Belts used to mark the summit, the place you planted your flag and caught your breath. In 2025, fighters touched the peak, checked the view, and kept moving.
Freeze-frame the UFC on January 1, 2025. Now compare it to January 1, 2026. Last year’s champs barely survived a calendar. They used to be treated like fine wine, but the last 12 months treated them more like raw milk on a summer’s day. This isn’t spectacle for its own sake. It feels like an acceleration in which champions are no longer dropping anchor. They’re moving weight classes, hunting fresh opponents, and stress-testing matchups before anyone has time to build a legend around them. The belt no longer feels like the end destination. It’s now more of a proving ground where the sport asks harder questions. Can you defend while injured? Can you adapt on short notice? Can you go up or down in weight? What’s emerging is a new champion template that doesn’t involve the long-reigning monarch, but a high-functioning problem solver. The UFC champion is no longer the final form. Today, they’re a moment in motion, and here’s a breakdown of how this happened in nearly every division.
HEAVYWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Jon Jones
Jan 1, 2026: Tom Aspinall
For the most part, heavyweight was ruled by a man who technically existed. Jon Jones held the belt, but the division operated as if he were on sabbatical. Heavyweight paused. Everyone was in the TV room, but Jon held the remote and made us wait for the show to start. Tom Aspinall fought, defended an interim belt, then defended it again, essentially running the division while trying to bait Jones into a match. The UFC has finally acknowledged reality. Aspinall technically defended the belt in 2025 thanks to an understandable eye poke, so heavyweight moved from a museum piece to a semi-working model. And while Jones might have made the belt feel historic, Aspinall made it feel employed. The sport didn’t choose youth over greatness; it just chose availability over mythology.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Alex Pereira
Jan 1, 2026: Alex Pereira
Alex Pereira’s 2025 looked less like a reign and more like his once-busy travel itinerary. He started the year as the champion, lost the belt, which he attributed to illness and injury, then won it back, all while reminding everyone that light heavyweight is his division. Pereira fought twice, dropped the title once, reclaimed it, and spent the rest of the year shamelessly flirting with other weight classes. The belt technically stayed with him, but its meaning somehow changed. Pereira certainly kept the division entertaining while it felt like he was taking the belt seriously.
MIDDLEWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Dricus du Plessis
Jan 1, 2026: Khamzat Chimaev
Dricus du Plessis stormed 2025 doing what he does best: winning fights in ways that look like they shouldn’t work. He beat people by being awkward, exhausting, and shameless. Middleweight felt unpredictable, and we loved it. Then Khamzat Chimaev arrived and smothered the unpredictability. Chimaev has always been a looming threat, and with his illness and travel issues, it’s been tough to get a read on his overall skill. He did what every mountain man wrestler does and acted like a human octopus, leeching the unpredictability out of DDP. Everyone held their breath as a new era in title match-ups looks likely, where the main event might not be the fight of the night that the fans want.
WELTERWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Belal Muhammad
Jan 1, 2026: Islam Makhachev
A long walk to the summit preceded Belal Muhammad’s brief reign. Then 2025 happened. Jack Della Maddalena got his moment, adding another stylistic wrinkle to what’s arguably the UFC’s most exciting division. Forever a student and strategist, Islam Makhachev needed a new challenge and with his friend Belal out of the picture, he moved in like a guy not wanting to date a friend’s old girlfriend. Islam’s title win wasn’t about size or timing; it boiled down to skill portability, where he took a leaf out of Chimaev’s book and smothered Della Maddalena. The casual fans groaned at that lack of spectacle while the purists rejoiced. It amounted to a Rotten Tomatoes score that would have seen the critics’ consensus dramatically supersede the popcorn-o-meter. Still, there’s a new champ in town, and there’s no shortage of challengers, which makes this the place to eat your corn.
LIGHTWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Islam Makhachev
Jan 1, 2026 Ilia Topuria
Vacant lightweight did what lightweight always does, and it ate its young. The year began with Islam Makhachev looking invincible. But 2025 saw a reshuffling of the deck. After Islam’s move up to chase double-champ status. Ilia Topuria surged up from featherweight, conquered Charles Oliveira for the vacant gold, and briefly looked like the next long-term monarch. The back end of 2025 saw Topuria face personal turmoil, so he stepped away amidst a bout with Paddy Pimblett, leaving the belt abandoned mid-sprint. The most historically stacked division in MMA ended the year without a champion, proving that in this new era, ambition and volatility move faster than the UFC can print gold plates.
FEATHERWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Ilia Topuria
Jan 1, 2026: Alexander Volkanovski
At the start of 2025, it seemed that the Alexander Volkanovski era had ended. Ilia Topuria had the crown, the youth, and an aura of inevitability. Topuria’s move left a vacuum only a legend could fill, and he’d earned that right. Volkanovski reclaimed the throne by outpointing Diego Lopes in April, a rematch of which we’ll see in February. Featherweight didn't move forward in 2025. It looped back. The division isn't looking for the next big thing. Instead, it’s holding onto the one man who proved that consistency is its own kind of brand.
BANTAMWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Merab Dvalishvili
Jan 1, 2026 Petr Yan
Merab Dvalishvili spent the first eleven months of the year trying to break the sport by defending the belt three times in a single calendar year, smothering everyone in his path with his high-volume assault. He was on the verge of the most productive year in UFC history until he met his match in Petr Yan. In a rematch that felt like a final stand for the Russian's relevance, Yan authored a masterclass at UFC 323, dethroning Merab and reclaiming the gold. Bantamweight remains the shark tank where no one is allowed to be comfortable. Where Merab made the belt look like a gruelling factory shift, but Yan turned it back into a prize.
FLYWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Alexandre Pantoja
Jan 1, 2026: Joshua Van
For two years, Alexandre Pantoja was the flyweight bogeyman. A gritty veteran who refused to let the new guard breathe. He started 2025 as an immovable object, defending the belt with his trademark intensity. But the flyweight division moves at a higher frequency than the other divisions, and by the end of the year, it produced an unlikely disruptor. Joshua Van is the first fighter born in the 2000s to touch UFC gold and fought his way into contention by stepping in when others stepped out, culminating in a December showdown at UFC 323. The freak accident that relieved Pantoja of his crown, which perfectly encapsulated the 2025 theme. Nothing is set in stone.
WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Zhang Weili
Jan 1, 2026: Mackenzie Dern
This is when the final boss went into raid mode. Zhang Weili started 2025 as the closest thing the UFC had to a finished product. Champion. Complete. System-proof. She was winning and solving contenders like someone ticking boxes on a clipboard. Seeking a second division title, Zhang vacated the throne in October to hunt Valentina Shevchenko at Flyweight. Mackenzie Dern capitalized on the vacuum to claim the vacant strap. Where does that leave Zhang now that she flew too close to the sun? Whatever division she steps into next, she’s sure to continue her streak.
WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Valentina Shevchenko
Jan 1, 2026 Valentina Shevchenko
Phew! Finally, some order. You can count on the queen for that. Valentina Shevchenko had spent late 2024 closing the Alexa Grasso chapter and reclaiming her throne, but the division she returned to was no longer the one she left. It was faster, younger, and entirely unimpressed by her legacy. Throughout 2025, the belt became a masterclass in defensive problem-solving. She out-duelled Manon Fiorot in May and completely neutralized Zhang Weili’s move up. While every other champion was uncertain of their position, Shevchenko remained in place and raised the entry tax. By January 1, 2026, Flyweight was the UFC’s only stable island in a year of constant floods.
WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT
Jan 1, 2025: Raquel Pennington
Jan 1, 2026: Kayla Harrison
Julianna Peña reclaimed the title in late 2024 through grit and split-decision drama. There was a point where the bantamweight felt like a chaotic trade show where the belt was a moving target. Then came June 7, 2025. It was almost an inevitability as Kayla Harrison offered a clinical demolition, finishing her with a submission in the second round. Decisions were the norm in most of the title bouts across the men's and women’s divisions, so this tells a big story, and we’ll be watching as she takes on Amanda Nunes to repeat the feat.
THE COLD TRUTH
What made 2025 so unique wasn’t that there was a lack of championship fighters, but how quickly we can move on from someone who was once seemingly unbeatable. The airs of invincibility have disappeared, except for those champs in certain divisions, but anyone waiting for a long, drawn-out reign may have to rethink the old model. Those who thrived were willing to move, adapt, and leave the safety of their divisions. The job description of the UFC champion is changing and if you stand still the sport might pass you by so the strategy might be to keep moving so you get your moment.
