Bold combat sports predictions for 2023: Jones wins heavyweight title, Fury loses his

The UFC held 41 events in 2022 with plenty of knockouts, submissions, wars of attrition and viral moments both good and bad. We saw titles change hands in seven of the 12 divisions, plus the year wouldn’t have been complete without at least some interim title drama. 

Amanda Nunes and Weili Zhang each won back the belts they lost in 2021, while Valentina Shevchenko was tested in her lone appearance yet managed to defend her flyweight strap a seventh consecutive time. 

On the men’s side, featherweight kingpin Alexander Volkanovski is now the longest-reigning titleholder after Leon Edwards ended Kamaru Usman’s streak with a knockout of the year head-kick. Volkanovski closed out the calendar as the top pound-for-pound fighter on the official UFC rankings, which, if you had predicted at the beginning of the year would’ve been considered a bold call, but here we are with Volkanovski at the top of the sport and eyeing a second title in 2023.

Our 2022 bold predictions weren’t too shabby, all things considered. We said Jiri Prochazka would become the 205-pound champ, Alex Pereira would earn a title shot and beat Israel Adesanya once again, Paddy Pimblett would become a top draw in the UFC, and Islam Makhachev (Volkanovski’s next opponent) would finish the year as lightweight champion. 

With a new year upon us, let’s see if we can nail some more predictions for what could end up being a volatile next 12 months in the world of combat sports.

Will these predictions be precision like a “Poatan” strike, or will they end up making about as much sense as a Douglas Crosby scorecard?

A rumoured matchup with former champ Stipe Miocic didn’t materialize in 2022 but 2023 will be the year Jon Jones finally returns to the sport. The former 205-pound champion, commonly considered MMA’s greatest talent, has been methodically putting on weight and training to compete as a heavyweight for the past few years.

Whether he faces Miocic, current champion Francis Ngannou, Cyril Gane or another top contender, Jones’s speed, skills, durability, and fight IQ will translate to the new division and result in him having instant success. Within two fights in his new weight class, he’ll be champion and the scariest version of himself.

The division Jones left behind will also be in the spotlight…

You take a cup of bad injury luck for the champ, add a dash of the rare split draw scorecard, several heaping spoonfuls of Dana White’s impatience, plus a pinch of being in the right place at the right time, then you let that cook until about mid-January and what will you have? Jamahal Hill being crowned your next light-heavyweight champion at UFC 283, that’s what.

The 205-pound division’s championship belt has already changed hands thrice since Jones officially vacated it in 2020. It went from Jan Blachowicz to Glover Teixeira to Jiri Prochazka, however, the division’s outlook has changed dramatically since mid-November. The title is back to being vacant after Prochazka announced a serious shoulder injury will keep him out of action long term, then Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev fought to a split draw at UFC 282 when the vacant title was up for grabs.

The UFC president decided, apparently while Blachowicz and Ankalaev were still in the cage, he didn’t want to see an immediate title rematch between those two. Instead, he pulled Hill from a Fight Night main event with Anthony Smith and had him headline UFC 283 in Brazil against Teixeira on Jan. 21.

The home crowd will be cheering on Teixeira, but Hill will knock out the 43-year-old former titleholder. Hill was the No. 7-ranked contender when he got this title shot and he won’t come close to breaking Jones’s title defence record. In fact, don’t be surprised if the belt changes hands multiple times in 2023, although as soon as Ankalaev gets another crack he’ll have the belt wrapped around his waist – which, in my opinion, is what should’ve happened at UFC 282.

There’s an abundance of rising talent currently on the UFC roster, but it’s possible none have the raw, high-ceiling potential of Bo Nickal, who’ll make his official UFC debut in 2023 and quickly climb the rankings.

The 26-year-old three-time Division 1 freestyle wrestling champ out of Penn State already has a growing following thanks to a pair of dominant wins on Dana White’s Contender Series that took a combined 114 seconds. Between his amateur and pro records, he’s 5-0 overall in MMA with his fights lasting an average of 1:07. Nickal was scheduled to debut in December but a minor injury resulted in him withdrawing from the event.

Nickal has such a strong wrestling and grappling base, along with knockout power in his hands, that ragdolls and quick finishes could become a regular occurrence when he competes in the Octagon.

Sound like any other recent blue-chip prospect? Don’t be surprised if Nickal gets a similar promotional push to the one Khamzat Chimaev received after his impressive UFC debut in 2020. Although 2023 feels a bit early for it, a Nickal-Chimaev matchup at middleweight is something to monitor for the future.

While his first couple opponents could lack relative name recognition, it’ll be exciting to see Nickal finally in there under the bright lights at a venue other than the UFC Apex fighting proven UFC-calibre opponents that can test his potential.

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It’s not too bold to say we’ll continue hearing trash talk and seeing crossover fights between Jake Paul and MMA stars, or that 2023 could shape up to be another fun year in the squared circle.

Errol Spence Jr., Terence Crawford, Devin Haney, Naoya Inoue and Artur Beterbiev all stayed undefeated and kept their spots on a pound-for-pound list that includes Dmitry Bivol who upset Canelo Alvarez in May.

So, what could shake up the boxing world in 2023?

Tyson Fury established himself as the greatest heavyweight boxer of his era and retired an undefeated fighter…only to return from the announced retirement within months like so many greats before him have done. Fury was quoted prior to his most recent fight explaining why he ended his brief retirement.

“I ain’t back boxing for a belt, or back boxing for some more money, to win another five or 25 fights or to unify the division, I am boxing because of (my head),” Fury, who has previously spoken publicly about past mental health issues, said “And without it, (my head) is going downhill rapidly and I don’t know any other way of keeping it sane. This is me being brutally honest, speaking from the heart, I do not know how to quit.”

Fury’s size and skill are unmatched to date, but no one’s invincible and that quote is worrisome. Fury has said he thinks he’d topple undefeated light-heavyweight-turned-heavyweight champ Oleksandr Usyk without much challenge in a hypothetical unification bout. Will he end up regretting his willingness to go out on his shield instead of adjusting to retirement?

Usyk is among the top pound-for-pound talents in boxing and a win over Fury would give him a valid claim to the top spot. With Fury ending his short-lived retirement and coming off yet another win over Derek Chisora, a unification bout between the two unbeaten champions in the first half of the year is possible.

Usyk has back-to-back wins over fellow Olympic gold medallist Anthony Joshua and should not be counted out against Fury despite a massive size disadvantage. Even if Fury were to beat Usyk, a fourth fight with Deontay Wilder could be a possibility with various mandatory title defence obligations involved (boxing contracts are complicated, folks!). If that ends up being the case, Wilder will win part four of that rivalry via KO.

Rafael dos Anjos called out Conor McGregor after moving into fifth place on the UFC’s all-time wins list and is on the short list of potential opponents for whenever McGregor, a fellow former 155-pound champion, returns to active competition.

Dos Anjos was supposed to defend his lightweight title against then-featherweight champion McGregor back in 2016, however, the Brazilian broke his foot in training, an injury that would permanently change the trajectory of the sport.

McGregor ended up fighting Nate Diaz on short notice. Diaz pulled off the upset, dos Anjos eventually lost his title to Eddie Alvarez partly because of a terrible weight cut, and a McGregor matchup never materialized.

Pitting them against one another in 2023 would be a marketable meeting of former champions six years in the making and a winnable matchup for the respected Brazilian that could take place in the welterweight division.

McGregor won’t be the only former two-weight champ to return from a lengthy layoff and lose either…

Aljamain Sterling will welcome former two-weight champion Henry Cejudo back to the UFC roughly three years after Cejudo stepped away from the sport and vacated the same title Sterling defended against Petr Yan and T.J. Dillashaw in 2022.

The fight isn’t official but is expected to happen. If Cejudo, the former flyweight and bantamweight titleholder, doesn’t get submitted or TKO’d, he’ll wear Sterling like a backpack for much of the five-round tilt and realize he should’ve stayed retired.

Paddy Pimblett is dealing with the first bit of adversity in his UFC career, coming off a controversial unanimous decision win (that should’ve been a loss) to Jared Gordon in a pay-per-view co-headliner.

The rising star has been compared by some to McGregor – mostly since both are former Cage Warriors featherweight champions and entertaining both in the cage and on the mic. Pimblett has more holes in his game at this stage of his career than McGregor did, that’s for sure.

If “Paddy the Baddy” keeps racking up wins then the UFC will continue upping his level of competition. Eventually, he’ll run into a top-25 lightweight and get tuned up.