Who has the best chance in 2025 to finally snatch that UFC light heavyweight title from the runaway freight train that is Alex Pereira? What percentage of UFC fighters might be getting some special chemical help these days? And what should we reasonably expect from the GFL after its big announcement?

All that and more in this special New Year’s edition of the mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA or @benfowlkes.bsky.social.

Can I be real with you? Like, real real, son? I honestly think it’s Jon Jones.

Whether he talks the UFC into giving him Alex Pereira as a way of avoiding Tom Aspinall, or whether he fights Aspinall, retires, then unretires to fight Pereira all before the end of the year (entirely plausible and you know it), I could absolutely see Jones fighting and beating the big homie “Poatan” in 2025. It’s the wrestling, man. That’s what it is.

It’s definitely not all of them. That’s as much as I can say for sure. As for an actual percentage? I’d just be guessing. I do wonder if the percentage is higher now that the UFC has shifted away from USADA and toward something a little closer to in-house testing. Sure seems like we don’t hear about as many suspensions and positive test results, and I doubt it’s because the sport suddenly got that much cleaner.

I think the real dividing line in performance-enhancing drug use among the UFC roster is one of economics. The higher-paid fighters can afford to get the kind of help doing the kind of doping that is less likely to be detected. The fighters lower on the pay scale are more likely to end up shooting old-school steroids they bought from some meathead in the gym locker room. If there’s a major disparity in non-dopers going up against dopers, I suspect it all comes down to the zeroes on the paychecks.

Wow, that’s a lot of questions. My answers are:

– Yes.

– She just might supplant Dominick Cruz as the most cursed-by-injury fighter in UFC history.

– I’ll be impressed and a little surprised if the GFL puts on a single event.

– The women’s 135-pound division absolutely needs her right now to help pull it out of the doldrums, and I think she can keep making the cut just fine for the foreseeable future.

Not only would I rather fight five Hasbulla-sized Brock Lesnars, I might actually be willing to pay for the privilege. Seems like good therapy.

It’s the second one.

With streaming services hungry for live sports content, I could see the UFC coming up with more watered down Fight Night-style events long before I could see any significant paring back.

Jed, I want to help you. You believe that, don’t you? That I would help you if I could?

It’s just that I have no idea what to do for you here.

It all depends what you’re doing. If, for example, you settle into an AMC Signature Recliner for an early afternoon showing of “Nosferatu” and realize you’ve overdone it just as Nicole Kidman is performing her little play, but you also have nothing else you need to get done that day? Then brother, you make the choice to view it as a wild ride you get to go on. If you make the same mistake headed into Thanksgiving dinner with extended family, however, you ought to fake an illness and Uber up out of there.

I don’t think there’s any racial element to it. If we know anything about the UFC it’s that no color is more important than green. I think the parent company, TKO, just decided to send ticket prices through the roof until people stop buying them.

It’s worked, too. Every time UFC CEO Dana White stands up there talking about setting a new arena record for live gate sales, what he’s really saying is that the UFC charged more for tickets than any of the other sports or music or entertainment providers of the past. So that’s good news for the UFC. I just will never understand why fans cheer along with him. That’s their money, after all.