The year is halfway over, and already more than half of the UFC's 11 championships have changed hands. So far, 2025 has proved to be a fertile time for the emergence of new champions and the disappearance of old champs in odd ways.
How odd? Three of the champions who surrendered titles didn't lose them inside the cage. Islam Makhachev announced in May he was vacating the lightweight championship to move up to welterweight, where the UFC promised him a title shot. Ilia Topuria, who had already agreed to vacate at featherweight in February, won Makhachev's old 155-pound strap a little more than a week ago at UFC 317. A third belt was vacated at heavyweight, where Jon Jones retired and the UFC promoted Tom Aspinall from interim to full champion -- without him having to lay a glove on an opponent.
Beyond the gold-and-leather version of musical chairs, the UFC has seen some spectacular performances inside the Octagon and memorable moments that promise great fights ahead. Brett Okamoto and Jeff Wagenheim break down ESPN's choices for the highlights of 2025 so far.
Editor's note: ESPN polled a 13-member panel of voters for these awards.
Best event: UFC 317
UFC 317 was headlined by one of the most iconic performances in UFC history.
The UFC's International Fight Week card was strong from start to finish, but the pay-per-view event will be remembered for many years for its main event. Topuria became the UFC's first two-weight champion with an undefeated record, and he did it emphatically by knocking out former champion and fan favorite Charles Oliveira.
That single performance made UFC 317 a clear leader for best event of the midyear, but the rest of the card carried weight, too. Men's flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja added to his future Hall of Fame record with a title defense over Kai Kara-France via submission. Joshua Van cemented himself as a fighter to watch in a bout against Brandon Royval that could contend for fight of the year come December. Payton Talbott reemerged as one of the sport's most promising prospects. And the prelims kept the energy high, with three first-round finishes and four early stoppages overall in six bouts. -- Okamoto
Fight of the midyear: Brandon Royval vs. Joshua Van at UFC 317
In the week leading up to UFC 317 on June 28, Van was nowhere to be found in ESPN's divisional rankings and was scraping the bottom of the UFC's top 15 rankings. In the short time since, Van has surged to the top of the ladder, just one rung down from champion Pantoja, whom Van will challenge in his next fight. What prompted the meteoric rise? This historic fight.
Van was a late replacement, brought in to face then-No. 2 contender Royval. The 23-year-old was coming off a third-round knockout of Bruno Silva three weeks earlier at UFC 316, but the opportunity to get a title shot next, should he defeat Royval, was too good for Van to pass up. And both fighters competed as if a title already was on the line.
It was toe-to-toe the whole way, and Van was especially accurate with his attacks, landing 204 of his 305 significant strike attempts (66%). Royval connected with 215, making their combined total 419 -- the most ever in a three-round UFC fight and the third-most landed in any fight inside the Octagon. Van earned a unanimous decision to win an all-action fight that was impossible to match. -- Wagenheim
Men's fighter of the midyear: Merab Dvalishvili
Dvalishvili and Topuria ended in a deadlock at the top of this category, each earning 46.2% of the vote. That's amazing, considering the two fighters of Georgian descent are also good friends. Ultimately, Dvalishvili earned the slight nod from ESPN because of his two title defenses in six months, compared with Topuria's one. Dvalishvili handed Umar Nurmagomedov the first loss of his 10-year pro career at UFC 311 in January, which is a significant feat of its own. That win, coupled with Dvalishvili's dominant showing in a rematch against Sean O'Malley at UFC 316 in June, has raised him to No. 3 on ESPN's pound-for-pound rankings.
Dvalishvili is already awaiting a date for his third title defense of the year against Cory Sandhagen, and Topuria is likely situated for a high-profile title defense before the end of the year. So don't be surprised if we're right back to this same debate in December for fighter of the year. -- Okamoto
Women's fighter of the midyear: Kayla Harrison
Harrison is a UFC champion, and it was a long time coming -- just not a long time in the UFC.
An Olympic gold medalist in judo in both 2012 and 2016, Harrison made her MMA debut in 2018 with the PFL and won two championships in her first two years. A UFC stint was next on her goals list, and last year she finally made it to the Octagon. Two dominant wins put her in line for a shot at the women's bantamweight title.
Harrison was a heavy favorite over Julianna Pea at UFC 316 last month, and she quickly showed why. On her way to securing a first-round kimura submission, Harrison outlanded Pea 30-9 in significant strikes. The cherry on top of her victory was enticing retired former champion Amanda Nunes into the cage to face off, setting up one of the biggest fights in MMA history. It just keeps getting better for the 19-1 Harrison. -- Wagenheim
Breakout fighter: Joshua Van
Where does one even start? What's most impressive about Van? That he earned a title shot at 23 years old? His willingness to accept the risk of taking two fights and two weight cuts at the highest level within a span of 21 days?
Van is making history with these performances. He's the only fighter in UFC history to land 100 or more strikes in six of his first nine appearances. And did we already mention ... he's only 23 years old.
He's doing all of this in a division that has been historically and notoriously overlooked. It's been done before, but it's not easy to make waves at 125 pounds. The champ, Pantoja, has done a great job of delivering memorable performances at men's flyweight. Brandon Moreno garnered attention due to his success as the first Mexican-born UFC champion. Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, of course, is the gold standard for MMA flyweights. However, all of those fighters took years to build their mainstream appeal. Van is becoming a household name out of nowhere. Unsurprisingly, this vote for breakout fighter of the midyear was unanimous. -- Okamoto
Best KO: Mauricio Ruffy's spinning wheel kick against King Green at UFC 313
The most consequential knockout of the midyear is the last one fight fans have seen: Topuria's one-two starching of Oliveira to win the lightweight championship. It is especially impressive when placed in the context of Topuria's recent career: It was his third straight KO, with the other victims being the estimable featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and former champion Max Holloway. The 17-0 Spaniard is a giant killer whose own profile in the sport has become gigantic.
But if we're talking about the best knockout, the setting in which it happened and aesthetics must be factored in, and no finish thus far in 2025 has been more breathtaking and unexpected than Ruffy's spinning wheel kick to collapse Green. Competing on a UFC 313 card headlined by two of the promotion's human highlight reels, Ruffy upstaged both Alex Pereira and Justin Gaethje with his first-round finish of Green. What a way for Ruffy, like his Fighting Nerds teammates, to announce his arrival as a lightweight to be reckoned with.
Along with Topuria's KO, Malcolm Wellmaker's knockout of Kris Moutinho at UFC Fight Night from Atlanta on June 14 also received three first-place votes. Wellmaker's explosive right hook in Round 1 needed no follow-up, just admiration. -- Wagenheim
Best submission: Jean Silva's ninja choke against Bryce Mitchell at UFC 314
This was an image that stayed with you for a while. Silva went to UFC 314 as a man on a mission. The entire performance was electric, as Silva walked down his prey, shrugged off all of Mitchell's attempts to get him to the mat and eventually buried Mitchell with the ninja choke. Mitchell tapped, but the choke was so tight that the lights clearly went out from behind his eyes before the referee could intervene.
The Fighting Nerds have been on an absolute tear this year, but Silva might be the loudest of the group. He does everything with passion, including his patented "bark" celebration. He has a big opportunity to reach another level in the second half, as he'll headline Noche UFC on Sept. 13 with another action-packed featherweight, Diego Lopes. -- Okamoto
Best moment: Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunes face off at UFC 316
We are clearly in an era of postfight in-cage faceoffs. There were none for years before the two PPVs in June combined for three in-Octagon stare-downs. UFC 317 had Pantoja welcoming his next challenger, Van, to the cage after the co-main event and Topuria going nose to nose with Paddy Pimblett after winning the lightweight title in the main event.
But neither of those produced the chills that Harrison and Nunes did earlier in the month.
Their faceoff came immediately after Harrison won the UFC women's bantamweight championship. Nunes, the greatest fighter women's MMA has ever seen, came into the Octagon and bowed toward Harrison, who reciprocated. The two women shook hands and hugged before addressing the crowd.
"I feel like we knew this was going to happen," Harrison said. "I have the belt, she has the legacy. Let's put it on the table."
It was refreshing that no phony beef was driving the narrative between these onetime teammates at American Top Team. Their storyline is simply that when Nunes and Harrison fight, they will determine who is the best fighter in women's MMA. Set a date, UFC. -- Wagenheim
Most improved fighter: Payton Talbott
Obviously, a talented 26-year-old such as Talbott is expected to improve -- but you can't expect him to do it as fast as he has. Talbott began 2025 with a huge loss to Raoni Barcelos at UFC 311 in a fight he entered as an 11-to-1 favorite. Talbott's biggest issue in that loss was defensive wrestling. He gave up eight takedowns and almost 10 minutes of control time.
That's a rather large hole to address, but Talbott fixed it in less than six months. His performance against Felipe Lima at UFC 317 was so composed and well-rounded that it immediately returned Talbott to the same level of hype he had entering this year. It's obvious Talbott has raw talent. What we saw at UFC 317 was the progression of everything else required to compete at the top of the men's bantamweight division: a full skill set, maturity and the ability to bounce back from a loss. It's not easy to restore hype once it's gone, but Talbott did and then some. -- Okamoto
