Bold UFC predictions for 2025: Expect epic upsets and MMA trades to return

Rarely did a weekend pass by in 2024 without UFC fans being treated to an event that featured a slew of highlight finishes and memorable moments.

Whether it was a numbered event in front of a raucous sold-out arena or a crowdless Fight Night in the Apex, the 42-event slate this past year saw hundreds of fights and fighters take place in the Octagon with more than half of the UFC’s divisions finishing the year with a different champion than the one who started the year wearing the belt.

The upcoming 12 months in this wild and unpredictable sport should be no different.

With that in mind, here are a handful of bold predictions for the upcoming year.

TOP THREE P4P FIGHTERS ALL LOSE BELTS AND/OR STATUS

How’s this for bold? The top three pound-for-pound fighters in the UFC rankings are currently Islam Makhachev, Jon Jones and Alex Pereira, respectively, however, all three will lose a fight and/or relinquish their titles and therefore lose their current spot in the P4P rankings within the next 12 months.

Makhachev headlines the first pay-per-view event of 2025 when he goes up against Arman Tsarukyan at UFC 311 on Jan. 18, and count me among the minority of prognosticators who’ll be picking Tsarukyan to snap Makhachev’s winning streak, take the lightweight title and simultaneously shuffle up the P4P order.

The only way Jones maintains his spot at No. 2 or gets bumped back up to No. 1 would be if the champ fights and defeats interim champ Tom Aspinall. Jones opened as a slight underdog to the supremely talented and surging Brit and if they were matched up, my bet would be on Aspinall to become the first to legitimately defeat and stop Jones. If Jones doesn’t fight at all or refuses to face Aspinall and settles for an easier style matchup instead, he shouldn’t maintain his top-two spot anyway.

And speaking of Pereira, the incredible streak “Poatan” has been on since moving up to 205 pounds can’t last another year, can it? He is still improving at age 37 and remains the most dangerous striker in the division but based on his gunslinger style and the queue of heavy hitters in the division, can he really replicate the perfect year he just completed? The UFC brass, whether they’d admit it or not, won’t want Pereira to lose his belt by getting out-wrestled by someone like Magomed Ankalaev but that’s also within the realm of possibility if that matchup gets put together since Ankalaev is the rightful next in line and a legitimate title threat.

This would, in theory, mean someone like Ilia Topuria, Aspinall, Alexandre Pantoja, Dricus Du Plessis, or perhaps another star could wind up in the top spot by the end of 2025.

MMA TRADES MAKE A COMEBACK

When the UFC traded Demetrious Johnson’s contract to ONE Championship in 2018 in exchange for Ben Askren’s, fight fans across the globe were, at first, caught off guard before they immediately began pondering all the possible swaps that could hypothetically take place between MMA organizations. While that didn’t end up becoming a trend and instead was more of a one-off, 2025 will see at least one high-profile fighter swap.

The second half of 2024 saw multiple Bellator fighters make public comments about their frustration and disappointment dealing with new PFL management since those two UFC rivals merged and haven’t yet figured out how best to operate.

Would the UFC potentially target disgruntled Bellator champions Patchy Mix or Patricio “Pitbull” Freire? Mix is in the prime of his career and one of the best bantamweights in the sport, while Freire is still the Bellator 145-pound champ and perhaps the most accomplished fighter of his era to never fight under the UFC banner.

The UFC is in a comfortable position, financially speaking, so hypothetically they could use some capital to entice a rival promotion to part ways with a fighter who isn’t happy and isn’t facing top-level competition.

Now, don’t expect Dana White to make nice and attempt to reacquire Francis Ngannou or anything, but undefeated rising women’s flyweight star Dakota Ditcheva would be a fighter worth adding to the roster if at all possible — the same way the UFC nabbed Kayla Harrison somewhat out of the blue this past January.

MCGREGOR FIGHTS A PAUL BROTHER

Like a strong pot of coffee, we’re keeping these predictions extra bold this year. When Conor McGregor announced in December that he was in preliminary talks to face Logan Paul in an exhibition boxing match in India, it raised the collective eyebrows of the combat sports world. McGregor said he was communicating with the Ambani family, one of the wealthiest families in India, and that he had agreed to the bout, suggesting he’d resume his UFC career afterward.

Is it all for attention? Something to distract from McGregor’s latest legal issues? Perhaps a long-term ploy from McGregor to eventually get a lucrative boxing match with Logan’s younger brother? 

One of McGregor’s most lucrative outings of his prizefighting career was his 2017 boxing match with Floyd Mayweather Jr., and the former two-weight UFC champion has repeatedly said he plans on boxing again in the future. 

We're not sure what the appetite would be for a McGregor vs. Logan Paul bout even though Paul has a big following and has also boxed Mayweather in the past.

Jake Paul, however, has become one of the biggest draws in boxing in recent years and has already defeated multiple MMA stars in the squared circle. The younger Paul brother competed in the most-watched boxing match of 2024, picking up an embarrassing decision victory over a nearly 60-year-old Mike Tyson in November.

Jake is a far more accomplished boxer than his brother and someone who has exchanged trash talk online with McGregor, calling the Irishman out after some of his previous fights. He reacted to McGregor's tease by suggesting the MMA star is ultimately hoping for a match with him.

From a negotiation standpoint, though, a hypothetical matchup with Logan would be easier to facilitate than a bout with Jake.

Logan has become a popular part-time professional wrestler under the WWE banner, among other endeavours, and McGregor remains under contract with the UFC. Could the fact both companies are owned by TKO Group Holdings potentially leave the door cracked open for that unlikely pairing?

McGregor hasn’t fought in the UFC since 2021 and has only fought five times (including his boxing match with Mayweather) since 2016. At this point, it may be more realistic to see him compete in this type of event before he fights out the remainder of his UFC contract.

WE GET AT LEAST ONE CHAMP VS. CHAMP SUPER FIGHT

MMA fans were treated to plenty of outstanding championship matchups in 2024 without seeing any champion vs. champion pairings. Although there were multiple champ vs. ex-champ main events, and reigning featherweight champ Ilia Topuria faced the active BMF Titleholder Max Holloway, unlike the previous year there was no official “super fight” and no unification bouts on the UFC schedule.

Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski competed in two super fights in 2023 with lightweight champ Makhachev winning both encounters versus the former featherweight king. Before that, in 2021, then-middleweight champion Israel Adesanya lost when he moved up to fight Jan Blachowicz who at the time was the light-heavyweight champion.

This coming year could see a handful of opportunities. 

If dominant men’s flyweight champ Alexandre Pantoja keeps clearing out his division he may eventually turn his attention to bantamweight; women’s flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko holds a past win over current bantamweight titleholder Julianna Pena; featherweight king Topuria has said outright he wants to move to lightweight where that division's top man Makhachev is nearing his end at 155 pounds; middleweight champ Dricus Du Plessis and light-heavyweight champ Alex Pereira have mentioned fighting each other and Pereira vs. Jon Jones is high up on the collective fantasy fight power rankings.

The champion vs. champion fight that should happen is Jones vs. Apsinall, which could be the marquee matchup of 2025, yet based on Jones’s consistent comments about not wanting to face Aspinall, that particular heavyweight title unification matchup still feels like a longshot at this point. The sad reality is a more likely scenario could be Jones relinquishing his belt altogether and either retiring or pursuing another legacy matchup like his recent fight with Stipe Miocic.