In MMA, wish lists like these are often a fool’s errand. At the beginning of each year we look at all the champions and contenders, the dark horses and darker forces, the contractually complicated and the gunslinging phenoms, hoping that some of them might find their way into the cage together. We rarely get what we want.

A couple of years ago I wrote about needing to see Jon Jones fight Francis Ngannou, and though the fight dangled like a carrot right there in front of the public eye, tantalizingly close, it never materialized. Francis bolted to the PFL. Those of us who thought for a minute we might see Cris Cyborg against Kayla Harrison? No, sir. Just as Cyborg arrived in town, Harrison bolted from the PFL.

Conor McGregor against anybody we demanded? These days he’s battling plaintiffs more often than foes.

And so on.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to dream. And there are fights out there that are just too damn good not to happen. Some of them are fully obvious. Some of them would require the use of alchemy. Some of them are selfish pursuits. But all of them are fights we need to see.

Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall

I know, I know — I lied up top. But let’s start with the most obvious of the bunch and lay out an even more obvious premise one last time, just for kicks and shiggles. When you introduce an interim champion in any division, it is meant to be a “spot holding” device as we wait on the actual champion to return from whatever hiatus/malady that is keeping him or her from defending the title.

When Tom Aspinall won the heavyweight interim title in late 2023 against Sergei Pavlovich, Jon Jones was recovering from an injury. It was Jones who was supposed to fight that night at UFC 295, and Aspinall quite literally stepped into the headlining spot so that a heavyweight title would remain in play. That’s what was sold. That’s what was bought. So when poor Tom was defending the interim title eight months later in Manchester, while we waited for Jones to have his legacy lark against Stipe Miocic, it was almost as absurd as when Hollywood decided to make “The NeverEnding Story II.”

Even if you can run a sequel to eternity, you shouldn’t.

With Jones having beaten Miocic (who couldn’t retire fast enough right after Jones got his hand raised), it left only one man in his crosshairs: Aspinall. It would be the biggest fight of 2025. It’s the only fight that makes sense. It’s the fight that the whole title system is built around, where reason and logic meet for Happy Hour.

Don’t screw this up, UFC.

Ilia Topuria vs. Islam Makhachev

This one is more based on fancy. It seems that featherweight champ Ilia Topuria is already seriously contemplating a move to lightweight, and if he does that, why mess around with the Charlie Oliveiras or the Justin Gaethjes? Go straight for the division’s jugular, which happens to be the feudal lord from Dagestan.

See, if Topuria wins just one more fight at 145 pounds (whether it’s against Alexander Volkanovski or Diego Lopes or whoever), Ilia Mania will be a thing. And Islam Makhachev, should he lay down the hammer against Arman Tsarukyan, would retain his invincibility sheen. This would fall under the category of a “superfight,” and would play with the fight game’s imagination in the way that GSP vs. BJ Penn did way back in 2009.

Conor McGregor vs. Anyone Other Than Logan Paul

I throw this in here not because I’m jonesing for a McGregor return at this point, but solely because nobody wants to see an exhibition bout between opposing irrelevancies in big puffy gloves just because a mega-billionaire in India snaps his fingers …

McGregor vs. Nate Diaz III

I mean, at this point we might as well finish the trilogy. If it’s ever going to happen, 2025 might be the best year for it. Would much rather it be in the UFC than in some well-lit boxing ring, but perhaps I’m getting greedy.

Khamzat Chimaev vs. Dricus du Plessis

This is the fight that should have been made when Khamzat Chimaev crushed the jaw of Robert Whittaker and pushed a row of his teeth into a different section of his mouth. If people forgot why Chimaev is one of the most feared contenders the UFC has ever seen, he reminded them at UFC 308 with that face crank. Yet, we know the red flags. We know his unreliability when a fight gets close. We know he has visa issues, or at least suspect that he can’t travel to just anywhere the UFC goes. We know he loves that Hasbulla.

When they announced Sean Strickland would get the next crack at Dricus du Plessis’ middleweight title, it was a rematch that landed with a bit of a thud. That’s because we’re delaying something inevitable. That inevitability is the man they call “Borz.”

Amanda Nunes vs. Kayla Harrison

They have been making eyes at each other for a while now, especially as they have a history together from the days when they trained at American Top Team, but this would be big on several levels. Two-time Olympic champion judoka Kayla Harrison continues to offer further proof that she’s among the very best, cutting down to 135 pounds against all odds — and really, she’s one of the few who has distinguished herself as a juggernaut in the women’s ranks.

The other?

That would be Nunes, who is considered by most the GOAT of women’s MMA. Right now Julianna Peña is renting the bantamweight title, yet it still feels like Nunes is the landlord. And Harrison is the wrecking ball, ready to smash up the whole bantamweight construct.

Alex Pereira vs. Magomed Ankalaev

Matchmaking Alex Pereira is an interesting thing heading into 2025.

Would a Jon Jones fight against Pereira be epic? You bet it would, if they held it at a catchweight of, say, 220 pounds. But watching Pereira fight the Herculean version of Jones who destroyed Miocic isn’t as compelling as we want it to be. Pereira is a big man, but he’s not that big. Same goes for any Pereira-Aspinall fight. Pereira simply doesn’t have enough jiggle in the gut.

No, realistically if Pereira wants to tamp down the noise that he can’t beat a dedicated strong-body wrestling type, Ankalaev is just the cinema we seek. Ankalaev may be the most milquetoast of 205 pounds, as he’s not going to make any fans with his magnetism or charisma. There’s no way the UFC wants to be in the Magomed Ankalaev business, as that’s like marketing a new line of tapioca pudding. But he is the test we’re waiting for Pereira to take.

And let’s be honest. Ankalaev can bang, too. We saw him club Johnny Walker into some altered states of consciousness in that rematch. Those are some ham hocks he’s throwing. And let’s even be more honest, he may not be the phantom that so many believe him to be. "Poatan" trains with a thick old chug-a-lug in Glover Teixeira, who might just be made of granite. The champ is used to pushing around immovable objects.

Manon Fiorot vs. Valentina Shevchenko

The Grasso War is over, and Valentina Shevchenko has regained her rightful spot as the pound-for-pound queen. Who is left for her? The muting Frenchwoman Manon Fiorot, who just quietly goes about destroying the tracks on which hype trains travel. When Fiorot went to Atlantic City to take on the young, undefeated Jersey crusher Erin Blanchfield, it felt like she was heading for the proverbial buzz saw.

Turns out, no. She was the buzz saw. And when Blanchfield realized she couldn’t bully her way around the cage, nor take Fiorot down, nor really do anything that might constitute a Plan B, you could see the existential vertigo on her face all the way down the Boardwalk.

This is one of those “meritocracy” fights that will be fascinating for any fight-game connoisseur.

Zhang Weili vs. Tatiana Suarez

Yes, I know they are booked to fight at UFC 312 in February. But given the difficulty of getting Tatiana Suarez into the Octagon over the years, the litany of injuries, setbacks and fits of rotten luck, we include her title fight with Zhang Weili as part of a wishful thinking series. This fight is as fascinating as the Fiorot-Shevchenko offering, if not more so. Suarez is undefeated and dominant. There’s a reason they dubbed her “The Female Khabib,” and it’s not because she hangs out in saunas with her countrywomen.

It's because she smeshes people.

Zhang? She is at the peak of her powers, and since losing to Rose Namajunas, she seems to have a bit of that Georges St-Pierre obsession with guarding against complacency. What happens when the two cross? We need to find out.

Demetrious Johnson vs. Alexandre Pantoja

"DJ" says there’s no chance this is happening. He has declared and reiterated that his ... uh … non-Caucasian ass is retired, and he’ll never, ever come down off that stance ever. Never.

But if he does, how great would this fight be? Not saying he will! He won’t. Don’t be dumb. He is gone. He’s happily retired. There’s no chance. But if he does? We need to make the fight. Only if he does.

LOL, can you imagine though? Stop it. There’s really no way. He won’t. He said he won’t.

Unless he had his fingers crossed, which he didn’t. So stop it. Stop it.