UFC 323 roundtable: Is this The Year of Merab Dvalishvili?

It’s Merab Dvalishvili’s world and we’re just living in it, one grueling, exhausting, sweat-stained round at a time.

UFC 323, the final pay-per-view of 2025 (actually, ever, with the jump to the new Paramount broadcasting format just around the corner) takes place this Saturday in Las Vegas and its headlined by Dvalishvili’s quest to become the first UFC fighter to record four successful title defenses in a calendar year. He rematches Petr Yan in the main event and a win all but guarantees him the Fighter of the Year award.

Who else is up for consideration? What if Dvalishvili loses? Can Joshua Van really beat Alexandre Pantoja? Join MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew, Damon Martin, and Alexander K. Lee as they look ahead to UFC 323.

1. With a win, is Merab Dvalishvili a lock for Fighter of the Year?

Meshew: Yes, and I think any other choice would be a bit ridiculous.

As things stand right now, Fighter of the Year is a two-horse race between Dvalishvili and Islam Makhachev. Makhachev had the lightweight title defense in January (albeit against a short-notice replacement instead of against Arman Tsarukyan) and just delivered a one-sided drubbing of Jack Della Maddalena to claim the welterweight title. That is a sensational year by any estimation, and if Dvalishvili loses to Petr Yan, Makhachev owns the best run anyone had this year.

But if Merab wins, how do you deny him? No champion has ever defended a title four times in one year, and these weren’t just perfunctory defenses. Umar Nurmagomedov was supposed to be the next big thing; he finished Sean O’Malley; Cory Sandhagen was the perineal contender. Beating Yan again puts Merab right up there with the greatest years in MMA history, period. And the fact that doing so will all but cements his bantamweight GOAT status is just that little bit extra.

Makhachev has had a great year, and Valentina Shevchenko deserves some mention (as will Joshua Van if he beats Alexandre Pantoja), but 2025 is Merab’s.

Martin: It’s a subjective award so technically there’s no wrong answer, but Merab Dvalishvili might be one of the most deserving recipients of that award ever if he defends his title for a FOURTH time in 2025.

That is such a ridiculous accomplishment, made even more impressive because Dvalishvili would have defeated the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 contenders in the UFC rankings in the same calendar year. Not only has that never happened before, it’s unlikely to ever happen again.

The scariest thing about Dvalishvili’s year was his ability to keep showing improvements and new wrinkles in his game every time. After handing Umar Nurmagomedov the first loss of his career, Dvalishvili styled all over O’Malley and then put him away with a submission. He vowed to stand and strike with Sandhagen and nearly scored a knockout!

It’s tough to make any assumptions about his rematch with Yan after Dvalishvili attempted approximately 9 million takedowns in their first encounter, but Dvalishvili is nothing else if not capable of surprising us all. So far, 2025 looks like the year Dvalishvili went from just some champion to possibly an all-time great across all divisions.

How do you not give that guy the Fighter of the Year award?

Lee: I’ll tell you how, if Joshua Van wraps up his 2025 by knocking off a top 5 pound-for-pound fighter out of nowhere!

Or how about Islam Makhachev making easy work of the welterweight champion?

Heck, can we show some love to Waldo Cortes-Acosta who might go 4-1 and was arguably the most fun fighter to see break through this year?

Seriously though, all strong mentions, but it’s hard to beat what Dvalishvili is about to accomplish this year assuming everything goes as planned. Even considering two of his wins would be in rematches, few would argue that O’Malley and Yan aren’t two of the best five—at worst, 8—bantamweights in the world. Dvalishvili demolished O’Malley the second time around and if he dismisses Yan in similar fashion, not only will he be MMA Fightings 2025 Fighter of the Year, he’ll have a case to be No. 1 on our Pound-for-Pound chart, too.

2. Where would a Joshua Van title fight win rank among the most surprising rises to the top?

Lee: This is kind of an odd one to answer because Joshua Van has been viewed as a top prospect for some time, but fighting for a title two months after his 24th birthday? After getting knocked out by Charles Johnson in his fourth UFC fight? After getting matched up with and out-brawling the “Raw Dawg” himself Brandon Royval? This isn’t normal.

So yeah, I’m ranking this pretty damn high if Van pulls this off, but not as high as the likes of someone like a Michael Bisping, the kind of veteran we’d ruled out of serious championship contention long before he miraculously managed to win the big one. And maybe not quite as high as a T.J. Dillashaw, who also won a UFC title in his 10th appearance (not counting an Ultimate Fighter tournament finale) by beating a heavily favored Brazilian fighter.

Then again, this all depends on Van getting past Alexandre Pantoja, who has cleared out the division (a couple of names twice over) and currently holds the longest active UFC title defense streak. But if Van wins in impressive fashion? Dominates Pantoja for five rounds? Finishes him??? That would be truly surprising.

Meshew: Behind Sean Strickland’s improbably middleweight title run, but still near the top of the list.

It’s important to remember that coming into 2025, Van was unranked. Heck, he wasn’t even a FARV (Fighter Also Receiving Votes) in the MMA Fighting Global Rankings! At the start of the year, Van was a talented, 23-year-old prospect, that many would projected to fight for a belt someday, but not this soon.

Even after Van beat Rei Tsuruya and got a UFC ranking, this still wasn’t on the radar. He was No. 14 and fought No. 12 Bruno Silva next! Van was on an upward trajectory, but everything turned with a short-notice fight against Brandon Royval, where Van delivered the performance of his career (thus far). I don’t think anyone could have foreseen this.

Martin: Maybe not one of the biggest upsets but definitely surprising given how far Van has come in basically the past six months. As Mr. Meshew pointed out, Van wasn’t even ranked to begin the year and to go from that to a title fight to close out 2025 is a remarkably fast rise.

To then beat arguably the second best flyweight of all-time (Demetrious Johnson still anchoring that top spot) would cap off a jaw-dropping year for Van. By all accounts he shouldn’t even be here, but Van defied the odds when he took a short-notice fight against a proven contender like Royval and won!

There’s no denying Van earned this opportunity but actually pulling off the win would place him among the unlikeliest champions in UFC history. As far as ranking, Van becoming champion at UFC 323 would probably occupy space with Frankie Edgar beating B.J. Penn to win lightweight gold or perhaps Forrest Griffin beating Quinton “Rampage” Jackson to claim the light heavyweight title.

3. What is the most must-see non-title fight?

Martin: This is the lowest hanging fruit in history, but it’s got to be Brandon Moreno vs. Tatsuro Taira because this one should be non-stop entertainment from beginning to end.

After two losses in a row and a declaration that he was taking time off from the sport, Moreno bounced back with two wins over Steve Erceg and Amir Albazi. Moreno is undoubtedly still one of the most talented flyweights on the planet and it’s conceivable a win puts him back in title contention even with three career losses to current champ Alexandre Pantoja (one doesn’t count because it was on TUF and if no one watches, did it really happen?).

Then you’ve got Taira, who was undefeated right up until he engaged in a true back-and-forth battle against Brandon Royval, but came up short on the scorecards. Taira is a dominant grappler with sick submission skills and that is totally counterintuitive to what Moreno surely wants, which is keeping this fight on the feet.

Combine blinding speed, great striking, great grappling and two top flyweights going to war? How could this possibly suck?

Lee: I had no interest in Henry Cejudo ever coming back to fight and every subsequent appearance has only made me more eager to see him hang up the gloves for good.

But matching him up with a young gun like Payton Talbott. Intriguing.

Like, as much as I bag on Cejudo for his cringy antics and for, in my opinion, taking spots from other more relevant contenders, he’s still one of the best, most well-rounded fighters we’ve ever seen and even if he’s 75 percent of the fighter he once was, that still sounds like a lot for Talbott to handle. Like, he’s one fight removed from a one-sided loss to Raoni Barcelos. Has he improved by such leaps and bounds that he’s ready to knock off a former two-division champion? I don’t know and I really want to find out! This is great matchmaking!

And believe it or not, I’m not all in on rooting for Talbott to win and send off Cejudo off into the sunset, because Cejudo turning back the clock and showing this whippersnapper a thing or too would be kind of cool. Even if it means “The King of Cringe” decides to hang around a little longer.

Meshew: Given the choices my compatriots have made, I think the obvious answer is the other main card fight between Jan Blachowicz and Bogdan Guskov, but the truth is, Blachowicz fights are rarely “must-see.” The man with the Legendary Polish Power is one of the hardest fighters in the world to look good against, so that fight might be a bit tame. So instead, I’m going with an early prelim bout that will almost certainly bring fireworks and is also weird as all get out: Edson Barboza vs. Jalin Turner.

Let’s start with the dynamic: Turner is 30 years old and coming out of a short-lived retirement. Meanwhile, Barboza is almost 40 and really should retire. Then we add in the style matchup with pits two fighters with dynamic, brutal offense, and not the best defense against each other — that’s going to deliver something special, even if I don’t know what. And quite frankly, that’s why this is must-see, because more so than any fight on Saturday, including the title fights, I don’t know what to expect from this one, other than that I’ll probably be a little sad at the end.