MMA is the sport of unpredictability, and that remained true in 2025.
Everybody loves a good surprise. The art of diverting expectations is one of the most alluring aspects of MMA — the unpredictable nature of what can happen in and out of the fights themselves.
Big upsets are always easy highlights to point to when reflecting on the year's biggest surprises. 2025 was a bit different, though. While underdogs still overcame the odds, as they always do, many of the year's biggest shocks unfolded on the periphery. MMA is only getting bigger and bigger, and so is the UFC's notoriety and the deals it lands, which starts off Uncrowned's list of the five biggest surprises of 2025.
1. UFC ditches pay-per-view, strikes seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with Paramount
When dissecting the news that the UFC signed its new broadcast deal with Paramount, a couple of details were much more surprising than others.
Let's start with the least unexpected: The whopping $7.7 billion price tag. Sure, the number sounds quite staggering, especially considering the lackluster product we've seen in recent years. But the reality is UFC has only grown in popularity regardless of its card quality throughout the ESPN era. Also, inflation is real. Considering the ESPN deal was worth $1.5 billion in 2018, there's been ample time for UFC to bolster itself into a position for its latest deal.
Did Paramount overpay? As of right now, that certainly feels safe to say, but we'll have to see how these first few years shake out first.
That brings us to the most stunning aspect of the whole deal: No more pay-per-views. (For now.)
Imagining the MMA leader dishing out its biggest and best fights — or at least trying to convince us of that fact — for no extra $79.99 charge still doesn't sound believable. All you need is your Paramount+ subscription and you'll have every UFC event of 2026 — again, for now — at your disposal at no extra charge. For an MMA fan, it's actually a great deal. Non-fight-fan Paramount+ subscribers who'll be dealt a monthly price increase may not be so happy, but a pay-per-view-free UFC should be enjoyed for as long as it lasts, because it almost seems too good to be true.
Lastly, among all the discussed and speculated possible landing spots for the UFC, no one expected Paramount would even be in the mix. Netflix, Amazon Prime, perhaps a combination of those two plus ESPN? Nope. All in one place — one place that's essentially an updated, modern-day version of the UFC's old home, Spike TV.
Time truly is a flat circle.
2. The UFC White House card wasn't a joke
A UFC event inside a giant LED ball was one thing. Hosting fights on the White House lawn is another entirely.
Despite UFC CEO Dana White consistently insisting the company doesn't put on gimmick fights, it very much does. That's exactly what an event at the White House is, and when it was first floated as an idea for the 250th birthday of the United States, it somehow seemed too goofy and over the top to be real.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been a regular at UFC events throughout his time in office, but he never made any concrete, serious-sounding claims on the event's status until we suddenly started seeing renders of what the setting could actually look like. These were displayed on big-time news networks, mind you, showing the kind of broad mainstream interest a White House card concept could generate.
White repeatedly noted throughout 2025 how difficult it'll be to organize the event from a logistics standpoint, while also promising the best card imaginable. What the latter entails is still anyone's guess, but this exclusive, VIP-only experience will happen after all. Who would've thought?
3. The Dulgarian domino effect
As expected, by the end of the year, the noise from the Isaac Dulgarian debacle has been almost entirely drowned out.
UFC's latest gambling scandal is an interesting one because, truthfully, it's not surprising that a fighter might have allegedly bet against themselves and lost intentionally. Cashing out on a bigger payday, especially on a UFC entry-level contract, is an extremely understandable scenario. And multiple other UFC fighters said they'd been approached in similar ways after Dulgarian's bizarre first-round loss to Yadier del Valle.
Once a top featherweight prospect, Dulgarian now finds himself suspended until a supposed FBI investigation brings further details to light surrounding his alleged dive. The scandal cost him his spot on the UFC roster and likely his entire fighting future. Perhaps the biggest surprise of this entire domino effect is that another situation like this hasn't happened sooner since the James Krause saga in 2022.
Regardless, it's a jarring reminder of how broken the UFC's pay structure is — which is only further highlighted by the massive broadcast deal featured in our No. 1 spot on this list.
4. Petr Yan's masterclass rematch
Another way to frame this one is: Reigning UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili lost.
More than anything, it wasn't that Petr Yan beat Dvalishvili — even if that was absurdly surprising — but it was more in how Yan beat him. After losing a lopsided decision in 2023 that saw Dvalishvili maximize his relentless style like never before, Yan rallied back to win three in a row and style on Dvalishvili at UFC 323. With his incredible tactical adjustments and defensive grappling improvements, the Russian made it look like their first fight never even happened.
Yan completely flipped the script, shutting out Dvalishvili — or at worst, dropping a single round — to reclaim the title he once held. It was one of the more remarkable championship performances against a seemingly unstoppable champion we've ever seen — and in a matchup we'd already seen.
5. Whose division is it anyway?
It was a wild, roller-coaster year for the UFC welterweight division. Despite all the twists and turns we took to reach the end of the ride, somehow only one Uncrowned staff member predicted the right champion. They must be pretty smart.
Belal Muhammad vs. Jack Della Maddalena wasn't the title fight we expected to get after Shavkat Rakhmonov cemented his top contender status to cap off 2024. What was even less expected was the lopsided performance the underdog Della Maddalena put on to claim gold. It was the perfect opening to allow lightweight champion Islam Makhachev to step through the door, and before 2025's end, Makhachev looked even more dominant at his new division, beating Della Maddalena from pillar to post to show why he's a divisional standard regardless of weight.
Meanwhile, the welterweight contender shuffle was unlike any other across MMA's many divisions. Ian Machado Garry rebounded impressively from his Rakhmonov loss, beating top contenders like Muhammad and Carlos Prates. The latter of whom also rebounded spectacularly, melting Geoff Neal and Leon Edwards with epic knockouts. Ecuadorian superstar Michael Morales emerged, stealing Sean Brady's spotlight, and Rakhmonov's shadow still looms in the background over the entire welterweight ladder.
71 / 1101 / 110he 170-pound table was truly reset in 2025. Here's to hoping even more chaos is on the horizon in 2026.
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Category: General Sports
