergei Pavlovich vs Waldo Cortes-Acosta, Brian Ortega vs Aljamain Sterling, and in the main event, Johnny Walker vs Zhang Mingyang.

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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Tom Aspinall - 15-3, 1 Defense

You know, once upon a time, the UFC would've killed for a Tom Aspinall. Entire years of UFC events were spent desperately trying to get a Dan Hardy or Darren Till or Jimi Manuwa into championship pictures so they could cash in on UK superstardom. And somehow, Tom Aspinall just fell into their lap. They didn't go out of their way to softball him, they didn't put a ton of effort into marketing him, they just let him mulch everyone in his path. In 2025, Tallison Teixeira has a main event in just his second UFC bout: In 2022 Tom Aspinall had to notch five straight stoppages to get his first crack at the top of the card against Curtis Blaydes, and it ended with his knee imploding fifteen seconds into the fight. When he lost that fight, Francis Ngannou was the reigning UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World. By the time Tom returned in the Summer of 2023, it belonged to Jon fucking Jones. Within one fight Aspinall was a top contender again, and with Jon comically scheduled to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who hadn't fought in two and a half years, Aspinall was left in a holding pattern--until Jon injured himself in training. With barely two weeks to prepare, Tom Aspinall fought Sergei Pavlovich for an interim championship. Sergei was the most devastating knockout artist in the Heavyweight division: Tom knocked him out in sixty-nine seconds. Not only did it give him gold, it gave him a golden ticket. The sole purpose of an interim champion is to one day reunify the belts, and that meant Tom had a shot at Jon Jones, one of the biggest fighters in the history of the sport. All he had to do was wait. And wait. And wait. Tom waited so fucking long the UFC made him defend his interim title in a rematch with Blaydes--which he won easily, knocking him out in 60 seconds--on July 27, 2024. Four months later, Jon Jones returned and had his fight with Stipe, who by that point had been effectively retired for almost four years. Unsurprisingly, Jon won. Equally unsurprisingly, Jon and the UFC refused to commit to fighting Aspinall. Jones reportedly held the UFC up for a huge payday, and when they shockingly agreed, he changed his mind. In the end, the most obvious pair of conclusions happened: On June 21st, during the press conference after Fight Night Baku, Dana White announced Jon was retiring and Tom was being promoted to Undisputed Champion; an hour later, coincidentally, news broke that Jon was being summoned for arraignment in July on charges of leaving the scene of an accident after drunkenly crashing another car and leaving another heavily-inebriated half-naked woman behind in it and also threatening the police over the phone when they called him. It is the only way the Jon Jones story could possibly have ended. Tom Aspinall was an interim champion for 588 days, and despite already having an interim title defense to his name, he'll try for his first undisputed one when he faces Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on October 26.

Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Magomed Ankalaev - 20-1-1 (1), 0 Defenses

Took 'em long enough. Magomed Ankalaev's title fight came just one week too early to mark seven years since his UFC debut, in which a young, undefeated Combat Sambo champion hopped into the biggest fighting company in the world, dominated Paul Craig for 14 minutes and 53 seconds, and somehow managed to get himself submitted in those last seven seconds anyway. It was shocking, it was embarrassing, and it was the last time Magomed allowed himself to lose a fight. For the next four years Ankalaev beat everyone in his path, and in 2022, after the Light Heavyweight Championship was vacated, Ankalaev finally got a well-deserved shot against Jan Błachowicz and won! On almost all of the media scorecards. For the judges, it was inexplicably a draw, which meant no champion and a very, very angry Dana White who blamed the fighters, as he does. Rather than a rematch or a fight against new champion Jamahal Hill, Ankalaev was put on ice for a year and busted back down to contendership clashes--which also went weird, as he blasted Johnny Walker with an illegal knee and got a No Contest for it. They rematched, Ankalaev destroyed him in two rounds, and the world waited for the now inevitable and clearly logical match with new champion Alex Pereira. And they did not get it. In yet another example of egregious matchmaking, the UFC kept Ankalaev on ice for almost the entire year while Pereira had rematches and fill-ins, and then, in October, they booked Pereira and Ankalaev to fight within three weeks of one another. Ankalaev dominated Aleksandar Rakić, a top contender; Pereira beat Khalil Rountree Jr., who was one fight separated from beating up Chris Daukaus. Much to the UFC's chagrin, the public narrative shifted largely to the perception that they were protecting Pereira from Ankalaev out of fear that he would beat their star, which was cruel and disrespectful and also pretty true. The world finally got to find out at UFC 313 on March 8, and it was close--closer than most thought it would be no matter who they favored to win--but the UFC's least favorite internet haters wound up being right again. Ankalaev tanked Pereira's leg kicks, disarmed his footwork with forward pressure, kept him afraid of his wrestling and even stung him repeatedly with his boxing, and at the end of the night, he went home with a unanimous decision and the belt. It took two and a half years longer than it should have, but Magomed Ankalaev finally got his title and he did it by beating one of the UFC's favorite sons. Ankalaev was supposed to have a rematch with Pereira this Summer but Pereira couldn't make it, and in a reminder of how marketing works, rather than having Ankalaev fight anyone, they decided to simply wait it out. It'll be Ankalaev/Pereira 2 at UFC 320 on October 4.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Dricus du Plessis - 23-2, 2 Defenses

Middleweight's fucking wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds. As of this writing (February 1, 2024) we've had five separate Middleweight champions in less than fifteen months. Divisional king Israel Adesanya dropped the belt to his nemesis Alex Pereira, Adesanya dropped Pereira himself in an immediate rematch, and in one of 2023's bigger upsets, Adesanya lost his belt to human exclusion zone Sean Strickland. But that shot, initially, didn't belong to him: It belonged to Dricus du Plessis. Dricus joined the UFC in 2020 as one of the international scene's best prospects--a two-division champion in his native South Africa's Extreme Fighting Championship, a Welterweight champion in Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, and a finishing machine who'd never gone to a decision in his life. The spotlight of the UFC gave him two new reputations: For one, as an exceptionally awkward-looking fighter who could appear shaky and exhausted and still easily knock anyone out, and for two, as a guy with real uncomfortable feelings about his homeland. Shortly after his debut Dricus du Plessis began making comments about becoming the first "real" African champion in the UFC, citing the way fighters like Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou had left the country, and, boy, there's just no way to get around the topic that isn't gross as hell. But du Plessis knocked #1 contender Robert Whittaker dead, so it didn't matter. He was in pole position. And then he lost it, because he wanted more than a month to prepare for a world championship fight and the UFC decided that just wouldn't fly. A fully-trained du Plessis stepped into the cage against his replacement and now-champion Sean Strickland on January 20 at UFC 297, and after a close fight and a split decision, du Plessis brought the belt back to South Africa just like he promised. The UFC decided to go right back to their original racially uncomfortable plan and book du Plessis vs Adesanya at UFC 305 on August 17, and after a good, back-and-forth battle, du Plessis emerged victorious with a fourth-round submission. He is the first man to defend the Middleweight title in two years and four reigns, and after UFC 312 on February 8th, he became just the fifth man to ever record multiple defenses of it thanks to a one-sided decision in his rematch with Strickland. The fireworks factory is next: du Plessis vs Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 319 on August 16.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Jack Della Maddalena - 18-2, 0 Defenses

Three years ago I wrote that the UFC would throw hundreds of fighters into the meat grinder of the Contender Series if it meant finding one Jack Della Maddalena, and three years later, he has justified their efforts. Jack was picked up as a striking-heavy, wrestling-allergic Australian boxing machine who dropped the first two fights of his career and never sniffed a loss again, and contrary to what I write about most UFC marketing darlings, they did not give him an easy path. He was fighting seasoned veterans and tough competitors two fights into his tenure with the company, and more impressively, he was stopping all of them. Ramazan Emeev, Danny Roberts, Randy Brown, he clocked all of them in a single round. And then he almost got wrestled to death by a regional replacement named Bassil Hafez and barely got to a split decision with Kevin Holland, and even in victory, the wheels seemed to be coming off the hype train. By the time Jack got to his top ten fight with Gilbert Burns in 2024 people were far less certain about his championship prospects, and for most of the fight they were right. With less than a minute and a half left in the fight, Jack was being outgrappled and outworked and was en route to having his winning streak snapped by a decision. And then he swept Gilbert, kneed him in the head and knocked him out. He wasn't supposed to get a shot at the title--he was booked in against former champ Leon Edwards. But Shavkat Rakhmonov got injured, and cards got shuffled, and suddenly, Jack Della Maddalena had a shot at Belal Muhammad. The conventional wisdom saw it was nearly inevitable that Belal would grind him into dirt, given all of Jack's historical problems with wrestling and Belal having the market cornered on the strategy. But the planets aligned for the UFC. Jack busted his ass improving his takedown defense, and Belal fell in love with his hands and didn't pressure him the way he was intending to, and at the end of five rounds, Jack took a unanimous decision, knocked off the company's least favorite champion, and added another world championship to the arguments people inevitably make for why the Contender Series is actually good. In yet another case of good fortune, Jack has also managed to inherit a superfight. Lightweight champion Islam Makhachev had long discussed his plans of challenging for the Welterweight title, but he did not want to fight Belal given their past as training partners and friends. The UFC openly announced that Belal/Jack would determine the fate of two belts--if Belal won, Islam would have stayed at 155 and defended the gate against Ilia Topuria. Instead, Islam left the Lightweight division and will be facing Jack in a champion vs ex-champion bout later this year. If Jack loses, he is a footnote in the Islam Makhachev story and his win will be completely overshadowed; if he wins, he slew one of the sport's pound-for-pound greats and he reinforces that weight classes exist for a reason. We'll find out sometime this Fall.

Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Ilia Topuria - 17-0, 0 Defenses

One of the most exciting things about following mixed martial arts is picking which prospects you really, truly believe in. There are hundreds of fighters across history that you will enjoy watching, and you may have some hopes for their future, but you don't necessarily expect the world from them. When Ilia Topuria showed up in the UFC in 2020, if you were paying attention, you knew he was going to be special. The combination of wrestling, grappling and absolutely murderous striking was almost immediately visible, but what really set him apart was the unshakable confidence with which he used it. Even when he went up to 155 pounds on short notice and almost got knocked out by Jai Herbert he survived the onslaught, recovered, came right back at him as though he was utterly unfazed and destroyed Herbert seconds later. That was the truly exceptional danger of Ilia Topuria: His belief in his technique was so absurdly complete that it came across as absurdly silly arrogance and it made huge swaths of the audience disdain him and then he'd somehow always find a way to just go do the damn thing anyway. He outgrappled Ryan Hall. He submitted Bryce Mitchell. He beat Josh Emmett so badly he got a 50-42 scorecard out of it. And on February 17, 2024, he ended Alexander Volkanovski's historic, nearly-four-year reign as the king of Featherweight by knocking him out in two rounds. When Ilia followed that up by saying he was going to become the first man to ever knock out Max Holloway--a thing Volkanovski, Dustin Poirier, José Aldo and Conor McGregor failed to do--even with his title victory, the audience was still particularly skeptical. He did it anyway. Once again, Ilia walked into a fight with supreme confidence, and once again, it ended with his opponent on the floor, this time in three rounds. Ilia Topuria had knocked out the two greatest Featherweights of the generation and seemed poised for a longer title reign than either of them. And then he quit the division. One of those first overconfident boasts of his had been the desire to move up to Lightweight and knock out Islam Makhachev to become a double champion. The MMA world thought he was talking about a far-away future, but he wanted it and he wanted it now. Unfortunately, so did Islam. Right as Ilia vacated the Featherweight title to move up to Lightweight, Islam vacated the Lightweight title to move up to Welterweight. So Ilia was left to fight for his destiny against Charles Oliveira instead. Oliveira's always been incredibly tough and dangerous, and he hadn't been knocked out in almost eight years, and even then it wasn't unconsciousness but rather because a Paul Felder elbow had broken part of his face. That streak ended on June 28, 2025 when Ilia Topuria punched him limp in two and a half minutes. The UFC may not do double-champions anymore out of sheer promotional frustration, but in any rational sense, Ilia is the king of Featherweight and Lightweight, which gives him a horde of contenders like Arman Tsarukyan, Justin Gaethje, Dan Hooker and Mateusz Gamrot. So he appears to be fighting Paddy Pimblett next. If you ask Ilia, he's just killing time until Islam wins the Welterweight title, because his destiny is to take his 5'7" frame all the way up to Welterweight so he can kill the king and be the first ever three-division champion in UFC history. Does it sound aggressively silly and arrogant? Of course it does. Do you feel comfortable ruling it out? Then you haven't been paying attention.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 27-4, 0 Defenses

And just like that, 2024 never happened. For eleven years Alexander Volkanovski was the best Featherweight on the planet, and most of that time was simply waiting for everyone else to notice. He was short and he won by decisions a lot and the world was entirely into Max Holloway so he skated under the radar right up until the moment he finally beat Max. And that wasn't enough to convince people, so Volkanovski beat him again. And that somehow made the world doubt him even more, so he beat Max a third time. By 2023 Volk was second only to all-time great José Aldo in Featherweight title defenses--and he'd beaten Aldo in a fight, and his only actual loss was an all-timer of an effort against Islam Makhachev that still stands as the closest Islam has come to losing his title as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, so it was very, very easy to accept Alexander Volkanovski as the greatest Featherweight on the planet. And then he took a rematch with Islam with only one week to prepare and got knocked out in three minutes, and then he came back less than four months later and got flattened by Ilia Topuria, and in the space of two fights the audience went from celebrating him as the best around to calling for his retirement. Volkanovski took an entire year off to heal and rebuild, which was enough time for Ilia to get bored and vacate the belt to go chase Lightweight greatness, and the Topuria/Volkanovski rematch became Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes at UFC 314 on April 12 to fill the vacant throne instead. It was somehow both close and clear. Lopes gained steam in the middle stanza of the bout and at one point dropped Volk, but Volk got right back up and resumed punching him in the face, and by the end of the bout he'd outlanded him more than two to one. The judges sided with him, the audience sided with him, and Alexander Volkanovski became not just one of the rare few to win back a UFC title, but the first man over 35 to ever win a UFC belt in the sub-170 weight classes typically reserved for young lions. His logical next contender should be Movsar Evloev, but the UFC has booked him to fight an unranked, debuting Aaron Pico, thus clearing the way for a rematch with Yair Rodríguez in Guadalajara for Noche UFC 3 in September. Except the Arena Guadalajara isn't done yet, so Noche UFC 3 has been moved to the most Mexican of places, Las Vegas, in October. And Alex's manager says he has an eye injury that needs time to heal. Welcome back to the slow lane, Featherweight.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Merab Dvalishvili - 20-4, 2 Defenses

2024 was the year of belated championship justice, and for Merab Dvalishvili, justice has been hard to find. Merab spent his childhood training to wrestle, grapple and fight in his native Georgia, but as a devout fan of mixed martial arts he knew he needed to sacrifice his homeland to secure a future in the sport. More than Georgia, he needed Matt Serra and Ray Longo yelling at him in New York English. Merab's MMA career officially began with a 1-2 record in 2014, and there's an argument to be made that said rookie year is the last time he legitimately lost a fight. By 2017 he was already heralded as an unsigned prospect, and then he made, and lost, his UFC debut--but it was a split decision to Frankie Saenz, and, unsurprisingly, almost all the media scorecards had it in Merab's favor. One fight later he met Ricky Simón, and this time he clearly won a decision--but he had been stuck in a guillotine choke at the end of the fight, and in one of the most batshit endings to a fight I have ever seen, the referee ruled that he was retroactively unconscious after the fight had already ended. Merab had made it to the big show, and Merab was 0-2, and Merab was, to most of the world, already an afterthought. So he started wrestling as hard as he fucking could. Between 2018 and the midpoint of 2024 Merab ran up an astonishing ten-fight winning streak in one of the most talent-rich divisions in the sport. He made himself undeniable as one of the best in the world, and in 2022 he retired one of the greatest in all time, José Aldo, and made himself undeniable as a top contender. There was a problem: He didn't want the contendership. Aljamain Sterling was his good friend, best training partner, and the reigning champion, and Merab had no interest in fighting him, and that made the UFC furious. So when Aljo lost the title in 2023, the UFC denied Merab the shot he had clearly earned and handed it off to Marlon Vera instead. Merab kept winning, and the UFC kept trying to put space between his contendership and promotional favorite Sean O'Malley, but the road ran out on September 14, 2024, when Merab wrestled O'Malley into dust in front of the very tired audience of the Sphere. He's the champion, he has avenged his best friend, on January 18, he became cemented his legacy with a defense. After months of angry back-and-forths about preferential treatment from management, the undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov got the shot and Merab was a +300 underdog as a champion. By the end of the fight he was literally pointing and laughing at Umar as he cruised to a decision. Not only is Merab now a defending champion, he's in the odd position of having beaten all of his top contenders. But with Cory Sandhagen facing Deiveson Figueiredo, the UFC getting its way was officially inevitable. With a total record of 0 fights since losing their first match, Sean O'Malley somehow still got a second crack at Merab at UFC 316 on June 7, and despite the UFC's hopes it went even worse for him: After a competitive first two rounds, Merab hulked up and destroyed him in the third, savaging him on the ground for four minutes before choking him out. The Sean O'Malley era is officially over, and after the fight Merab called out Cory Sandhagen for his own long-deserved shot at the belt, which will officially happen at UFC 320 on October 4. If Merab wins, he ties teammate Aljamain Sterling's record for the most defenses the Bantamweight title has ever seen.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Alexandre Pantoja - 30-5, 4 Defenses

Sometimes, you just have everyone's number. Brandon Moreno spent years fighting through a quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, and unfortunately for him, he had another trilogy waiting for him the second it was over. Alexandre "The Cannibal" Pantoja was Moreno's personal bogeyman, a man who'd fought and beaten him twice. But one of those fights was an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter, and the other was against a Moreno with five less years of evolution and growth. Surely, a third fight in 2023 would be different. And it was--unlike the previous, one-sided dominations it was a fight-of-the-year candidate that took both men to their limit and led to a split decision--but its ending was not. Alexander Pantoja scored a third victory over Moreno, and with it, after sixteen years of competition, he finally became the clear, unequivocal best in the god damned world. Which was made even more poignant when he used his post-fight interview to ask if his absentee father was proud of him--and was made even more irritating when he also revealed that despite having eleven fights in the UFC at the time, he was paid so little that he'd been part-timing as a Doordash driver just to make ends meet right up until 2022. The idea that one of the absolute best fighters on the planet, after years and nearly a dozen fights in the world's biggest, most profitable fighting organization, would need to take on a gig-economy job to make money is outright offensive, and in a better world, it would have launched a furor. In this one, all we can do is be happy he's got the belt and will, hopefully, make some actual fucking money. His first title defense came against Brandon "Raw Dawg" Royval as the co-main event to UFC 296 on December 16th, and it was a wild affair with a couple scary moments, but Pantoja emerged victorious and notched the first successful defense of the title in three years. His next contender is, in all likelihood, the winner of the Brandon Moreno/Amir Albazi fight this February--or it would have been, until Albazi got injured. The UFC promoted a Moreno/Royval 2 showdown in hopes of scoring a Moreno rematch, but Royval won, so the UFC decided to forget the whole goddamn thing and book Pantoja against the #10-ranked Steve Erceg on May 4. It was a spirited fight, but Pantoja's experience ultimately got him the decision. On December 7 we got the rare cross-promotional treatment, as the UFC got Rizin champion Kai Asakura to sign up for an immediate title shot; Pantoja strangled him in two rounds and called out Demetrious Johnson. Instead he got a TUF24 rematch against Kai Kara-France at UFC 317 on June 28, and this time, he choked Kai out in the third round. It looks like Joshua Van will be next.

Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs

Kayla Harrison - 19-1, 0 Defenses

Every once in awhile the inevitable turns out to actually be inevitable. Ronda Rousey parlayed a 2008 bronze medal in Judo into mixed martial arts stardom; Kayla Harrison took the gold medal in 2012 and 2016. The world was already asking her about MMA before the second. The UFC made a play for her, but there was a problem: By the standards of female fighters Kayla was huge. Ronda had competed at 70 kg in the Olympics, which translated to about 154 pounds, well within the range of weight cutting for the insane standards of combat sports and Women's Bantamweight. Kayla competed at 78 kg, which was almost 172 pounds. Even at a twenty-pound weight cut, her division simply did not exist in major mixed martial arts organizations. So she had to find one that would build it. The Professional Fighters League needed star power, and Kayla was their gal. They founded the first Women's Lightweight division in a major American organization, and it was populated mostly by Bantamweights and Featherweights who were trying the best they could. For four straight years, Kayla was their recurring, undefeated champion. She won the 2019 and 2021 tournaments, and in 2022 she made it to the finals and looked poised to take it for a third time, as her only competition was Larissa Pacheco, whom she'd already beaten twice. In a massive upset, Larissa took a decision off of her. It was shocking, it was unexpected, and it was also more or less fine, because Kayla was more or less done with the PFL. She took one more fight against Aspen Ladd as a one-off, but her future was with the UFC. Even with her loss to Pacheco, the world was sure she was a future UFC champion--as long as she could stomach the weight cut. And it did, visibly, kill her! But she made it. She choked out Holly Holm in her debut, she took a decision over Ketlen Vieira in a title eliminator, and all she had to do after that was wait. Julianna Peña was a +500 underdog in her own title defense against Kayla, and that turned out to be just about right. On June 7, 2025, at UFC 316, Kayla achieved the inevitable, ragdolled Peña and tapped her out in just two rounds. She's the best in the world and she's going to get her shot at the superfight everyone wanted in the first place, as Amanda Nunes is coming out of retirement to face her later this year.

Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs

Valentina Shevchenko - 25-4-1, 1 Defense

After almost two years of suffering, we have gone back to the start. At the end of 2022 Valentina Shevchenko was so thoroughly ensconced as The Greatest Women's Flyweight that a sizable segment of the fanbase had built an honest-to-god antipathy for her over it. Sure, she won, all the time, and sure, her only losses in almost a decade and a half came to the greatest of all time in Amanda Nunes, and sure, Shevchenko arguably won their second fight, but familiarity breeds contempt, and after watching the purported greatest struggle with a split decision to Taila Santos that could easily have gone the other way, too, a big chunk of the mixed martial world was ready to move on from Val. And then, unexpectedly, it did. Valentina was a -900 favorite when Alexa Grasso shocked the world, choked her out, and took her title away on March 4, 2023. An instant rematch was obligatory, given Val's long history on top, so half a year later they ran it back at Noche UFC in 2023, and, awkwardly, it ended in a draw. If the rematch had been obligatory, the threematch was mandatory, but a hand injury on Val's part and the UFC's desire to put an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter behind their promotion meant a full twelve months passed before they got back in the cage. That's a long goddamn time, and it left a lot of air, and that air was filled by doubt. Alexa won the first fight, after all--but she was on her way to losing a decision before Valentina made a costly mistake, threw one of her trademark nowhere-close-to-landing spinning back kicks, and got immediately jumped on and choked out for her troubles. Alexa didn't lose the second fight--but based on the scorecards, she should have, and would have, were it not for one judge handing her a completely indefensible 10-8 in the final round. When the third fight came on September 14, 2024, it was seen as Alexa's chance to cement her legacy: Either she was the superior fighter and the herald of a new generation for Women's Flyweight, or the whole thing was just a weird episode. Unfortunately for Alexa, it was the latter. Valentina dominated her. She outstruck her and outwrestled her with almost comical ease, the fight was a complete shutout, and despite their series being now tied at 1-1-1, no one has any doubts about the winner, nor any desire to see them fight again. Once again, much to the internet's chagrin, Valentina Shevchenko is a champion. And--only two years late--she defended her title against Manon Fiorot at UFC 315. It was close, it was contentious, and it was also a fight the audience does not want to see again.

Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs

Zhang Weili - 26-3, 3 Defenses

Are you really surprised? There's a long tradition of underestimating unlikely champions in mixed martial arts, particularly when they're not the fan-friendliest in style or personality, from Michael Bisping to Frankie Edgar, only to have those demeaned champions remind the world that they didn't reach the peak of their divisions by mistake. Many of the wise, studied scribes of the sport warned the foolish masses against assuming the same about Women's Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza: She was no pushover, they said, and Zhang will have real trouble. And then, come fight day, we unwashed masses pulled them from their ivory towers and forced them to run in the streets amongst the mud and filth so they, too, could feel the unburdened joy of being, because Zhang Weili, as basically every fan had assumed, did, in fact, beat the absolute tar out of Carla. It wasn't particularly close: Carla got outlanded 37-6, hurt several times on the feet, and choked out just a minute into the second round. The inexplicable, season-long Cookie Monster subplot is over, Zhang Weili is now a two-time world champion, and things are back as they should be. What comes next, however, is tricky. Carla was blown out, so a rematch is out of the question. Rose Namajunas, the only person in the UFC to beat Weili, is a likely candidate--but after her disastrous performance against Carla, it remains to be seen how much faith the UFC has in her. Jéssica Andrade has a claim, but she's splitting time between 115 and 125, and probably needs to pick a weight class if she wants a shot. So the UFC solved the problem by picking Amanda Lemos. In a surprise to no one, Zhang absolutely dominated Lemos, outstriking her 296-29, smashing her to the tune of multiple 10-8 rounds, and winning a very, very wide decision. The next step was a China vs China championship showdown against Yan Xiaonan at UFC 300, and Yan did better than some expected--which is to say she won a round while also arguably getting choked out once and TKOed once, and ultimately, Zhang took a lopsided decision again. Her fight with Tatiana Suarez on February 8th was supposed to be her most competitive defense: Ultimately, it was not. Tatiana won the first round; Weili proceeded to thwomp her for the next four and ultimately took a lopsided decision. The rumor now is Zhang will be moving up to Flyweight to face Valentina Shevchenko, but it has yet to be officially confirmed or denied. All we know is the UFC's putting on a card in Shanghai in August, and I'm sure they would've loved to have her on it, and instead the main event is Zhang Mingyang vs Johnny Walker.

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NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Roberto de Souza - 19-3, 4 Defenses

Roberto "Satoshi" de Souza is trying to become the new Gegard Mousasi. On April 17 he had the chance to avenge the only loss of his career, a half-knockout half-injury against "Hollywood" Johnny Case back in 2019, and he succeeded in emphatic fashion, climbing Case's back, locking him in an inverted triangle choke and eventually forcing an armbar. He's now 14-1 and inarguably one of the best lightweights outside of the UFC, but unlike most of the other fighters to bear that title, he has made it clear he has no interest in changing that. Where the A.J. McKees and Michael Chandlers of the world want to test free agency and notoriety, Roberto de Souza is happy in Japan, both because his Rizin pay is fairly lucrative and his entire family jiu-jitsu business is based in the country. This is admirable, but it's also a little unfortunate: Rizin really only has around a dozen lightweights under contract, and "Satoshi" has already beaten a third of them. It was thus of particular interest when the main event for the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin card was announced as Roberto de Souza vs AJ McKee--a test of where Souza ranks with the rest of the world's competition. Unfortunately for him and Rizin, the answer was "under them." He positionally threatened McKee and was able to land some solid strikes in the final round, but was otherwise controlled and lost a decision. On May 6th, Satoshi beat Spike Carlyle in a fantastic fight--but it was a non-title fight, because Japanese promoters are still real scared of their own belts. Satoshi fought Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 29th--in another non-title fight, naturally--and took the first definitive beating of his career, getting utterly outclassed and ultimately stopped on leg kicks in three rounds. He fought Keita Nakamura at Rizin Landmark 9 on March 23 and put in one of the best performances of his career, battering K-Taro to a TKO in just 1:43--but because this is Japanese MMA it was, of course, a non-title fight, so it doesn't count as a title defense. His next title defense--his first in two and a half years--came against Luiz Gustavo at Rizin 48 on September 29, and it saw him drop Gustavo in fifteen seconds and pound him out to a maybe slightly premature TKO. He notched another win at Rizin Decade on New Year's Eve after putting the former 145-pound champion out with a triangle choke in the first round. He faced Ki Won-Bin on May 31 and destroyed him in less than a minute, but it was, once again, a non-title fight.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Razhabali Shaydullaev - 13-0, 0 Defenses

I asked how long the second reign of Kleber Koike Erbst would last, and as it turns out, the answer was sixty-two seconds. Razhabali Shaydullaev's rise through the sport has been impressively meteoric. Four years ago he was a rookie fighting on Batyr Bashy cards in Kyrgyzstan as a predominantly grappling-based fighter. Three years ago he was disposing of journeymen in the developmental leagues of Russia's Absolute Championship Akhmat. Two years ago he was choking out top contenders in South Korea's Road FC. One year ago he got signed to Rizin. In just six months he choked out a DEEP champion, submitted a Bellator champion and smashed through a K-1 Kickboxing champion with virtually no resistance. He was the favorite against Erbst, but few thought it would be an easy night, with Erbst having been finished only once in his entire career, and even that was an armbar all the way back in 2009 when he was still a rookie. Shaydullaev, as he has been doing for the entirety of his run thus far, destroyed Erbst. He walked through him and flattened him in just barely over a minute. Rizin's got another gaijin champion, and given how good he's looked, they may be stuck with him for awhile--or, worse, they might lose him to the UFC sooner than later. With Mikuru Asakura's victory over Chihiro Suzuki on the same night he's the logical next contender, but who knows what'll actually happen.

Naoki Inoue - 22-4, 2 Defenses

Rizin is one step closer to an all-Japanese championship roster. Naoki Inoue's route to championship gold has been oddly circuitous, and as is so often the case, a big part of that comes down to UFC management. In mid-2017, Naoki was one of Japan's star rookies, an undefeated 10-0 mixed martial artist and an amateur kickboxing champion despite being just 20 years old by a matter of days. The UFC signed him and had him debut on 2017's Asian-focused Singapore card, where he beat Carls John de Tomas despite Tomas missing weight by half a weight class, and in response to his efforts, the UFC iced him out for an entire year. They brought him back 53 weeks later--once again, for a Singapore card--and this time he lost a close coinflip of a split decision to future top ten Flyweight Matt Schnell. In response to his 1-1 record, the UFC immediately released Inoue. A year later Inoue was in Rizin and immediately became one of their best Bantamweights, but try as he might, he couldn't quite get to the top. In 2021 he was eliminated from the semifinal round of the Bantamweight Grand Prix by eventual champion Hiromasa Ougikubo; in 2023, he fell to Juan Archuleta, who would become Rizin's Bantamweight champion one fight later. But Archuleta missed weight and Kai Asakura won the belt, and six months later Asakura promptly vacated the title to sign with the UFC, leaving Rizin struggling to fill the void. They ultimately settled on a bout between Inoue and top contender Soo Chul Kim for Rizin 48 on September 29. It was not an upset that Inoue won; he, too, was very well-regarded. It was an upset that Inoue, who had scored only one knockout in twenty-three fights, punched out Kim, who had never been stopped by strikes after fourteen years of competition. Naoki's finally got his gold: Now we see how long he can keep it. He notched his first defense at Rizin 50 after beating Yuki Motoya--and became the first man to ever defend the Rizin Bantamweight Championship in the process. He notched a second one by beating Ryuya Fukuda at Super Rizin 4 on July 27.

Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

VACANT - The recurring nightmare of unbeing

Rizin just can't really catch a break with the Flyweights. Kyoji Horiguchi was one of Rizin's biggest signings, as one of the best Flyweights in the world, but Rizin didn't have a Flyweight division so he fought at Bantamweight. This was successful, as was his winning the Bellator Bantamweight Championship during their co-promotion, but back-to-back losses made Kyoji long for Flyweight again. So Bellator and Rizin agreed to co-promote a Flyweight division, and Kyoji met Makoto Shinryu in a Rizin match for the Bellator Flyweight Championship, and it ended in twenty-five seconds with an eyepoke, and by the time the fight was rebooked for the New Year's Eve special, Bellator had been sold to PFL and its future was clearly in question, so Rizin proceeded with minting their own belt. Horiguchi won it on December 31, 2023, and he didn't defend it again until exactly one year later on December 31, 2024, and on March 28, 2025, Horiguchi's long-rumored re-signing with the UFC leaked when he was added to their testing pool and it was officially confirmed by the man himself at Rizin 50. That's two top champions the UFC has signed away from Rizin in a single year, and that's one more vacant belt for Rizin to fill--they're going to run a Flyweight Grand Prix, because you never miss an opportunity for a tournament.

Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

Seika Izawa - 16-0, 1 Defense

All hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. Rizin's Superatomweight Grand Prix was both a big coming-out party for Izawa and a series of opportunities to look shockingly mortal: She had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska in the semifinals before ultimately submitting her, but her berth in the finals against former rival Si Woo Park proved the toughest fight of her career, ending in a split decision victory she easily could have lost. Seika was supposed to face Miyuu Yamamoto at Rizin 42, but after Yamamoto had to pull out with an injury, Izawa was instead scheduled to face...the last person Yamamoto beat, the 5-3 Suwanan Boonsorn, at DEEP Jewels 41 on July 28. Izawa choked her out, shockingly. It took more than an entire year, but Izawa finally had a title defense against the 8-4 grappler Claire Lopez, and Izawa scored the fastest championship victory in Rizin history, choking her out in just barely one minute. Seika scored one more win on New Year's Eve, choking out Miyuu Yamamoto in her retirement bout, and while it was an honor, it does sort of emphasize the problem with Seika's position. She's unquestionably the best Atomweight in the world, but the last real top fighter she faced was more than a year ago. Will Rizin bring her real competition, or are they trying to simply build a star? And what IS real competition at Atomweight? She choked out Si Yoon Park at DEEP JEWELS 44 to add yet another win and belt to her credit, but the Rizin title wasn't on the line, so she's still only got the one defense. She was booked for Rizin 48 on September 29th, and once again instead of a top contender it was Kanna Asakura, and once again, it was a non-title match. Three months later, Rizin booked her for their New Year's Eve supershow--against Lucia Apdelgarim, a 2-3 kickboxer who'd never beaten an MMA fighter with a single win. Seika submitted her easily and requested international competition, and in their eternal mockery of me, Rizin instead booked her to defend her title against the 3-0 Yu-jin Shin, who fights a weight class and a half up. Shockingly Shin did not make the Atomweight limit, so when Seika beat her easily it was a non-title affair.

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Oumar Kane - 7-1, 0 Defenses

The triple championship days are over, and we can go back to appreciating ONE's Heavyweight division for just how silly it really is. Oumar Kane's origins are very serious: He grew up near Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and established himself as an undefeated star of Laamb, better known as Senegalese wrestling, a particularly harsh form of the sport that takes place on sand or turf and is fought in tiny shorts. As a giant 6'4" muscle monster with a wrestling background, Kane was an internationally visible talent, and ONE picked him up just one fight into his MMA career and promoted him as an undefeated monster of African wrestling. And it was true! For two fights. In his third bout with ONE, "Reug Reug" lost his undefeated streak in 2021 after gassing just two rounds in against Kirill Grishenko, but the actual ending of the fight was a bizarre sequence involving Grishenko throwing a punch right at the bell that appeared to graze Kane's chin, only for Oumar to motion that he had been illegally punched in the throat after the bell and collapse onto the mat. After replays showed the punch barely connecting, the fight was ruled a TKO, and Oumar was accused of pulling a soccer dive. He spent three years building a three-fight winning streak--including a kickboxing match with "Boucher Ketchup" Mamadou Kamara, who is not a fighter but an influencer, and who fought exactly the way that sounds--and eventually that led him to a November 9, 2024 showdown with triple champ Anatoly Malykhin. The resulting fight was, to be gentle, pretty dreadful. Malykhin didn't know how to get in on Kane, Kane repeatedly backed himself into a corner to focus on countering, and outside of the first round and a bit of the fifth, very little actually happened. But a takedown in the first round, a yellow card on Malykhin's part for grabbing the ropes and a flash knockdown in the fifth were enough for Kane to win the title by split decision. "Reug Reug" is the champion. Unfortunately, he's the champion of a division with all of five other people in it and he's already fought four of them. ONE is trying to position Marcus "Buchecha" Almeida as the top contender, but given that Kane beat him to get his title shot in the first place--and, uh, Buchecha left the company after the fight--and they don't have any other fucking Heavyweights except, like, Kirill Grishenko--unsurprisingly, ONE decided to just book a rematch an entire year later. Kane vs Malykhin 2 is scheduled for ONE 173 on November 16.

Anatoly Malykhin - 14-1, 0 Defenses

ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs

Anatoly Malykhin - 14-1, 0 Defenses

For the second time in as many title reigns, ONE has managed to put a ton of hype behind a champion only to squash them prematurely. Anatoly Malykhin is one of the most successful marketing campaigns ONE ever ran: An undefeated, heavy-punching Russian Heavyweight with a 100% finishing rate. He knocked out everyone he faced, he carried ONE's Heavyweight division as an interim champion while standing champion Arjan Bhullar was having contract issues, and when Bhullar finally re-entered the fold, Malykhin destroyed him with ease. But ONE had greater hopes for Malykhin as their spearhead for real international notoriety: They would make him the first three-division champion in the history of mixed martial arts. And it'd be real easy, because the other two belts were held by one guy. Reinier de Ridder had been their superstar double-champion, but his relationship with ONE had soured, and they cashed in by having de Ridder face Malykhin, twice, at both his weight classes. Malykhin destroyed him and became the first-ever 265, 225 and 205-pound champion the sport has ever seen--admittedly easier when you consider 225 is not a division that exists in almost any other federation on Earth. But he did it! And then they organized his first-ever title defense by having him put the Heavyweight belt on the line against Oumar "Reug Reug" Kane, and he lost a split decision, and now he is a lowly two-belt schmuck. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Malykhin now, given that the last 205-pound fight ONE promoted was Malykhin's bout against de Ridder, and the last 225-pound fight ONE promoted was Malykhin's 2022 bout with de Ridder. He’ll try to get the Heavyweight title back at ONE 173 on November 16.

ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs

Christian Lee - 17-4 (1), 0 Defenses

ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs

Christian Lee - 17-4 (1), 0 Defenses

It took three tries, but by god, Chatri gets what Chatri wants. Christian Lee, the male half of the first family of ONE Championship and its homegrown golden boy, was very mad about losing his lightweight championship in a controversial decision to Ok Rae Yoon last year. He demanded the decision be reviewed and overturned and his championship reinstated. Unsurprisingly: This did not happen. After months of complaining and just shy of a year of waiting, the two had their long-awaited rematch and Lee left nothing to chance, knocking Yoon out in six minutes to reclaim his belt. Having finally retrieved his title, Lee, being a responsible champion, proceeded to immediately challenge ONE'S 185-pound champion, Kiamrian Abbasov, for his title, a move that was definitely in no way influenced by ONE's repeated attempts to get his sister Angela Lee double-champion status. Fortunately for Christian, Abbasov horribly botched his weight cut: He came in overweight, lost his title on the scale, and was visibly depleted in the fight. Which is particularly lucky, because Abbasov beat Lee senseless in the first round to the point that a standing TKO would not have been an unreasonable stoppage. But whether from his failed weight cut or simply from punching himself out, Abbasov was exhausted by the second round, and Lee mounted a gutsy comeback and ultimately stopped him with ground-and-pound in the fourth round. After three attempts, ONE has succeeded in getting two belts on a Lee. Unfortunately, it was followed by tragedy. After the passing of his younger sister Victoria, Christian took the whole of the year to, understandably, grieve. ONE planned his comeback for February of 2024, but, y'know, that clearly did not happen. ONE held an interim title fight between Alibeg Rasulov and Ok Rae Yoon to welcome him back--but that didn't exactly happen either, as Rasulov failed hydration tests, became ineligible to win the title, then won the fight anyway. Lee vs Rasulov was scheduled for October. And then November. It finally happened on December 7--and it ended in a No Contest after two rounds thanks to Christian unintentionally gouging Rasulov's eye. Whoops.

ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Tang Kai - 19-4, 1 Defense

Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China's WBK (after investigating, we THINK it's World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz "Ong Bak" Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai's weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai's Dragon Gym and Phuket's legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It's worked out quite well: He hasn't lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China's Rebel FC got ONE's attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he's held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare, and it was delayed by eight full months thanks to an injury. So after more than a year and a half without a fight, Tang Kai finally fought Thanh Le again, and this time, he knocked him out in three rounds. Congratulations, Tang Kai: You are back at square one. His position hasn't improved much, either. He was supposed to defend his title against Akbar Abdullaev on January 10, and Abdullaev pounded him out in the fifth round, but he also missed weight by a pound and a half and thus was ineligible for the championship. So, hey: Still a world champion! You just got knocked out a little bit. It's fine.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

Fabricio Andrade - 10-2 (1), 1 Defense

The second time was the charm. When Fabricio "Wonder Boy" Andrade joined ONE Championship back in 2020 he was a virtual unknown in the mixed martial arts world, a 20-3 kickboxer but only a 3-2 mixed martial artist who'd been fighting out in the regional circuit of China. His association with Tiger Muay Thai put him on ONE's radar, and his visible striking skills despite being just 21 at the time made him interesting enough for a developmental contract. Said contract proceeded to develop into Andrade going on a five-fight winning streak that only got more dominant as he met tougher competition, and three straight first-round knockouts punched his ticket to the championship picture. His first appearance in the spotlight, unfortunately, went a touch awry. First, bantamweight champion John Lineker lost his title on the scale after missing weight, meaning only Andrade was eligible to become champion, and he was well on his way to doing so before hitting Lineker with an errant strike to the groin so hard it shattered his cup, and with the fight not yet halfway complete, it had to be rendered a No Contest. It took four months to get to the rematch, and it was much more closely contested, but after four rounds Lineker threw in the towel, his face having been punched too swollen to continue. Fabricio Andrade is 25 and a world goddamn champion. He promptly skipped away from MMA completely and faced Jonathan Haggerty for ONE's Featherweight Kickboxing Championship on November 3rd, where he was immediately destroyed. At the end of January, 23 months after winning the title, Fabricio had his first defense against Kwon Won-Il, who he knocked out in 2022. At the time, it took him 62 seconds. This time it took 42. Thanks, ONE.

ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs

Yuya Wakamatsu - 19-6, 0 Defenses

After two years of solitude, ONE's Flyweight title has a home again, and it is to one of the men most denied it. Yuya Wakamatsu was a Pancrase standout in Japan for years before the rest of the world knew his name, but even there, he couldn't get over the hump, winning their Flyweight Neo-Blood Tournament in 2016 only to get knocked out by standing champion Senzo Ikeda when he challenged for the title itself. But ONE's aggressive expansion in the late 2010s brought in a lot of Japanese talent, including both Wakamatsu and Ikeda, and fittingly, both lost their first two fights and were promptly forgotten by most of the audience. But where his nemesis retired in fairly short order, Wakamatsu kept grinding and ultimately built up a five-fight winning streak, which was more than enough to justify a shot at then-champion Adriano Moraes--which he lost. And then he missed weight and got knocked out. And then he won, but missed weight again. ONE was decidedly unhappy with him, but he got his weight cut under control and returned to his winning ways, and when Demetrious Johnson retired and abdicated the belt, ONE needed an answer. On March 23, 2025, Wakamatsu and Moraes had a rematch three years in the making, and this time, Wakamatsu made it count by pounding Moraes out in a single round. After a decade in the sport and three at-bats, Yuya Wakamatsu finally has his championship belt. Now we hope he gets booked to defend it.

ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Joshua Pacio - 23-4, 1 Defense

It's been a difficult couple of years for Joshua Pacio. "The Passion" stands as a true veteran of ONE Championship, having made his debut--and his first, unsuccessful attempt at winning the Strawweight title--all the way back in 2016. Pacio established himself as both a fan favorite and a solid promotional favorite for the company, and when he lost his second bid for the title against Yosuke Saruta in 2019, ONE, in a trick they'd become very friendly with over the years, gave him an instant rematch anyway. Pacio knocked Saruta out in the rematch and became easily the greatest 125-pound champion in ONE history, ultimately defending the title three times--including a trilogy match against Saruta. By 2022, Pacio was a crown jewel for ONE's lineup. Which is when he promptly got wrestled into paste by UFC cast-off Jarred Brooks. Rather than having him defend the title, ONE booked Brooks into grappling matches, and in the meantime Pacio fought and defeated undefeated prospect Mansur Malachiev to earn himself a rematch. Multiple delays ensued, but on March 1, the Brooks/Pacio rematch finally came. Fifty-six seconds in, Pacio attempted a standing kimura on Brooks, who hoisted him off the ground, suplexed him, and knocked him out. Unfortunately, this was a problem. Under ONE's ruleset, slams that land headfirst are illegal. ONE has been regularly criticized for this--less for the rule itself as for ONE's tendency to selectively enforce the rule, using it to benefit fighters they would like to succeed. ONE, of course, denies this vehemently. However you draw your own conclusions, at the end of the day Jarred Brooks was disqualified, and thus, by DQ, Joshua Pacio is now a three-time Strawweight champion. He almost immediately announced he has torn his ACL and was out for an entire year. On February 20th, 2025, Pacio and Brooks finally fought again and it was weird, but definitive. Jarred Brooks seemingly exhausted himself after a round and Pacio pounded him for the entire second round, which eventually elicited a mercy stoppage from the ref. ONE has only one 125-pound champion again.

ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Xiong Jing Nan - 19-2, 7 Defenses

Xiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Xiong has notched three successful title defenses since, which set her up for her greatest challenger yet: Angela Lee, again, apparently. Despite ONE's best attempts, Xiong successfully defended her title against Lee again, nearly finishing her in the first round and ultimately winning a decision. An entire 364 days later, she had her next fight: A special rules match, with MMA gloves but only punches and no takedowns or clinching allowed, against Muay Thai champion Nat "Wondergirl" Jaroonsak. Half a year later her next fight was finally announced, and it was, once, defending her title against ONE's new postergirl in Stamp Fairtex as the company attempts, once again, to make a double champ at Xiong Jing Nan's expense, and with Stamp out injured ONE went back to radio silence. It took half a year for Xiong to get rebooked--and it was a non-title fight against Bo Meng at 115 pounds. Xiong won, and once again, what the hell are we doing.

ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

Denice Zamboanga - 12-2, 0 Defenses

Denice Zamboanga, to be clear, is not the problem. She's a good fighter. She's been trucking along in ONE since 2009, she's proven herself repeatedly as a solid all-around competitor. She's tough, she's talented, she's never been finished. She's also never beaten a top fighter. She's fought 0-0 rookies, she's beaten journeywomen on losing streaks--in a dozen fights with ONE, she's only beaten someone coming off a victory at all twice. She was also notably defeated by Seo Hee Ham, the top Atomweight contender and former Rizin champion, twice in a row. It was consequently a bit of a surprise to Ham when ONE announced an interim title fight to make up for Stamp's injury absence and she wasn't in it. Instead of her, the #1 contender whose only loss in ONE was to Stamp herself, it would be Denice Zamboanga, the woman she beat, against Alyona Rassohyna, a woman she also beat and who, as a bonus, had not fought in ONE since September of 2021--when she lost to Stamp Fairtex. This was all supposed to end in a unification match with Stamp at ONE 173 on August 1, but in early May, ONE announced that Stamp had reinjured her knee and was going to miss at least the rest of 2025. With the awareness that it would have been close to two and a half years between title fights, Stamp 'voluntarily relinquished' her title. This wound up being even more infuriating when ONE failed to rebook Denice for so long that upon finally scheduling her again, they chose ONE 173 on November 16, where Stamp Fairtex, who is now healthy, will be fighting a completely unrelated kickboxing match. Denice will face Ayaka Miura.

Invicta Bantamweight Championship, 135 lbs

Jennifer Maia - 23-10-1, 0 Defenses

It did not take Jennifer Maia long to find her way back home to Invicta after the UFC cut her in 2023, and it only took a year for her to reclaim gold in the company she left behind. This is, in fact, Maia's third stint with Invicta: The first time around was back in 2013, when Invicta was barely a year old and Maia was only a couple years and nine fights into her career, and it saw Maia distinguishing herself as a hot prospect but failing to get past the top ranks. She came back in 2016 as a more seasoned fighter and captured its Flyweight championship, but, as is the fate of all regional champions, she traded the belt for a ticket to the UFC. Her half-decade in the big show was by no means bad--she even fought Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC's 125-pound title--but she still couldn't crack the top of the mountain, and eventually, the UFC got tired of her derailing prospects and let her go. It only took two fights for Maia to dethrone Talita Bernardo and gain her second Invicta gold. Hopefully she sticks around this time.

Invicta Atomweight Championship, 105 lbs

Elisandra Ferreira - 9-2, 1 Defense

The only major Atomweight division in America is back, and as happens so often, it belongs to Brazil. Elisandra "Lili" Ferreira started competing as an amateur at 19, lost all of her amateur fights, and proceeded to turn pro anyway, because giving up sucks. She spent the first third of her professional career fighting at Strawweight simply because Atomweight opportunities are few and farbetween, but she made the turn to the lower weight class in 2021 and never looked back, and boy, it's worked out for her. With one exception--a loss to Anastasia Nikolakakos, maybe the best Atomweight on this side of the globe--Ferreira's cleaned house on the division. She made the jump to Invicta in 2023, and a year and a half later she's 4-0 and the new bannerwoman for its most unique weight class, thanks to a hard-fought decision over Andressa Romero on September 20, 2024. Invicta's 2024 comeback has reclaimed its first lost title; now we just have to see who they line up to test Ferreira over the next year of its renaissance. Her first at-bat came against Ana Palacios at Invicta FC 61 on April 4, and Ferreira earned a near-shutout on the scorecards.

PFL Middleweight Championship, 185 lbs

Costello van Steenis - 17-3, 0 Defenses

For years, the Professional Fighters League has threatened to crown standing champions. Did they carry through any of their major tournament winners? Nope. Did they bring out their holdout Bellator champions? Not exactly! Did they at least make a big hubbub about finally going through with it? Of course not. Instead, just five days before PFL Champions Series 2, their promotional debut in South Africa, they abruptly announced that Bellator champ Johnny Eblen was suddenly the first-ever PFL Middleweight Champion, and his match with Costello van Steenis was the first-ever defense of the title. Costello, himself, was a Bellator veteran who'd been absorbed in the PFL buyout, but he'd always played second fiddle in the organization, unable to get through the John Salters and Douglas Limas of the world, and thus said world was mostly overlooking him as a challenger. The first three rounds of Eblen gradually grinding him into dust bore out that expectation, but then a funny thing happened: The inexhaustible wrestler got tired. Eblen found himself punched up by van Steenis in the fourth round, and he seemed to be pulling it together again in the fifth, but right before the bell could ring van Steenis managed to take his back and sink in a choke, and with just seven seconds separating him from an almost-certain decision victory, Eblen passed out. Costello van Steenis is the first man to truly hold a standing PFL Championship, and what that means from here is anyone's guess, given that the PFL still doesn't seem to have any idea how any of this is going to work.