Want to know a dirty little secret about MMA? Come in closer here, let’s keep this one between us: No knows actually anything in this sport. And the people who claim they do? They know even less than the rest.
How can you tell I’m right? Take this exercise for starters. It should be simple, no? There are 11 UFC champions right now. You’d think anyone who spends every waking hour of their days pouring over the nuances of the MMA world would be able to at least land a hit rate above 50% when it comes to predicting who will hold gold by the end of the 2025. Six out of 11 isn’t even a passing grade in school! It should be effortless to stumble into a D- grade on this test, even if by complete accident.
But alas, that’s where you’d be wrong. In reality, the erraticism and volatility forever at play when the martial arts get mixed make this game of prognostication a fool’s errand. Luckily, we’re the exact kind of fools ready to take on such a challenge.
Who will be the 11 UFC champions at the end of 2025? Uncrowned’s MMA staffers Shaun Al-Shatti, Conner Burks, Petesy Carroll, Ben Fowlkes, Eric Jackman, Chuck Mindenhall and Drake Riggs peer into our crystal balls to make our selections below. Join in the fun by letting us know your own picks in the comments. Trust us: It’s much, much more difficult than you’d expect.
Heavyweight
Jon Jones (1): Mindenhall
Tom Aspinall (6): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Fowlkes, Jackman, Riggs
One way or another, Jon Jones is losing that belt in 2025.
At least that’s what the overwhelming majority of Uncrowned’s MMA team believes. (Join the winning side, Chuck. It’s great over here.) The question of what happens next for “Bones” is the sport’s biggest question mark heading into 2025. Already an all-time great and firmly in the GOAT conversation, the 37-year-old reigning UFC heavyweight champion could retire, force his way into the superfight he so badly wants against Alex Pereira, or — God forbid — actually defend his title against the young, hungry, deeply dangerous Englishman who holds the interim belt, Tom Aspinall.
If Jones survives through 2025 with gold still around his waist, either he’s proven himself to be the undeniable greatest talent in the history of this sport, or some absurd foolishness has been allowed to happen all over again.
Light heavyweight
Alex Pereira (5): Burks, Carroll, Fowlkes, Jackman, Mindenhall
Magomed Ankalaev (2): Al-Shatti, Riggs
Will Magomed Ankalaev ever get his long-deserved but eternally elusive shot at Alex Pereira?
If the latest cryptic rumblings from “Poatan” are any indication, Ankalaev may be on the verge of getting passed over again in the light heavyweight queue despite his 13-fight UFC unbeaten streak. The cupboard is pretty bare at 205 pounds outside of the Dagestani contender, so even as the 37-year-old Pereira creeps toward middle age, there aren’t many other obvious threats for the champ’s throne in 2025 if Ankalaev continues getting treated like Hugo Simpson, forced to survive on a weekly bucket of fish heads and random stay-busy fights while Pereira parades around as the promotion’s superstar savior.
Middleweight
Khamzat Chimaev (7): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Fowlkes, Jackman, Mindenhall, Riggs
Dricus du Plessis (0): N/A
Wow. Talk about disrespect.
Literally no one — not one — among our seven-person MMA panel believes the UFC middleweight champion is making it to the end of 2025 without being gobbled up and gruesomely spit out by “The Wolf” from Chechnya.
And you know what? Fair.
It’s hard to shake the image of one of the greatest middleweights of this era, Robert Whittaker, suddenly sporting a second row of bottom teeth as if he was a bull shark after his brutal run-in with Khamzat Chimaev in 2024. Chimaev has felt like a champ in waiting since his 2020 promotional debut, but if anyone can match his seemingly insurmountable physicality, is it not the South African bowling ball himself, Dricus du Plessis?
Welterweight
Shavkat Rakhmonov (6): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Fowlkes, Jackman, Mindenhall
Islam Makhachev (1): Riggs
Belal Muhammad (0): N/A
I know we just did this, but somehow this one feels even more disrespectful.
Once again, not a single Uncrowned staffer picked the reigning UFC champion — in this case, welterweight king Belal Muhammad — to retain his throne by the end of 2025. Even after Ian Machado Garry came within a hair’s breadth of doing the unthinkable against Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 310.
Rakhmonov has carried an air of inevitability from the moment he first entered the UFC cage four years ago, but Muhammad’s entire five-year run has been built on defying expectations. The champ feels confident he saw holes at UFC 310 he can exploit. Can he shock the world one more time?
Lightweight
Islam Makhachev (4): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Jackman
Arman Tsarukyan (2): Mindenhall, Riggs
Ilia Topuria (1): Fowlkes
Featherweight
Ilia Topuria (5): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Jackman, Riggs
Alexander Volkanovski (1): Fowlkes
Movsar Evloev (1): Mindenhall
We’re lumping these two together because this is where the cross-pollination is really starting to take effect. Islam Makhachev has made his aspirations for welterweight gold abundantly clear. Ilia Topuria just had a whole, weird (and eventually walked back) kerfuffle about lightweight being his next step.
Both men are ferocious champs who feel like could reign atop their respective divisions for a long while. Both also compete in weight classes awash with talented contenders who could pull off a stunner on any given night. It’s anyone’s best guess where these two belts end up, but if the majority of our team is correct in forecasting Makhachev and Topuria to retain throughout 2025, we could be staring at two all-time greats by the time we’re in this same space next year.
Bantamweight
Merab Dvalishvili (3): Fowlkes, Jackman, Mindenhall
Umar Nurmagomedov (4): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Riggs
The UFC’s first pay-per-view of the year should be the decider in this one.
Seemingly against his will, Dvalishvili must make the first defense of his bantamweight belt against the undefeated man with the famous last name on UFC 311 on Jan. 18. If their first press conference was any indication, Nurmagomedov — the cousin of UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov and older brother of Bellator champion Usman Nurmagomedov — is drawing emotions out of Dvalishvili that we’ve never before seen from the champ. This is a classic unstoppable force meets an immovable object type of showdown, and the winner could end up ruling the roost at 135 pounds for years to come. High drama!
Flyweight
Alexandre Pantoja (7): Al-Shatti, Burks, Carroll, Fowlkes, Jackman, Mindenhall, Riggs
Demetrious Johnson really ain’t walking through that door.
Considering the domination we saw from Pantoja at UFC 310, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that flyweight ends up being our only unanimous category for a defending champ from Uncrowned’s seven-person crew. As we enter 2025, Pantoja has already nearly cleaned out the division and doesn’t appear to have a Rakhmonov-level contender waiting in the wings. Maybe Kai Kara-France or Manel Kape can shock the Brazilian? Pantoja is creeping up there in age, after all.
But at least right now, it feels far more likely another statement year awaits for the reigning 125-pound king.
Women’s bantamweight
Julianna Peña (2): Burks, Jackman
Kayla Harrison (5): Al-Shatti, Carroll, Fowlkes, Mindenhall, Riggs
Surprise, surprise — the Parlay Pals are supporting one of their own.
While we certainly admire the loyalty from “GC” and “NewYorkRic” to back their fellow “The Ariel Helwani Show” regular, the rest of the gang are throwing their metaphorical money on Kayla Harrison to finish her story as the seemingly inevitable UFC bantamweight queen.
A two-time Olympic champion and two-time PFL champion, Harrison has been every bit as good as advertised in her two UFC appearances thus far. The eventual showdown between the two loquacious talents could be the exact shot of life the women’s 135-pound division has been begging for since Amanda Nunes abruptly took her ball home in the summer of 2023.
Women’s flyweight
Valentina Shevchenko (2): Carroll, Jackman
Weili Zhang (2): Al-Shatti, Burks
Alexa Grasso (1): Fowlkes
Manon Fiorot (1): Mindenhall
Natalia Silva (1): Riggs
No division in 2025 garnered a more diverse range of responses than women’s flyweight, and it makes sense. At 36 years old, Shevchenko is on Year 22 of her professional MMA journey (yes, you read that right), so it’s only a matter of time before age finally catches up with the all-time great champ.
Add that to the fact that the 125-pound division has essentially been deadlocked for the past two years because of the Shevchenko vs. Grasso trilogy, and this is what you get — a forecast with seemingly endless possibilities and zero clarity as to which direction this story will unfold.
Strawweight
Weili Zhang (3): Burks, Fowlkes, Riggs
Tatiana Suarez (4): Al-Shatti, Carroll, Jackman, Mindenhall
Tatiana Suarez hive unite.
After more than a half-decade of false starts, bad luck and a never-ending cavalcade of untimely injuries, there may only be dozens of us left — DOZENS!!!! — but Suarez is finally getting her shot at gold on Feb. 9 at UFC 312.
Is it deserved? Probably not! But in the eyes of at least four Uncrowned staffers, the night could be sweet vindication for the UFC’s most snakebitten uber-talent since Dominick Cruz. (Assuming, of course, that Suarez doesn’t slip on a banana peel on her way there first.)
