After seventeen consecutive weekends with fights, the UFC will be dark for the first time since May. In fact, it’s a quiet weekend across every major MMA promotion, outside of a PFL Europe event headlined by former kickboxing champion Cédric Doumbé.
But there was plenty of action during the weekends leading up to this much-deserved break. The UFC crowned a new middleweight champion and bantamweight champion in Sean Strickland and Sean O’Malley, respectively. Tom Aspinall made his highly anticipated return to the Octagon and Justin Gaethje knocked out Dustin Poirier to claim the UFC’s BMF title. Bellator MMA had four champions successfully defend their belts in Vadim Nemkov, Sergio Pettis, Logan Storley and Johnny Eblen. The promotion also introduced its new men’s flyweight division, and the PFL held the 2023 PFL Playoffs to finalize the championship matchups in its six divisions.
Here are five topics on my mind as the sport takes a bit of a break to close out September.
