The truth is, we had a lot of buzzkills in 2025, some of which still sting as we head into the new year — proving, once again, that to be an MMA fan you must become a master in the art of perseverance.
Would it have been nice to see Arman Tsarukyan against Islam Makhachev to start off this year? Of course. Tsarukyan was a far greater threat to Makhachev than Renato Moicano, the man who filled in for him at the eleventh hour at UFC 311. In what ended up being his swan song at lightweight, the last man Makhachev beat before bouncing up to welterweight wasn’t even a top-10 staple.
It was a bit of a buzzkill. And that wasn’t even the only buzzkill that night in January.
On that same pay-per-view card that young Payton Talbott got worked over by the unsung yet entirely hellbent Raoni Barcelos, in what many believed to the ultimate fraud check. The fight itself was anticlimactic, too, in that Barcelos used wrestling and grappling to render Talbott harmless for three rounds. (Talbott has since deodorized those fraud fumes with wins over Felipe Lima and Henry Cejudo.)
The truth is, we had a lot of buzzkills in 2025, some of which still sting as we head into the new year. We thought we’d revisit the worst offenders, just to prove, once again, that to be an MMA fan you must become a master in the art of perseverance.
We never got to see Islam Makhachev vs Ilia Topuria
The damn thing was right there. Right. Freaking. There.
Topuria had vacated the UFC featherweight title in February after starching Max Holloway to come up and challenge Makhachev, who was perhaps the only man ahead of him on the many pound-for-pound lists in circulation. This wasn’t just some champion vs. champion novelty fight; it was the rare gift of two generational fighters about to clash in their respective primes.
But noooooo. At this exact moment Makhachev — who easily defeated Moicano — got enamored by the game of musical weight divisions himself, as he began eyeing a move to 170 pounds. It was dependent on if his buddy Belal Muhammad could hold onto his welterweight belt or not. Muhammad was facing Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 315 in May, and anytime the fate of two divisions and one of greatest fights that could ever be made gets left in the hands of Belal Muhammad ... let’s just say the levels of dread were tickling the red.
As Makhachev suspected, Muhammad could not hold onto his title, and once the welterweight belt came into the custody of Della Maddalena, Makhachev made his move. Left standing there at the lightweight docks, waving his roses as the ship sailed toward some far-off land, was Ilia Topuria, who was instead relegated to facing Charles Oliveira for the vacated title.
Topuria won easily, and — after Makhachev beat Della Maddalena to become UFC welterweight champion — the dirge that was played the rest of the year was a song called, “All That Could’ve Been [Had Islam Stuck Around].”
We never got Tom Aspinall versus Jon Jones, either!
This one hurt because it was promised. In fact, it was guaranteed to happen, as I can remember Dana White telling everyone to relax, the fight would get done. Why not? Logistically, it was the only fight to make. The entire UFC matchmaking structure was set up to bring interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall into the same cage as heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
We’d sat through what amounted to a yearlong masquerade as Jones defended his title against the relic Stipe Miocic near the end of 2024, all so that we could get onto the more critical test.
Yet what happened was almost too shameful to believe. Jones hemmed and hawed and took a trip to Thailand, where he rode motorized bikes down busy streets and proclaimed to the world he was “living his best life.” He held onto the belt and made Aspinall twist in the wind for a long, long time. He looked down his nose, from time to time, just to belittle the interim champ as not being special enough to consider fighting. Jones’ legacy was beyond reproach, he told us, so utterly full that it had no room for taking unnecessary risks.
Finally, when it came down to either fighting Aspinall or vacating, Jones simply “retired.” He would rather give the belt away than give a come-lately like Aspinall the chance to take it from him. That he “unretired” just two weeks later only made those actions more reprehensible, at least for anybody who wanted to see the heavyweight titles unified (which was everybody).
Jonny “Bones” Jones gave UFC fans one of the greatest buzzkills of all time in 2025.
Then Aspinall gets poked in the eye in the consolation fight
If karma is a real thing, it got pretty drunk this year. Aspinall was for the most part a perfectly fine gentlemen through the Jones ordeal and didn’t hesitate after being deemed the undisputed heavyweight champion to defend the title against Ciryl Gane. The time spent between winning the interim title and getting back in there was 15 months.
October's Gane fight was such a detour from where the division was supposed to be headed that it felt like a thankless undertaking by Aspinall. So, what did he get for all his patience and understanding and for quietly playing the role of professional? Poked in the eye. Poked in both eyes. A “no contest.” Gray matter. Needles in the eyeball. Multiple surgeries. Derision from his colleagues. Derision from Jon Freaking Jones, who showed up to Dirty Boxing 4 in Nashville on a horse with a patch over its eye.
Whatever Aspinall did to deserve this fate, it must’ve been something. Either that or karma got blotto. In any case, reminder: The fight game is cruel.
The way Alexandre Pantoja’s reign ended was all wrong
Perhaps the talks of Pantoja taking GOAT status over historic flyweight king Demetrious Johnson were a bit premature, but still, he was well on his way to making an argument for himself when he faced off with Joshua Van at UFC 323. And if the first 20 seconds or so told us anything, it was that Pantoja was going to make life a living hell for the 24-year-old challenger, as the incautious Brazilian madman who finished Kai Kara-France at UFC 317 was very much in evidence.
You knew before the gruesome replays that whatever had happened to him when he hit the canvas wasn’t good. Pantoja knew his run was over immediately, as he indicated his arm was compromised. Then Vegas groaned. The dozen replays that followed either toughened up the audience or made it sick to the realities of fighting. Injuries are part of the sport. Unfortunately, they factor into outcomes just as much as rear-naked chokes and knockouts.
That Pantoja suffered that injury right as he was distinguishing himself as one of the best in flyweight history sucked, especially since he is 35 years old. It was a buzzkill end to a vicious, completely untame run through the flyweight field, and you feel like the asterisks being placed on the fight are of little consolation.
Fighting Nerds fell off big time in 2025
Coming into 2025, the core four of the Fighting Nerds were a combined 46-0-1 tracing back to their last defeats. Straight bespectacled fire, baby! All of them were flirting with being UFC contenders, too, and it wasn’t out of the question that any of them would end up in title shots at some point in the year.
Yet for the four-eyed cult that started as a collective against bullies, things started to unravel pretty quickly this year. Jean Silva, a slightly possessed Brazilian who gave the world a gift by tapping out Bryce Mitchell in April, lost against Diego Lopes. Carlos Prates, the ribald Nerd who smokes like Ricardo Mayorga, lost to Ian Machado Garry in his first fight of 2025. Mauricio Ruffy, who had a Knockout of the Year candidate against King Green in March, lost to Benoit Saint Denis to close out his year. And Caio Borralho, the chief Nerd — and the only one requiring prescription glasses — lost to Nassourdine Imavov.
Ultimately, all of them — especially Prates, who has since earned a title shot in the eyes of many — are still very much hovering near contendership even after the setbacks. But it wasn’t the year the Fighting Nerds hoped for on whole.
One appearance by 2024’s Breakout Fighter of the Year, Dakota Ditcheva?
Ditcheva fought four times in 2024, winning all of them, including a second-round TKO finish of UFC veteran Taila Santos (who, it might be remembered, took Valentina Shevchenko to the deep end of the pool in 2022). With her family pedigree in kickboxing, her young age (she was just 26), her vicious style in the cage (all four wins in 2024 were finishes), and plenty of charisma to boot, the PFL had a true phenom on its hands.
So, what was her encore in 2025?
A single appearance in remote Cape Town, South Africa, a million miles from anywhere, against a fighter that most people couldn’t name if their lives depended on it. (We’ll tell you it was Sumiko Inaba, just in case any of your lives do depend on it).
All the momentum Ditcheva built up the previous year came to a screeching halt in 2025, which isn’t exactly what you’re hoping for in a business where the difference between surviving and failing comes down to the ability to build stars.
Oh, and exactly no appearances by Larissa Pacheco…
Along the same buzzkill lines, it was hard to see Larissa Pacheco’s face on the milk carton after she stood in there and went toe-to-toe against Cris Cyborg in a 2024 war. Pacheco not only gave Cyborg all she wanted, but she’s the only mixed martial artist who can boast of having beaten Kayla Harrison. Yes, the third time was the charm in that rivalry, but Pacheco had a strong closing argument.
She should be celebrated, but instead she’s barely mentioned.
It was a bit of relief to hear that Pacheco and the PFL had parted ways a couple of months back, though it’s unclear if she’ll ever be able to pick back up where she left off.
Francis Ngannou
The name itself is a bit of a buzzkill these days. When people got to speculating about a return to the UFC — which we learned was a possibility as Francis told Ariel Helwani he’s nearing the end of his PFL deal — the first thing UFC CEO Dana White did was shut it all down. Dana has no interest in bringing Ngannou back.
Fair or not, he doesn’t want to do business with a fighter he sees as a “bad guy.” That news was about as fun as stepping in a sinkhole.
Not that Ngannou has done himself any favors, either. Not jumping at the chance to take on Jake Paul may end up being his greatest regret, as Anthony Joshua jumped in and made an easy eight-figure payday. Why didn’t Ngannou take it? Something to do with not taking any of it too seriously, he said, as he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around the idea of Paul going from fighting pint-sized Gervonta Davis to standing in against a colossus like himself.
The visual is what threw him off. He couldn’t shake the visual.
Well, it is what it is. Let’s just say that Ngannou isn’t easy to convince when his mind is set on something. It was a buzzkill that he didn’t compete at all in 2025.
Category: General Sports
