So much changes in a year. This is especially true in combat sports, where the life cycles of the fighters and the feuds and the trends alike are all sped up to a mayfly’s pace.

We’ve dedicated thousands of words in the past couple weeks to evaluating the year that was in MMA. But what about the year to come? It’s sure to be just as eventful. As we prepare for the UFC schedule to kick back into gear, here are our five biggest MMA stories to watch in 2025.

1. The UFC’s looming broadcast rights deal

You just get the feeling that change is in the air. UFC’s broadcast rights deal with ESPN expires this year, and parent company TKO has made it very clear that it’s looking for a massive price increase. (A $1 billion per year figure was already being floated out there on Friday.) Company executives, including UFC CEO Dana White, have also teased the possibility of breaking the product up across multiple platforms, the way many other sports properties have done.

Netflix seems likely to be a big player in these discussions. The streaming giant inked a deal with the WWE, another TKO property, late last year. Netflix also brought in big numbers with the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match, which may have only increased its appetite for both live sports and fight sports.

As we’ve seen, these broadcast rights deals have the power to drastically alter how we consume the sport. While the corporate masters decide how best to squeeze every penny out of broadcasters and streamers, they’re also deciding how many subscription services we’ll need in order to follow this sport — and how much it will cost to be an MMA fan in 2025 and beyond.

2. Something has to give with UFC heavyweight champ Jon Jones

In 2024, Jon Jones more or less held the heavyweight division hostage. He insisted on fighting Stipe Miocic and no one else. He would not be swayed by fan demands or even the existence of an interim title. He absolutely had to fight a former champ who’d been halfway retired for the past couple years and prior to that hadn’t won a fight since 2020.

That stopped the division from moving forward. It kept interim champ Tom Aspinall in a holding pattern that was frankly a little ridiculous and not really fair. Now, with the Miocic fight over and done (and Miocic retired), Jones is going to have to make a decision. White has said this fight is his top target for 2025. If Jones doesn’t agree to it, he faces the prospect of being stripped of (another) UFC title.

One way or another, something has to happen here. Either Jones fights Aspinall and our wishes are granted, or he declares firmly and finally that he’s never doing it and we move on without him as heavyweight champ. There really is no third option that makes even a little bit of sense.

3. PFL needs to gain some ground or die trying — and also decide what to do with Bellator

Why did PFL buy Bellator? Was it because the company felt like it didn’t have enough headaches to deal with already? Because right now, Bellator feels like more a liability than an asset for PFL, with a vocal contingent of fighters mad that they’re being shelved with little explanation.

This is just one of several troubling signs for PFL. Decreasing the payout for season winners from $1 million to $500,000 is another. It sends the signal that money is running out and the PFL’s business is shrinking rather than growing. It also just doesn’t sound as impressive as “million-dollar tournament winner." Holding up that big novelty check for $500,000 will seem a little puny by comparison.

If the UFC leaves ESPN, even just partially, that could create a real opening for PFL. But it has to do a better job of showing us that it fills a niche in MMA that the UFC doesn’t.

Being "the UFC but less so" has never proven to be a winning business strategy in this space.

4. Ilia Topuria has to decide if he’s gotten too big (literally and figuratively) to be featherweight champ

He has all the potential to be one of the biggest stars in the sport. He has the featherweight title. He knocked out two all-time greats in one year. He has two separate nations — Spain and Georgia — united behind him. And skill-wise, he seems to be way ahead of everyone else in the division. So what does the future hold for Ilia Topuria?

He’s teased a potential move up to lightweight, but also says he won’t leave the 145-pound title vacant. There’s also the question of whether he’d be as dominant up at 155 pounds. Many great featherweights have discovered their limits there, after all.

All the pieces are there for this guy, and yet the future now seems a little murky. If 2024 was the year of Topuria seizing the UFC featherweight title and then solidifying his place, it seems like 2025 will be the year of him charting a path forward, perhaps into entirely new territory.

5. We’re going to find out whether this sport still cares about Conor McGregor, and vice versa

Once the biggest star in the sport by a wide margin, McGregor now feels like the ne’er-do-well cousin that MMA is always halfway ashamed of. Wasn’t 2024 supposed to be the year he got back to business in the cage? That was his proclamation on New Year’s Eve 2023, anyway.

Instead it was the year he finally booked a fight, only to pull out of that fight with a broken toe, all before a court in Ireland found him liable for sexual assault. Now the whiskey brand he founded doesn’t even want to be associated with him. The video game that had already paid him went and removed him. Even the wax museum ditched his sculpture. Everyone outside the UFC seems to think he’s toxic waste. So how about inside?

Rumors that McGregor might box Logan Paul for hundreds of millions of dollars at the whim of one wealthy family in India seem a little fanciful. But if some version of that fever dream becomes reality, it probably signals that he’s all but done as anything resembling a serious MMA fighter. Would the UFC really care all that much? Seems increasingly doubtful. The money machine has still been churning without him. And with the baggage he carries these days, maybe the company and the sport can do just fine without him.