Every year I look back at the year that was an I pick who I think was the fighter of the year. Last year, UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria took home that honor. At the time, Topuria was the featherweight champion and while only fighting twice in 2024, he knocked out Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway in those two fights.
When looking at 2025, I thought that the award was guaranteed for Merab Dvalishvili as we entered the final months of the year. In a day in age where champions aren’t incredibly active, Dvalishvili was the exception. Dvalishvili defended his title successfully three times in 2025 with wins over Umar Nurmagomedov, Sean O’Malley, and Cory Sandhagen.
However, that wasn’t good enough for Dvalishvili. He wanted to become the first UFC champion in history to defend his title four times in a calendar year. So less than two months after defeating Cory Sandhagen, Dvalishvili took on Petr Yan in a rematch. Unfortunately for Dvalishvili, Petr Yan fought the best fight of his career and defeated him.
I know that some are still going with Merab as Fighter of the Year despite the loss, but I can’t give that distinction to someone who ended the year on a lopsided loss. With that, I’m going to pick a fighter who regained his spot atop the P4P rankings this year and that’s UFC welterweight champion Islam Makhachev (28-1).
UFC’s Makhachev is the Fighter of the Year
Makhachev only fought twice this year with one fight being in January. He was supposed to defend his lightweight title against Arman Tsarukyan, but Tsarukyan pulled out of the fight on the day of weigh-ins. Makhachev defended his title against Renato Moicano and he ran through him submitting him in the first round.
After that, Makhachev vacated the UFC lightweight title and moved up to 170. Makhachev headlined the November MSG card against Jack Della Maddalena. Makhachev completely dominated JDM over the course of five rounds and he became the welterweight champion.
While he wasn’t as active as Dvalishvili in 2025 and while you could argue that Dvalishvili had the better wins, I’m going to take the guy who made a little history in 2025 and took back the top spot in the P4P rankings in dominant fashion without suffering a loss.
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