March 2025

February 2025

Timothy Wheaton delivers a front-row seat to the middleweight division’s brutal reset - where legends fall, new blood rises, and the old guard is being sent packing. 

There are moments in combat sports where we turn the page and find ourselves in a new chapter. One day, we’re watching legends. The next, we’re scraping a legacy off the canvas. The UFC middleweight division underwent a generational shift over the past year, and new blood has taken out the old guard. When I was young, the fighter who inspired me most was Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua. He tore through PRIDE FC like a chainsaw through a pinata. Eventually, he captured the UFC gold, and all felt right with the world. Then Jon ‘Bones’ Jones knocked on the door. Suddenly, it wasn’t the Shogun era anymore, and we weren’t even consulted. This happens in MMA like clockwork. One empire rises, only to be steamrolled by the next. Anderson Silva’s reign ended with Chris Weidman, who was later folded by Luke Rockhold. It’s an endless cycle where the snake eats its tail, and icons become highlights for the next wave of champions. Nowhere is it being played out more dramatically than in the UFC middleweight division. 

THE ADESANYA AND WHITTAKER’S GENERATION

Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya stood atop the middleweight division for years, treating contenders like a chew toy. Whittaker’s battles with Yoel Romero were the stuff of nightmares – ten rounds of war where both men left with their faces resembling poorly assembled jigsaw puzzles and knees that belonged in retirement villages.

“Romero is one of the scariest fighters in the division, but those fights brought out the best in me. They were wars, and I’ll always respect him for that,” remarked Robert Whittaker upon reflection of those battles.

Next came Adesanya, a Nigerian-Kiwi kickboxing savant who walked into the UFC and dominated. He passed the Anderson Silva test, survived the Kelvin Gastelum war, and turned Whittaker into a meme in front of thousands of Australian fans. It was his time. 

“Pressure makes diamonds. I thrive under it because I know who I am and what I bring to this game,” said Israel Adesanya of his moment in the spotlight. 

For years, these two steamrolled through the division. Between them, they beat nearly everyone worth mentioning. The problem? Once you’ve cleared out all challengers, the walls start closing in.

TRIANGULAR THEORY OF POWER

Here’s where things play out like a Greek Odyssey. Two great empires go to war while a third pulls up a deck chair and watches, fresh and hungry, to take them both out. Imagine Athens vs Sparta while the Macedonians sharpen their swords. In combat sports, it’s the same. Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson went to war. Then along came Muhammad Ali. Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield took turns mauling each other. Then Lennox Lewis showed up to clean house. Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos engaged in their legendary trilogy, only to watch Stipe Miocic ascend in their wake. Whittaker and Adesanya spent years fighting, depleting their best attributes, and eventually, the fresh wave arrived. They had given their best to the fans, and in some ways, the next generation made them pay for sharing their secrets.

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Adesanya would go on to lose and recapture his middleweight title to the knockout machine Alex Pereira, only to lose to Sean Strickland, a decent fighter with an effective jab, shoulder roll, and teep kick. It should have been an easy win for ‘The Last Stylebender’ to showcase his seemingly limitless skills, but the kickboxer was outstruck in one of the biggest upsets in MMA history. Meanwhile, Whittaker took a brutal loss to a then-up-and-comer, Dricus du Plessis. While that’s a difficult loss, he has the skills to bounce back but hasn’t. Meanwhile, the former KSW champion, Dricus du Plessis, ran through the middleweight division. With self-taught striking from the pages of Fighters Only Magazine, he cleared out most of the ranked fighters, including Darren Till, Derek Brunson, and then-champion Sean Strickland. And just like that, the old guard was on life support. Later, ‘Stillknocks’ Du Plessis would defeat Adesanya, but the worst for the old guard was yet to come.

NEXT GEN POWER

The UFC’s middleweight division struggled to find new blood for an era. Fighters like Paulo Costa, Marvin Vettori, and Jared Cannonier ranked in the top ten regardless of activity. These athletes have now fallen way-side to new blood, a new chapter, a new generation. The Russian Swede wrestler Khamzat Chimaev fights like a man with a dinner reservation and five minutes to end an opponent before he’s late. During the pandemic, at the iconic Fight Island, he set the record for the fastest consecutive wins in modern UFC history at ten days and earned the record for the quickest three-fight win streak in modern UFC history at just 66 days. He is the future champion on everyone’s radar, provided he can fix his health problems. The Dagestani-French Nassourdine Imavov took slightly longer to enter the conversation. He suffered a few losses on his rise but has put together a stunning four-fight win streak and is now a top-ranked middleweight. While Dricus du Plessis has been tactical in his wins over Adesanya and Whittaker, Imavov and Chimaev left doubts during their crushing defeats of these former champions. They buried the generation and brought their own coffin nails.

MIDDLEWEIGHT RELOADED

And in the blink of an eye, an entire generation has been put in the ground. The fighters they faced on their rise and title defenses have also begun to disappear from the rankings. Chimaev and Imavov are circling du Plessis like sharks scenting blood, while the ‘Fighting Nerd’ Caio Borralho of Brazil has charmed everyone with his well-rounded tactical game and smart glasses. Unbeaten in the UFC, the Brazilian Borralho wants to continue his win streak. He might be the third man in the triangle of power while Nassourdine Imavov and Khamzat Chimaev face off. There is more to come as ‘Fluffy’ Anthony Hernandez and Brendan Allen claw their way into contention. Collegiate wrestling sensation Bo Nickal is building momentum, while Roman Kopylov and César Almeida are waiting to turn the rankings upside down. The UFC middleweight division is no longer the house that Whittaker and Adesanya built. The lights are off, and new tenants have moved in. This isn’t a renovation. It’s a full-scale demolition. The future belongs to the next wave of killers, and they’re not here to take part. They’re here to take over.