Skip to main content
Merab Dvalishvili of Georgia punches Umar Nurmagomedov of Russia in the UFC bantamweight championship fight during the UFC 311 event at Intuit Dome on January 18, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)
Fight Coverage

Monthly Report | January 2025

Looking Back On The Best Performances From The First Two Cards Of 2025

And just like that, the first month of the UFC schedule is already in the books.

Remember a few weeks ago, when there hadn't been an event since Tampa, and we had three whole weeks where there was no one making the walk to the Octagon?

Yeah, that’s all behind us now, and though we have a one-week pause before rolling out to Saudi Arabia for the first of four shows in February, the way the first two events played out leave me feeling like we’re in for an incredible year in 2025.

Order UFC 312: Du Plessis vs Strickland 2

So who had the most memorable performances to kick off the year? I’m glad you asked…

Breakout Performance: Fatima Kline

 Fatima Kline elbows Viktoriia Dudakova of Russia in a strawweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
Fatima Kline elbows Viktoriia Dudakova of Russia in a strawweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

The burden of expectation can be extremely heavy and something that we see get the better of many skilled, ascending talents at various points along the developmental track.

After making her debut on short notice, up a division against now-ranked flyweight Jasmine Jasudavicius last summer in Denver, many people — myself very much included — had Kline tabbed as a potential breakout star in 2025. A former two-division champ under the CFFC banner and training partner of flyweight contender Erin Blanchfield, a return to her more natural strawweight stomping grounds had everyone eagerly tuning in to her bout with Viktoriia Dudakova on the opening event at the UFC APEX.

FOLLOW @UFCNEWS: On Facebook | On Instagram | On X

Kline waltzed into the Octagon and lived up to her advanced billing, securing a second-round stoppage win that showcased both her technically sharp grappling and her ferocity from top position. As soon as she was able to really settle into a control position and feel comfortable on top in the second, Kline went to work with her elbows, splitting Dudakova open and continuing to rain down blows until the referee was forced to step in and halt the action.

What continues to stand out about Kline is how well-rounded and fluid she is in all phases. She moves well on the feet, switches stances, looking comfortable in both southpaw and orthodox, and is excellent on the canvas, brandishing a solid submission game and the punishing ground-and-pound she showed in registering her first UFC victory earlier in the month.

Fatima Kline Elbows Her Way To Victory | UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2
fight pass logo
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!

Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!

This video is not available in your country

There was a problem while loading content. Please try again.

Fatima Kline Elbows Her Way To Victory | UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2
/

At 24 and sporting a 7-1 record, Kline is still in the early stages of her career, but the upside is clearly there, and seeing how quickly Blanchfield has gone from debuting in the UFC to emerging as a legitimate contender at 125 pounds serves as a template for the growth and development we could see from her teammate. Obviously, they’re different fighters with different skills, but having seen one young talent from that squad make a rapid rise through the ranks shows they know how to coach up skilled prospects and maximize their abilities.

UFC SAUDI ARABIA: The Evolution of Israel Adesanya | Rise of Nassourdine Imavov

While it’s just one fight at strawweight, there is reason to believe Kline will be able to follow a comparable path as Blanchfield, which means emerging as a contender in the next two years is a very real possibility. Given how she ran through Dudakova, it might not even take that long.

Honorable Mentions: Punahele Soriano, Marco Tulio, Jacobe Smith, Azamat Bekoev

Submission of the Month: Mackenzie Dern taps Amanda Ribas (UFC Vegas 101)

Mackenzie Dern secures an arm bar submission against Amanda Ribas of Brazil in a strawweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
Mackenzie Dern secures an arm bar submission against Amanda Ribas of Brazil in a strawweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

This may seem like strange logic to some, but part of the reason for selecting Dern’s finish of Ribas as the top submission of the month is that it was great to see the multiple-time BJJ world champion lean all the way into her elite skills on the canvas.

Dern has worked diligently to round out her abilities in the Octagon since reaching the UFC, putting in tons of work with Jason Parillo to get to a point where opponents have to respect her hands, flashing some power and showing time and again that she’s got a ton of grit and toughness. But like a lot of athletes that reach the UFC with one dynamic skill set, focusing on building their secondary weapons often leads to the primary skills taking a bit of a back seat.

UFC 313: Alex Pereira “Very Excited” For Ankalaev Matchup

After earning submissions victories in four of her first six UFC wins, the 31-year-old went over three years without registering a submission win. Some of that is down to the level of competition she has been facing and their focus on avoiding getting tapped out, but Dern’s abilities on the canvas are such that it always felt like leaning into her submission game was her best path to victory and becoming a full-fledged contender in the strawweight division.

Think Demian Maia when he shifted his focus back to being an absolute nightmare for whatever welterweight was standing opposite him at the time. That was what we saw from Dern in this one.

Mackenzie Dern Post-Fight Interview | UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2
fight pass logo
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!

Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!

This video is not available in your country

There was a problem while loading content. Please try again.

Mackenzie Dern Post-Fight Interview | UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Ribas 2
/

Even when she wasn’t in top position, there was an understanding that Ribas needed to be very careful with her movements and mindful of spending too long on the canvas with her. After splitting the first two rounds, Dern initiated the clinch in the third, but Ribas was initially the one to land in top position, only to have Dern immediately start isolating an arm and looking for a submission.

While the first setup didn’t produce anything and Ribas defended the second well, Dern stayed poised and remained in attack mode, used the grip she had on the arm to sweep into top position, and after resetting herself and landing some elbows from top position, switched off and snatched up the finish with only a couple ticks remaining in the round.

READ: Charles Oliveira Open To Rematches Against Makhachev Or Holloway

This is when Dern is at her best — when she’s leaning on her world-class grappling and constantly making opponents pay for being on the ground with her, using her secondary weapons and traits to create opportunities for her to attack using her elite jiu jitsu.

Honorable Mentions: Felipe Bunes vs Jose Johnson, Bogdan Guskov vs Billy Elekana, Reinier de Ridder vs Kevin Holland, Islam Makhachev vs Renato Moicano

Knockout of the Month: Cesar Almeida flattens Abdul Razak Alhassan (UFC Vegas 101)

Cesar Almeida of Brazil punches Abdul Razak Alhassan of Ghana in a middleweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
Cesar Almeida of Brazil punches Abdul Razak Alhassan of Ghana in a middleweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

If you paused this fight two seconds before the finish occurred and were told that it ended with a knockout, you would think, understandably, that Alhassan was the one standing triumphant in the center of the Octagon and Almeida was left looking up at the lights.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the judoka from Ghana registering the knockout win.

Straight punches beat looping shots; it’s something you’ll hear from coaches and analysts all the time, and this should now be the instructional video that accompanies that lesson each and every time it’s being taught. Alhassan had Almeida hurt and backed against the fence, swarming him with punches, looking to find that one shot that sealed the deal. Except he was throwing hooks, and Almeida, who had recovered well from being dazed and was doing a good job of covering up and rolling with the shots, opted to fire off a laser down the pipe that found the target first.

The left hand landed and Alhassan instantly stiffened up, falling like felled timber to the unforgiving canvas below.

Cesar Almeida of Brazil reacts after his knockout victory against Abdul Razak Alhassan of Ghana in a middleweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
Cesar Almeida of Brazil reacts after his knockout victory against Abdul Razak Alhassan of Ghana in a middleweight fight during the UFC Fight Night event at UFC APEX on January 11, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

Eric Nicksick, the leader of the team at Xtreme Couture, where Almeida trains, summed up the outcome of this one perfectly on his weekly podcast, Verse Us, saying, “You can’t go into a gunfight with a gunslinger.”

Alhassan may have been carrying the more powerful gun, but Almeida was the superior marksman, and walked away with the most memorable knockout finish of the month.

Honorable Mentions: Soriano vs. Uros Medic, Smith vs. Preston Parsons, Azamat Bekoev vs. Zachary Reese, 

Fight of the Month: Merab Dvalishvili Retains Bantamweight Title (UFC 311)

Merab Dvalishvili Post-Fight Interview | UFC 311
fight pass logo
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!

Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!

This video is not available in your country

There was a problem while loading content. Please try again.

Merab Dvalishvili Post-Fight Interview | UFC 311
/

Everyone knew this was going to be a great fight from the moment it was announced, but what we got still managed to exceed expectations.

For the first 10 minutes, Nurmagomedov validated his standing as the No. 1 contender and an elite threat to the champion, utilizing the insane blend of skills and abilities that helped carry him to 18 consecutive wins to begin his career. He was quicker than Dvalishvili, more precise than the champion with his striking, and seemed comfortable working at the high pace the Georgian titleholder was looking to set.

UFC 311: The Bigger Picture | Prelim ResultsMain Card Results | Official Scorecards

Dvalishvili seemed fine with it all, loving every second inside the Octagon even though things weren’t necessarily going his way. The charismatic and fun-loving bantamweight ruler seemed thrilled just to be in there competing, trusting that things would eventually swing in his favor, and they began to in the third.

This was one of those fights where there wasn’t a key incident that caused the shift in momentum and the tides to turn. In fact, it was just the opposite, much like the bout between Erin Blanchfield and Rose Namajunas in Edmonton at the start of November. In that fight, as in this one, you could just see the frontrunner — Nurmagomedov here, Namajunas there — start to slow ever so slightly, losing a little of the crispness to their punches and movements as the fight continued to progress, while their adversary just kept chugging along.

Merab Dvalishvili of Georgia reacts at the end of his bantamweight title fight against Umar Nurmagomedov of Russia, not pictured, during UFC 311 at Intuit Dome on January 18, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Merab Dvalishvili of Georgia reacts at the end of his bantamweight title fight against Umar Nurmagomedov of Russia, not pictured, during UFC 311 at Intuit Dome on January 18, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

As the championship rounds hit, Dvalishvili started to take over, his smile and overall joyousness ratcheting up another notch as the fight continued to progress, right down to when he hit a double bicep kiss before putting Nurmagomedov on the deck one more time to punctuate what was a vintage effort from the man aptly nicknamed “The Machine.”

Nurmagomedov remains an elite talent and is someone that will continue to reside in the upper echelon of the bantamweight division for the foreseeable future, but he, like the last 10 men before him, just couldn’t contend with the otherworldly conditioning and pace of the reigning ruler of the 135-pound weight class.

Honorable Mentions: Roman Kopylov vs. Chris Curtis, Benardo Sopaj vs. Ricky Turcios, Jiri Prochazka vs. Jamahal Hill

Order UFC 312: Du Plessis vs Strickland 2 Now