Highlights
Monthly Report | November 2025
Reviewing Another Exciting Month Of Action From Inside The Octagon
November was an eventful month inside the Octagon, with a new champion emerging, another titleholder making a case for all-time great status, and several key divisional victories taking place across the four fight cards that made up the slate for the penultimate month of 2025.
As we all start preparing to put together our year-end lists for the best of everything as Christmas and New Year’s draw closer, let’s dive into some of the truly standout efforts that took place earlier this month that could factor into those “… of the Year” conversations.
Breakout Performance: Waldo Cortes Acosta (UFC Fight Night: Garcia vs Onama, UFC Qatar)
It was quite a month for “Salsa Boy,” who made his fourth and fifth appearances of 2025 in November, registering a pair of victories to move to 4-1 for the year and cement his standing as an emerging name in the heavyweight ranks.
What makes the Dana White’s Contender Series graduate the obvious choice here is that neither of these bouts was normal.
In his initial appearance against Ante Delija, the bout was paused midway through the opening round, with many, including Delija, believing referee Mark Smith was stopping the fight. Instead, a review was initiated to discern that the Croatian UFC sophomore had poked Cortes Acosta in the eye. The bout was eventually restarted, and the Dominican big man detonated a right hand on Delija’s jawline, crashing him to the canvas and pounding out the finish.
A few weeks later, and just a few days before the UFC’s debut event in Doha, Qatar, Cortes Acosta agreed to step in for Serghei Spivac opposite Shamil Gaziev. He landed in the host city, rolled to the hotel, made weight, then knocked out Gaziev in 82 seconds on Saturday, registering his second victory of the month.
Cortes Acosta has now bookended his loss to Sergei Pavlovich in Shanghai with a pair of wins, and he lobbied for the chance to log one more appearance before the year is out, too. He’s leaning into the fact he was poked in the eye by Delija by wearing an eye patch, clearly has concussive power, and is now 9-2 in the UFC, and 16-2 overall.
While he still needs to show he can hang with the elite of the division, he’s already done enough to merit another chance to prove it with his twin November victories, though he may have to wait a piece for that to happen, which honestly wouldn’t be the end of the world. A couple more fights against ranked opponents to garner a little more seasoning, and we might see further development from the 34-year-old ascending heavyweight.
Honorable Mentions: Steve Garcia, Christian Leroy Duncan, Chris Padilla, Uros Medic, Joseph Morales, Fatima Kline, Kyle Daukaus, Ethan Ewing, Michael Morales, Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev, Luke Riley, Myktybek Orolbai
Submission of the Month: Erin Blanchfield taps out Tracy Cortez (UFC 322)
The first time the New Jersey native Blanchfield fought at Madison Square Garden, she was booed at the ceremonial weigh-ins, and her dominant submission win over popular Scouser Molly “Meatball” McCann was met with whispers in the arena as it was happening. Back in “The Big Apple” for a rematch with Tracy Cortez, who bested her by decision on the regional scene several years earlier, Blanchfield made another statement.
Following a competitive first round where both women operated at range and had reasonable success, Blanchfield showed a little more aggression and tenacity in the second, pressing forward and taking the fight to Cortez in what is becoming her signature, building approach. A few shots start landing a little sharper, the opponent starts slowing little by little, and Blanchfield just keeps coming, and coming, and coming.
Order UFC 323: Dvalishvili vs Yan 2
Late in the middle stanza, Blanchfield finally looked to initiate a grappling entanglement, running Cortez to the canvas from a body lock, initially looking for an arm-triangle choke on Cortez’s right side, but never really committing. Cortez did well to create space and work back to her feet, but Blanchfield stayed sticky, hunting a double leg and running her across the cage to put her on the deck once more.
Erin Blanchfield Post-Fight Interview | VeChain UFC 322
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Erin Blanchfield Post-Fight Interview | VeChain UFC 322
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As Cortez popped to her feet, Blanchfield latched onto a rear-naked choke, sinking it in without any hooks or having her body centered on Cortez’s back, resulting in the finish coming at an odd angle.
This was the perfect time for the 26-year-old standout to turn in a dominant finish, as later in the evening, Valentina Shevchenko once again successfully defended her flyweight title, leaving Blanchfield as one of two elite contenders “Bullet” mentioned as possible dance partners in the future. Whether it comes next or in another fight, this performance solidified the American’s place in the pecking order and showed she’s in the elite tier in the 125-pound weight class.
Honorable Mentions: Donte Johnson vs Sedriques Dumas, Allan Nascimento vs Cody Durden, Zach Reese vs Jackson McVey, Daniel Marcos vs Miles Johns, Morales vs Matt Schnell, Daukaus vs Gerald Meerschaert, Yakhyaev vs Rafael Cerqueira, Asu Almabayev vs Alex Perez, Kyoji Horiguchi vs Tagir Ulanbekov, Arman Tsarukyan vs Dan Hooker
Knockout of the Month: Bo Nickal sends Rodolfo Vieira to The Shadow Realm (UFC 322)
This is probably going to sound ridiculous to most people, but I’m okay with it; this is honestly what went through my head watching this finish, and since this is my series, I get to share my weird thoughts with you.
So, d’you remember that scene in Happy Gilmore where Happy sinks a long putt, looks over at Shooter McGavin and says, “Happy learned how to putt… uh-oh,” and walks off? That’s all I could think when Nickal, one of the most decorated collegiate wrestlers to grace the Octagon, absolutely blasted Vieira to the astral plane for a moment with a perfectly timed, brilliantly executed left high kick.
Nickal has been a work-in-progress throughout his first three years in the UFC, flashing upside, but room to grow and areas he needed to develop in order to maximize the impressive grappling skills he brought with him from the jump. This was the first instance where you saw the fruits of those labors, and the fact that it came following the first loss of his career, in a bout he was winning comfortably, tells me a lot about the kind of competitor and prospect the Penn State standout is and what to expect from him going forward.
There are going to be people that want to “yeah, but…” this performance (because there always are) based on who he was facing and the nature of the stylistic matchup, but for me, that’s what makes it all the more impressive because how many times have we witnessed two grapplers get into an ugly kickboxing match that delivers minimal excitement? Nickal looked crisp throughout, finding a rhythm early and lumping up Vieira through the second before planting his shin on the side of his neck midway through the final round in what — for me — was a “couldn’t have asked for anything more” type showing.
It's wild that after some folks wanted to throw Nickal straight into a Top 10 matchup out of the chute, one loss to a vastly more experienced competitor prompted heaps of people to jump off the bandwagon and change their overall assessment of the 29-year-old middleweight. The loss never should have been the focus or what was used to reassess his ceiling — the return to action was the measuring stick, and Nickal showed in New York that he’s every bit the blue chip prospect most always projected him to be… if not better.
Honorable Mentions: Garcia vs David Onama, Duncan vs Marco Tulio, Medic vs Muslim Salikhov, Gabriel Bonfim vs Randy Brown, Baisangur Susurkaev vs Eric McConico, Benoit Saint Denis vs Beneil Dariush, Carlos Prates vs Leon Edwards, Ismail Naurdiev vs Ryan Loder, Riley vs Bogdan Grad, Cortes Acosta vs Gaziev, Orolbai vs Jack Hermansson, Volkan Oezdemir vs Alonzo Menifield
Fight of the Month: Ethyn Ewing and Malcolm Wellmaker Entertain MSG (UFC 322)
The expectation going into this one was that Wellmaker would likely register another stoppage win or at the very least garner a victory given that (1) he was coming off consecutive, first-round knockout wins, (2) had a full training camp to prepare for the November 15th date, and (3) Ewing accepted the fight on the Thursday of fight week, tagging in for Cody Haddon when the Australian broke his foot just days out from the event.
In the early moments of the fight, when Ewing came forward without hesitation and had success, it felt like a nice bonus; a pleasant surprise that made what most anticipated would be a one-sided affair into something more competitive. When the California native kept coming forward, kept landing the better shots, and kept dealing with whatever return fire was coming his way without real issue, things quickly got really interesting.
If not for Cortes Acosta doing crazy things this month, Ewing would have been the undeniable choice for the Breakout Performance of the Month, given that he rolled in on 48 hours’ notice and handed Wellmaker the first loss of his professional career. As it stands, he still authored one of the most memorable performances of the month and was the victorious half of the most thoroughly entertaining clash in all of November.
And just like everyone else, I’m dying to see what “The Professor Finesser” does for an encore.
Honorable Mentions: Timmy Cuamba vs ChangHo Lee
VeChain UFC 322: Della Maddalena vs Makhachev took place live from Madison Square Garden Arena in New York, New York on November 15, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!