UFC 2025 | Incredible Year Still Has More To Offer

It's the year Waldo Cortes Acosta fought five times in nine-months, including twice in November, earning four wins while still angling for an opportunity to compete once more before the UFC takes its annual year-end break. It’s the year Valentina Shevchenko reaffirmed her dominance, Alexander Volkanovski returned to the top of the featherweight heap and Khamzat Chimaev reached the championship heights most forecasted him to attain when he entered Fight Island ready to “smash everybody” five years ago.

It's the year Valter Walker showed you can have a WWE-style finisher in the heavyweight division and Shauna Bannon snatched up a submission win seconds after nearly being separated from consciousness. It’s the year Quillan Salkilld scored not one, but two highlight reel knockouts, Elijah Smith channeled “Rampage” Jackson, and a whole bunch of people gave us a heck of a lot of entertaining fights.

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And the year isn’t quite over yet either.

From a talent standpoint, it feels difficult to suggest there has been a time with a greater concentration of skilled fighters and promising hopefuls on the UFC roster than right now. There may have been times with greater individual competitors and a few more superstar names making their way into the Octagon two or three times a year, but from top-to-bottom across the 11 divisions, the depth of talent has never been better.

You could make a case that there are six competitors on the roster right now deserving of being called the best to ever compete in their respective weight divisions, or former weight division in one case.

Zhang Weili, Shevchenko, Alexandre Pantoja, Merab Dvalishvili, Alexander Volkanovski and Makhachev all have strong cases for being the "G.O.A.T.” in their given divisions, and that’s to say nothing of two-division destroyer Alex Pereira or Topuria, who is 9-0 in the UFC, 17-0 overall, and has posted back-to-back-to-back knockout wins over Volkanovski, BMF champ Max Holloway, and Oliveira while winning and defending the featherweight title and then claiming the lightweight strap too.

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While those two gentlemen don’t necessarily fit the “divisional best” discussion, they’re unquestionably deserving of a place in the pantheon of all-time greats.

But it’s not just the champions that make the current roster so special, as there are several divisions that are brimming with talent and feature competitive battles for position in the championship chase.

Middleweight is captivating, even with a seemingly dominant force in Chimaev at the helm. Welterweight has recently submitted its application for being considered the best division in the sport, a title previous reserved for either lightweight or bantamweight, each of which remains flush with talent as well. Both flyweight divisions are bustling too, with Pantoja and Shevchenko having contenders stacking up for the opportunity to test themselves against the king and queen of the 125-pound ranks.

What truly makes this year feel special from a talent standpoint is the sheer volume of promising newcomers and prospects that have emerged thus far in 2025.

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Coming into the year, I stated that the Dana White’s Contender Series Class of ’24 had a chance to be the best the show had ever produced, and so far, there are some clear standouts that are making me look borderline clairvoyant.

Salkilld, Navajo Stirling, and Ateba Gautier have three wins apiece already, while Mansur Abdul-Malik is 2-0-1 through his first three fights. Alexia Thainara and David Martinez have each only fought twice, but both are undefeated in the Octagon and ranked in their respective weight classes, with the former checking in at No. 15 in the strawweight division and the latter sitting at No. 11 in the 135-pound ranks.

Jose Miguel Delgado has two impressive wins and a loss to seasoned veteran Nathaniel Wood that is sure to be a teachable moment. Elijah and Jacobe Smith are both 2-0 with highlight reel finishes on their resumes, while SeokHyeon Ko and Yadier Del Valle have been very good with very little fanfare thus far. Despite recent setbacks, both Marco Tulio and Malcolm Wellmaker both looked very good earlier this year and should be heard from again in the not-too-distant future.

On the whole, the graduates from Season 7 that have graced the Octagon are a combined 46-31-1, good for a .590 winning percentage, with several of those losses coming against ranked and respected opposition or other promising up-and-comers. That’s a strong start for a group that just started competing at this level a year ago and with additional growth and experience, we could have another couple contenders that emerge from this group of emerging Contender Series grads.

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As great as this year has already been — and it has been great — there are still two more events to get through before we wrap up 2025, and each carry the potential to provide further support for the thesis being presented here.

UFC 323 is loaded, with the early prelims offering a chance to get another look at Abdul-Malik and the debut of Polish light heavyweight prospect Iwo Baraniewski, who scored a 20-second knockout win to earn his contract this season on Dana White’s Contender Series. The televised prelims will showcase the depth of the lightweight division and a Top 10 matchup at flyweight between Maycee Barber and Karine Silva. The pay-per-view main card brandishes a bunch of matchups that can add to the mountain of evidence already presented in favor of this year being truly special.

Each of the first three bouts feature matchups where emerging names have a chance to knock off former champions, as Bogdan Guskov faces Jan Blachowicz, Payton Talbott takes on Henry Cejudo, and Tatsuro Taira squares off with Brandon Moreno. In each instance, a victory for the less established side of those pairings creates added intriguing in those weight divisions, with Talbott rising into the Top 15 with a win and Taira becoming a bona fide contender at flyweight if he can turn back the former two-time champion Moreno.

In the co-main event, either Pantoja will add another successful title defense to his resume, further bolstering his challenge to Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson for top spot all-time in the flyweight division, or 24-year-old challenger Joshua Van will close out an already impressive 2025 campaign by earning a fourth victory and ascending to the throne.

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And in the main event, Dvalishvili puts his bantamweight strap on the line of a fourth time this year, running it back with former champ Petr Yan. If he wins, “The Machine” will not only further cement his case for Fighter of the Year — which is already pretty much assured — but he’ll also become the first fighter to ever successfully defend their title four times in a year. He’d run his winning streak to 15 too, leaving him one back of Makhachev and Silva for the most consecutive victories inside the Octagon.

While the final event of the year doesn’t have the massive stakes of the last pay-per-view of 2025, it does offer a chance to see a host of intriguing names that will be worth keeping a close eye on next year, including DWCS Class of ’24 member Kevin Vallejos, Class of ’25 grad Cezary Oleksiejczuk, streaking featherweight Melquizael Costa and his opponent Morgan Charrier, and bantamweight hopefuls Melissa Croden and Luana Santos.

Even without an electric ending to December, this year has been pretty special, and if things continue the way they have so far in 2025 through these final two events, it’s going to be difficult to argue that this wasn’t one of the very best years in UFC history.