New Year’s Mailbag: Sleeper UFC contender for 2025 and the upcoming broadcast rights deal

Happy New Year everybody!

That’s right, we are fully into 2025, so much so that the first UFC event of the year is nearly upon us. But let’s be honest, UFC Vegas 101 isn’t anyone’s idea of a barnburner, so for the first mailbag of the year, I asked for questions about anything your hearts desire and you loyal readers responded in kind. So let’s talk about the year to come, which divisions to keep an eye on, and of course, Conor McGregor.

Sleeper contender of 2025

“Happy new year Jed!

“If you had to pick one fighter in any division currently ranked outside the top 5 to become UFC champion in 2025, who would you pick?”

A great question to kick of the year and one that, in my opinion, doesn’t have an obvious answer. After all, go look at our champions predictions for 2025: if you don’t count champions moving up to get a second title, only two fighters are even mentioned that would meet that standard, and one of those is Amanda Nunes! Sure, Nunes isn’t currently ranked, but that doesn’t exactly feel like it speaks to the heart of this question.

So, let’s suss this out.

Bantamweight, featherweight, strawweight, women’s flyweight, and women’s bantamweight are all out. Each of those weight classes has two or more contenders in line who are in the top five right now, so it’s basically impossible. Middleweight and heavyweight are also very unlikely as they’ve got a few obvious contenders in line, and heavyweight has the whole Jon Jones uncertainty to it.

That leaves us with light heavyweight, welterweight, lightweight, and flyweight as obvious contenders. Light heavyweight seems unlikely because if Alex Pereira defends it will be against Magomed Ankalaev, and then it’s either rematch or heavyweight. Lightweight feels similar with Islam Makhachev and Arman Tsarukyan. And welterweight is a bit of a cluster with a bunch of names in the mix, but none of them likely to beat either Belal Muhammad or Shavkat Rakhmonov. Which leaves us with flyweight.

Considering the two title challengers to Alexander Pantoja in 2024 where both well-outside the top five (Steve Erceg wasn’t even top 10 I don’t believe and Kai Asakura wasn’t in the UFC), it’s a strong contender right out of the gate. On top of that, there’s already a contender outside of the top-five who is close to a title shot: Manel Kape. Kape takes on Kai Asakura in March, and if he wins, that’s a guaranteed title shot. Nobody else outside of the top-five in their weight class has as clear a path to the belt, and if Kape fights like he did his last time out, he’s a legitimate threat to Pantoja.

So, I’m going with Manel Kape.

Optimism

“Given what went down in the sport this past year, what gives you cause for optimism in 2025?”

My New Year’s Resolution for 2025 was to be more optimistic with regards to MMA. Good things are going to happen! The UFC will pay Jon Jones to fight Tom Aspinall! Fighters will stop trying to move up in weight immediately after winning titles! Everyone will be cool!

That being said, 2024 was not exactly a bright year in the sport of MMA. The UFC went to the APEX 17 times and each time somehow felt worse than the last. In 2024, more than any other year, really felt like the fans were being extracted from rather than catered to. Now, there were undeniably some highlights, and people will remember those more than they remember the overall drop in quality, but the point remains there was a lot of meh this past year.

(Also, I’m not going to dive into the sad end to the first fighter lawsuit. It is what it is, I hope the fighters in need will be better after they get paid.)

Still, I’m optimistic that 2025 will bring a better experience for fans on a week-to-week basis. For one thing, this is a contract year for the UFC. The broadcast rights deal is about to be negotiated and as with any contract year in any sport, that tends to bring out the best performances from those who stand to get paid as a result. I believe the UFC is going to spend the next six to 12 months delivering the goods.

On top of that, the promotion has been incentivized to get out of the APEX more often. Basically every event in 2024 broke a gate record for whatever venue the UFC went to, and while a cynical person might look at that and say “They didn’t add seats, that just means they’re charging more,” the UFC doesn’t care. It’s all profit to them, and they stand to make more money going on the road than they do hosting 20 events a year in their gym, that means better cards for the fans.

Look, maybe things all go sour quickly and we continue on this road towards mediocrity that the UFC has been on for the past several years, but where’s the fun in heading into that with the dour resignation of men walking to the gallows? Dare to be an optimist!

Broadcast Rights

“We all expect Netflix to make a bid for the UFC which could mean a lot of great things.

“Suppose a deal doesn’t get done – does it open the door for another promotion like GFL/PFL and if so, does this move the needle whatsoever in being a viable competitor to the UFC?”

First, I would be shocked if Netflix doesn’t at least get a piece of the UFC in this upcoming negotiation. Netflix has an obvious interest in moving into live sports and there simply aren’t that many broadcast rights that it can acquire right now. Plus, Netflix already has the WWE and so it seems almost too obvious for TKO to lump them both together and make Netflix the home of combat sports entertainment, at least in some fashion.

But let’s say that doesn’t happen, does that open the door for GFL? Not really. ONE Championship is broadcast on Amazon Prime and that doesn’t seem to have gotten them over with the broader American public. And, truth be told, I’m not even sure PFL could get on Netflix. Just because I want to spend a lot of money to buy a Porsche and I don’t get it doesn’t mean I want to spend less money to buy a Gremlin. I wanted to buy a Porsche, not just buy a car.

People need to understand that there is no competing with the UFC. They have an ironclad monopoly on MMA which cannot be beaten by outside competition. The only way the PFL can legitimately compete with the UFC is either a) lobby and get the Ali Act implemented for MMA (which it’s transparently absurd that it isn’t but I digress) or b) hope the fighters win the second fighter lawsuit which seeks injunctive relief in the form of contractual changes. And let’s be honest, given that Dana White and the UFC have a close relationship with the soon-to-be President of the United States, neither of those things are happening.

The game is won, y’all. It’s over.

Global Fight League

“Could GFL be announcing known fighters’ names just as a media play? Meaning, those older expansive fighters are part of the GFL, but they won’t be drafted. Therefore, GFL does not need to pay outrageous bags because the fighters that will actually fight are unknown and cheap?”

I highly doubt it. My take is that the GFL is announcing fighters to try and drum up interest, but if some of the numbers being thrown around by fighters are even half accurate, this thing is never getting off the ground.

Conor McGregor

“Does Conor McGregor return to the UFC?”

I wrote about this before so I won’t rehash it in detail, but Conor McGregor’s legal difficulties make it more likely he returns to the UFC in 2025. Previously, McGregor had no real reason to come back to fighting beyond his ego. Now, his image is severely tarnished, Hollywood won’t take him back, and he needs to rebuild himself. The place to do that is in the place he built himself up to start with. And it’s not like the UFC has standards and won’t welcome him back.

Conor fights in 2025. Maybe even twice.

Best Division in 2025

“If you could only watch one division this year, which would it be? Based on talent/matchups/etc. lightweight may be the easy answer but if Islam wins in a few weeks we probably only see the belt defended once if he goes up to welterweight (or light heavy weight right lol).”

The answer is always, always lightweight. It’s the best division in the sport, the deepest division, and is home to like, the eight most exciting fighters in the world. Random lightweight fights between top-40 guys are absolute barnburners, and oh, by the way, the champion is the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. Lightweight is the only correct answer.

But setting aside lightweight, I’ll give some love to middleweight. I don’t think 185 pounds is one of the best divisions in the sport, but it is a very silly, very fun division. A ton of my favorite weirdos compete at middleweight and if you look at the schedule for this year already, there’s a lot of quality middleweight bouts set. Sure, when you get down into the APEX fodder, things won’t be as fun as bantamweight or featherweight, but those weight classes don’t have Dricus du Plessis and Michel Pereira and Reinier de Ridder. Give me middleweight as my runner-up.

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! It doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.