MMA’s biggest winners and losers of 2024: Alex Pereira’s superhero turn, Colby Covington’s

Momentum was a fickle thing across MMA in 2024. Some fighters had it better than others, and with award season well underway, it’s time to highlight those on each side of the coin

While wins and losses are a guarantee in the yearly cycle of any sport, MMA is unique in the sense that a positive stock swing is possible in defeat. The amount of times we’ve seen fighters get title shots off losses is more than I’d care to admit, but a lot goes into the business of prizefighting and promotion. Let’s get the negative out of the way first and then we’ll end on a very merry, positive note.

Biggest losers

Colby Covington

Covington enters 2025 on the first losing streak of his 22-fight career after defeats at the hands of Leon Edwards and Joaquin Buckley. The latter was the final UFC fight of the year and saw the once-dominant pressure wrestler stifled in nearly every exchange. It was the first time Covington looked like he had absolutely no answers.

That was Covington’s lone fight of 2024, continuing his trend of fighting just once a year since 2019. Covington turns 37 in February and the division’s new crop of dangerous welterweight contenders are rapidly passing him by. If the Buckley performance is anything to go by, things will only get worse for Covington at this stage if he keeps hanging around the 170-pound shark tank.

On top of it all, Covington continues to maintain his outspoken gimmick, trashing anyone and everyone he can while pleading that he’s the best in the world. Chief among the names who caught shade this year were Ian Machado Garry, who Covington appeared to blatantly duck when he took the Irishman’s original slot against Buckley. According to Covington, his TKO loss via doctor’s stoppage to Buckley in Round 3 came right as he was getting warmed up. The “boy who cried wolf” can only cry for so long before it sounds like a never-ending excuse. It’s been the same old story after every loss for Covington.

Not even his in-cage talent can support his hyperbolic claims anymore.

Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler

McGregor could have his own spot on this list for obvious reasons. We’ll get to that, but his saga with Chandler intertwines in the overall 2024 picture, and on Chandler’s side, it didn’t end the greatest either.

The pair were linked as early as February 2023 when they began filming “The Ultimate Fighter 31” as opposing coaches. They went through the entire season, built up and hyped an impending clash, and finally scheduled it for UFC 303 in June 2024. Then McGregor withdrew with a broken pinky toe.

As a fighter, the withdrawal optics for such a seemingly minor injury couldn’t have been worse for McGregor, who notoriously, repeatedly — and so proudly — spent an entire career boasting about how he’d never do such a thing. We all remember his comments towards Rafael dos Anjos when the Brazilian withdrew because of a broken foot, right? It didn’t help McGregor’s case that UFC 303’s replacement headliner, Alex Pereira, stepped in to knock out Jiri Prochazka with multiple broken toes of his own.

McGregor vs. Chandler was never rebooked and McGregor was subsequently found liable for sexual assault. Brands once affiliated with McGregor have since distanced themselves and his fighting future remains up in the air. Despite that, Dana White claims a late 2025 return is still possible.

Chandler, on the other hand, wasted two years of his career waiting for a McGregor fight that never came and probably never will. He eventually rematched Charles Oliveira, and though he put up an extremely valiant effort in Round 5 to nearly pull off an epic comeback, he was still dominated thoroughly and lost a unanimous decision in the end. There’s an argument that Chandler didn’t lose much stock because of that fifth round, but he still lost plenty of time in his fast-closing window that he’ll never get back.

Alexa Grasso and the UFC flyweight division

The handling of the UFC women’s flyweight division in 2024 hurt my soul.

MMA’s best female division was iced out and stalled at its peak for a full year thanks to the scoring blunder in Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko 2 at the first Noche UFC in September 2023. Because of that split draw and the UFC’s desperation to keep a fitting title bout for its new annual UFC Mexican Independence Day celebration, the promotion sat on the trilogy bout for a full year until UFC 306.

That also meant Grasso and Shevchenko had to waste their time with a season of “The Ultimate Fighter.”

Once they finally did meet again, Shevchenko won dominantly as she outwrestled her rival for five rounds for a lackluster decision, evening the series score at 1-1-1 with a bout that won’t make any Fight of the Year lists. It made that stall even more upsetting as worthy contenders like Manon Fiorot and Erin Blanchfield were forced to wait around twiddling their thumbs — or in their case, fighting each other.

Even in terms of flyweight prospects getting the hype machine push, China’s Wang Cong burst onto the scene through Road to UFC and had a stellar debut. UFC constantly informed the audience of her kickboxing win over Shevchenko and fast-track talks started circulating. Then Cong lost in a huge upset at UFC Macau against Gabriella Fernandes, instantly ending any of those plans. Womp womp.

Heading into 2025, Fiorot appears to be the clear next contender in line to challenge for gold, but talks have been quiet regarding when that could happen. The worst thing for flyweight would be turning Shevchenko vs. Grasso into the women’s equivalent of Brandon Moreno vs. Deiveson Figueiredo.

Muhammad Mokaev

We’re not necessarily ranking the entries on this list, but if we were, Mokaev has a strong case to be No. 1.

It’s been a good while since we’ve seen a fighter continue to succeed inside the cage as much as Mokaev while simultaneously plummet their stock outside of it. Mokaev went 3-0 in 2024 with two big wins over his fellow top flyweights Alex Perez and Manel Kape. Unfortunately for Mokaev, the wins mattered little thanks to Mokaev’s antics outside the cage with bitter rival Kape, which culminated with an ultra-dud of a fight.

Mokaev was wholly unapologetic for his actions and the win was the last on his UFC contract. Dana White announced that same night that Mokaev wouldn’t be re-signed and that the PFL would have a good fighter on their hands. But Mokaev didn’t even end up there — PFL has no flyweight division. Instead, he enters 2025 back in his pre-UFC home, Brave CF, where he recently scored an easy two-minute D’arce choke submission win.

The 24-year-old is as talented as they come. He’s just not wanted.

PFL

This one also hurts my soul.

We want PFL to succeed. Competition is better for any sport and we’ve seen it throughout history. Going into 2024, PFL had every opportunity in the world to make incredible strides with its big acquisition of the longstanding Bellator MMA promotion in late 2023.

Instead, it was squandered and a majority of those champions are now begging to be released.

The promotion often compares itself to UFC and PFL founder memorably called it a “co-leader” in MMA without proof to support that. Things got off to a rocky start when its promising champions vs. champions launch event in February fell apart thanks to injuries — just two of the four originally expected title tilts survived, leaving Bellator’s Ryan Bader to get starched by Renan Ferreira after PFL’s other five standouts were all beaten by Bellator fighters beforehand.

A lack of transparency also didn’t help the promotion when more pressing concerns surfaced — like Daiane Silva’s coma. Events were canceled without explanation, and while the consistent pacing issues felt addressed, trips to Saudi Arabia feel lifeless from an atmospheric perspective.

Let’s hope this snowball builds in a positive direction in 2025.

Honorable mentions: Officials and the rules, The Neffati Brothers

2024 was one of the worst years — if not the worst — I can remember in my 15 years watching this sport regarding rule enforcement. This would get more than an honorable mention if rules and judging were ever going to change or get the proper enforcement required, but who are we kidding? Rules are a suggestion in this silly sport. Cheat, fighters! There are no consequences!

Speaking of no rules, MMA got a little crazier than usual in England’s World Freak Fight League when former World’s Strongest Man Eddie Hall took on two dudes at once. Unfortunately for The Neffati Brothers, they were those dudes. Hall powerbombed his way to a knockout victory in just the wackiest scene of the year. Honestly, we need more of this type of fun in our MMA diets. May it be a strong reminder not to take on “The Beast” — even with a teammate.

Somewhere in between

Ilia Topuria

Alright, here’s the weird territory.

The UFC featherweight champion Topuria is undeniably in the two-man race for 2024’s Fighter of the Year and was as much of a winner inside the Octagon as it gets. Topuria’s back-to-back knockouts of all-time great former champions Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway may legitimately be the greatest back-to-back wins ever. Outside of the Octagon though, Topuria has done an incredible job of losing fans.

As soon as he became a champion, Topuria threatened to go in a direction away from the obvious and much-desired Holloway fight that appeared on deck. It inevitably happened and we’re here now, thankfully. But Topuria’s head-scratching comments continue as he’s now talking about a lightweight fight against Charles Oliveira and claiming he’s cleaned out the division already. It feels like there’s more to whatever is going on behind…