Chuck MindenhallUncrownedThu, November 27, 2025 at 3:00 PM UTC·13 min readIt’s that time of year again: Thanksgiving. Time to offer thanks for all the wonderful happenings in MMA. No, we didn’t get to see Jon Jones go up against Tom Aspinall to unify the heavyweight title, as that would’ve been just a little too perfect for a sport that shines brightest through its imperfections. But at least Aspinall got Ciryl Gane’s digits before they left Abu Dhabi, setting up a blind date for 2026.
There is so much to be thankful for out there in the confined world of cage-fighting. We saw the Octagon travel to new places, such as Azerbaijan and Qatar, and return to stalky epicenters like Des Moines after many years, where Iowa’s own Jeremy Stephens even made a cameo. We saw fewer APEX events, though perhaps still a dozen too many. There were old champions reclaiming gold, like Alexander Volkanovski, and new champions breaking through, like Magomed Ankalaev and Jack Della Maddalena. We even saw new champions fall, like Magomed Ankalaev and Jack Della Maddalena.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhat we didn’t see was Larissa Pacheco, whom local authorities finally located after a yearlong search. Hopefully in 2026 we see her compete again, but as for 2025, well let’s just say, we’re thankful she’s OK.
What I said last year around the turkey goes the same for this year. The truth is, there are plenty of people, things and events that make our pastime stand alone as perhaps the greatest display of barefooted people locked in a cage you’ll find in the entire realm of sports. It’s true.
Without further ado, here are a few of the things in MMA that we should be truly thankful for.
Dillon Danis
Listen man, every sport needs a pariah, and Danis is just that. He’s never competed in the UFC, yet he’s already the all-time leader in RDE (Raising Dagestani Emotions). People from the Caucasus regions aren’t prone to public displays of happiness or anger, or really anything other than stone-faced resignation — yet when Danis comes around, that all changes. It started at UFC 229 many years back, when Khabib Nurmagomedov talon-swooped Danis after finishing off Conor McGregor, thus setting off a mini-melee in Vegas.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThis time it was at UFC 322 in New York, with Khabib’s protégé Islam Makhachev headlining the bill. Danis’ very presence prompted the entire Dagestani contingency to “cave him in,” as Petesy Carroll likes to say, leaving one of his oversized puffy red slippers lying on the floor like the remnants of a crime scene. And it was that. Looks like there will be charges.
Which, by the way, is the other thing Danis leads the UFC in without ever having stepped a foot inside the Octagon: Charges.
You the man, Dillon. I knew those Dagestan fighters had feelings!
The White House
Follow along here, because God is in the details. The “White House event” didn’t happen in 2025, but it came to dominate the minds of so many of the world’s biggest fighters, that it set off a sort of fistic butterfly effect that’s worth mentioning.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHad the White House card not been announced for next year, Conor McGregor would never have stumbled off the yacht. He’d never have activated his coach, John Kavanagh, and told him to turn on the lights at the old gym. He’d never have purged the wanderlusts of a wayward spirit, which he did on a visit to Tijuana. He’d never been able to relocate The Man Upstairs, who has been waiting on his call for quite some time now.
That one card, with its political significance, connected McGregor to a higher power.
Likewise, if things had stayed static on the UFC’s list of upcoming events, Jon Jones would be a silhouette on the New Mexican horizon, just a 10-gallon cowboy hat and a duck’s bill framed against the southwestern sun. Yet when he heard the words “White House,” he backtracked from his retirement. Now he had a purpose. He begged Dana White to put him on the card, and last we checked Dana said the chances of that happening were … let’s see here … oh yes, a billion to one.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat was all before Alex Pereira beat Magomed “Big Ank” Ankalaev and the Ciryl Gane eye-poke fiasco, which clears the way for a Jones-Pereira fight. The unofficial updated odds of that very fight taking place at the White House are now set at -110.
The White House has galvanized the sport’s biggest names. So … thanks?
Those who dared
The theory here is that greatness can be found in something as simple as a few dominoes. Ilia Topuria bolted from the featherweight division he ruled to chase another title at lightweight, where Islam Makhachev ruled. Before he could get there, Islam fled the lightweight division to try his hand as a welterweight. His hand played very well, as it turned out, and he’s now the champion.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIlia, meanwhile, holds Islam’s old belt.
The point is, they dared to be great and were rewarded for their audacity. Not that it isn’t confusing as hell, because nobody knows whether to call them two-division champions or champ-champs or just by the ordinary present weight distinction, but those dudes are using both shoulders to hold their belts. All we know is the former featherweight champion is now the lightweight champ, and the erstwhile lightweight champ is the welterweight champ, and those two guys should at some point fight each other.
The one who dared to be great and came up short? Zhang Weili. She didn’t get through Valentina Shevchenko, the 37-year-old wonder who first competed professionally in 1987. (OK, it was 2003, but still.) Zhang gave it the old frosh try, and now she’ll head back to strawweight, where Mackenzie Dern has commandeered her former title (for the time being).
All the gratitude goes to those who dared!
Fighting Nerds
Maybe the shtick wore a little thin, but up through April at least the glasses meant nearsighted assassins were afoot. I like the tape that holds those flimsy frames together, as well as the general attitude of those sporting them that it’s time to stand up to the endless sea of bullies.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhen Carlos Prates lost to Ian Machado Garry, it was just a setback for that concept of ultimate revenge. When the manimal Jean Silva lost to Diego Lopes and Mauricio Ruffy lost to Benoit Saint Denis in September, it felt like the bullies were never going to go quietly into that good night. Yet it was the lonely sight of the chief Nerd, Caio Borralho, losing a points-fight against Nassourdine Imavov in that Paris main event that struck at the heart chords.
Borralho actually wears glasses. He needs them to see. If he were to drop and break them, he’d be on all fours like Velma from Scooby-Doo, blindly patting the ground until finds them.
Still not sure why Imavov was being such a jerk, but thankful that the Fighting Nerds was/is still a thang.
Nicholas Dalby
Dude is 41 years old. He was a massive betting underdog showing up in Qatar, just a (strong) stone’s throw from where Saygid Izagkhmaev comes from, which meant everyone from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea was there to celebrate their guy. Dalby didn’t get the memo. He posted Izagkhmaev on the fence and held him there like Atlas holding the celestial spheres on his shoulders. The tattoos constricted on his back as the blades slithered underneath, just as slow as a small animal being ingested by a snake.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementTo say "Lokomotivo" is back is all wrong. No sir, he never went away. The thing is, you’re going to have to kill Nicolas Dalby.
Ice Wars
No, it’s not technically mixed martial arts. In fact, it’s barely specific martial arts. But it’s a couple of sadists dressed as hockey players skating toward one another with their dukes up ready to do harm. The jersey pulls and the violent jerking of bodily forms is perhaps where you’ll find the finer nuances of skill, but the fights themselves have been savage thus far. Blood, bruising, exhaustion, and a panel of ex-enforcers from back in their days serving as judges, scoring the fights essentially on gut feel.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe last Ice Wars, which was held on real ice in Sunrise, Florida in October, featured some real bangers, the best of which was the first-ever women’s fight between Christina Barry and Valerie Ruley. Uncivil stuff. Straight butchery.
Brilliant.
Those who got out
We saw some of the best, most beloved fighters call it a career in 2025. Dustin Poirier went out with a bang in his native New Orleans, and Dominick Cruz — arguably the best bantamweight champ ever — made it official that he’s done with the grim trade. There were others, too. Vinc Pichel called it a career, as did Jon Jones and Jalin Turner.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThey’re all gone for good, and we’ll miss them!
Those who came back
WTF, Jonny Bones? A two-week retirement? Salmon can sit in the fridge longer than that without going bad. And what’s that? Jalin Turner is returning in two weeks? Didn’t he just check out in March?
So many changes of heart, so many fists yet to fly. In fighting, retirement is a fancy synonym for “about to come back.”
Milk carton idols
This is for those who went missing in 2025. If Dakota Ditcheva, one of Uncrowned’s Fighters of the Year in 2024, hadn’t made a cameo appearance in July against Sumiko Inaba, we might’ve put out an APB. Cris Cyborg skipped the first 11 months and change of 2025, but we know she’ll be fighting here in December. Not poor Larissa Pacheco, though, the Brazilian who had Cyborg on the proverbial ropes in their fight in 2024. She stayed AWOL for the bulk of the year, all the way up until last month when we were informed that she’d been found alive in a well released by the PFL.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWould’ve been nice to see her encore from the Cyborg fight, but giving thanks that PFL let its mourning dove fly free. Also, Shavkat Rakhmonov, we miss you.
Matt Brown’s opinion
Ever find yourself wondering what Matt Brown thinks about Jake Paul’s chances against Anthony Joshua? Or whether or not the $7.7 billion Paramount deal will benefit fighters? Or what chance he gives Ronda Rousey if she were to stage a comeback? Or what Dana White using the UFC’s tradition style of promotion might mean for boxing? Or what he thinks about Michael Chandler and Conor McGregor fighting at the White House?
Thank you, MMA Fighting, for making it so we don’t have to wonder. Matt Brown is straight content, baby. He’s a million miles of content.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGareth A. Davies
Just thankful he’s out there, you know? Other generations have had their characters chronicling the folly of the fight game, but Gareth trumps the whole historic lot of them. Kid ages like a fine wine, too. The Thames has never been happier to reflect his greatness.
Joshua Van vs. Brandon Royval
It’s a crossroads battle that should be shortlisted for Fight of the Year, and it served as a shot of adrenaline for those of us who love a plot-twisting, back-and-forth, gut-check showcase of heart, skill and mettle.
Brandon Royval was mean-mugging anyone who looked at him during the lead-up at UFC 317, though thinking about it, that’s not exactly right; he was mean-mugging anyone looking past him is more like it. He didn’t intend to be a catapult for the young Joshua Van — who was jumping in three weeks after beating Bruna Gustavo da Silva — to use for a title shot. And he made that point crystal clear over the course of 15 of the wildest minutes of the year.
Royval took everything Van could throw at him, some of it so beautiful that symphony swells accompanied the impact. He also tagged Van and punished his youthful aggression. Knocked some sense into him, as the old-timers might say, even in a losing cause. The “Raw Dawg” might’ve got a bigger pop in defeat than he ever has in victory, and Van had to earn that upcoming title shot against Alexandre Pantoja. What a fight.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementUnderdogs
The one thing that I am eternally grateful for is that the dawgs in this sport are so live. Coming into his fight with Payton Talbott in January, Raoni Barcelos was as much as a +800 underdog, just as chalky as they come for parlay value. Yet we all saw what happened. Barcelos defiantly took the young Talbott down and kept him there, for the most part, imposing his will in what ended up being a unanimous decision.
We heard the “e” word used pretty extensively when discussing Talbott after that (“exposed”), yet he rebounded by beating Felipe Lima six months later. He was being flippant when he wrote that he was headed to Dagestan to learn wrestling … at least, I think was.
We saw another dog shine at UFC 322, when the construction worker Ethyn Ewing showed up at the 11th hour — fresh off a victory in Urijah Faber’s promotion — to face the hot prospect Malcolm Wellmaker, whom the book listed as a 4-to-1 favorite. Ewing showcased that night, to the point that you had to wonder why it took him so long to arrive. It’s not entirely rare for somebody to steal the mojo from a hyped commodity in the fight game, but it still hits home whenever it happens. #Grateful
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCain Velasquez
As he sits in confinement for taking it upon himself to defend his son, Cain Velasquez will likely (hopefully) be a free man in 2026. Yet in 2025, he should know there are lots of us who’d have done the same thing.
Teddy Atlas
After UFC 322 at Madison Square Garden, the longtime analyst and boxing coach Teddy Atlas said he was pretty sure that was his last gig at ESPN. ESPN, of course, had the UFC broadcasting rights through the end of the year, but that deal is ending as the UFC heads to Paramount+ in 2026.
Listen, there are a lot of boxing lifers who’d never give the UFC the time of day, but Teddy wasn’t like that. He kept an open mind as he learned the nuances of the sport, and he did a solid job of covering it from the perspective of a dig-deep fight game empathizer who has seen just about everything. I loved hearing him get passionate about one of our own, because others in boxing can barely muster the energy to pinch their noses at the caged prizefighting.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementHappy trails, Teddy. As the saying goes, don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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