Hello Paramount+ … goodbye pay-per-view (PPV) price tag — and good riddance.
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will kick off 2026 (and its billion-dollar streaming deal) with UFC 324: “Gaethje vs. Pimblett” on Sat. night (Jan. 24) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The card will be headlined by the interim lightweight title fight between Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett, with the winner keeping the belt warm until the return of Ilia Topuria.
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The co-main event features former 135-pound champion, Sean O’Malley, filling the hole left by Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes after Harrison was pulled with a bum neck. “Suga” battles ranked bantamweight Yadong Song, who could find himself at or near the top of a very short list of title challengers with a breakout performance this weekend in “Sin City.”
Let’s take a look at the five-fight main card below.
155 lbs.: Justin “The Highlight” Gaethje (26-5) vs. Paddy “The Baddy” Pimblett (23-3)
Ilia Topuria was forced to take a leave of absence to deal with his divorce, prompting the creation of the interim title. Justin Gaethje was an easy choice for the A side based on his resume as well as time served. Paddy Pimblett … ehhhh not so much. At the same time, No. 1-ranked Arman Tsarukyan is brawling with fans, missing weight for title fights, and head-butting opponents at weigh ins, so I kinda get why the promotion has soured on “Ahalkalakets.” It helps that Pimblett has a long and ugly history with Topuria dating back to the days of flying sanitizer bottles, and we also have their impromptu face off at UFC 317, so it could be a fun buildup to their title unification fight later this year.
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But let’s not put the cart before the proverbial horse.
Pimblett still has the biggest test of his career waiting for him in “Sin City.” Gaethje was an NCAA Division-1 All American wrestler out of the University of Northern Colorado, but has just one takedown in 14 UFC fights. He’s never bothered to utilize his wrestling and I doubt he’s going to start now. You know what else Gaethje has in 14 fights? 14 performances bonus, including nine “Fight of the Night” honors. That’s $700,000 in bonus money alone, so maybe there’s a method to his madness. There is no such thing as a boring “Highlight” fight and this weekend will be no exception. Unfortunately, he’s now 37 and hasn’t competed in nearly a year.
“You don’t know what you don’t know. He hasn’t been there,” Gaethje at the UFC 324 media day. “I’ve been scheduled at least 20 times for five-round fights, so it’s definitely different training, different mindset, different tactics when you’re fighting. I want to take him to the fourth and fifth round. I want to do the same thing, turn his face into minced meat. I’ve done it before, done it to higher-caliber fighters, but this guy has a lot of momentum right now, a lot of confidence, and those are some of the most dangerous variables that I will be facing when I step in there.”
Not to suggest that Pimblett has been knocking down Mick Maynard’s door over the last few years. “The Baddy” has only competed once per calendar year dating back to 2022 though to be fair, all three victories were dominant performances. So then the question becomes, what carries more weight in front of UFC 324: smashing and trashing a shopworn Michael Chandler, or winning a kickboxing contest against Rafael Fiziev? I’m not sure there’s a right answer, though I can say for certain that Gaethje was fighting killers like Charles Oliveira the same year that Pimblett was stealing decisions from the likes of Jared Gordon.
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“The two losses that I’ve got in title fights, both of them — I went into one sick, one I went into injured, and both of the opponents were on steroids,” Pimblett told BBC Sport. “So, I could be 26-0, really, if I weren’t fighting cheating bastards. The Soren Bak one was harder to come back from because I had him in a fully cinched up rear naked choke in the first round. But because I went into the fight injured, my wrist was still broke, I couldn’t get the proper squeeze on it. Like, I should have finished that fight. Should have won that fight. It is the way it is, and it shaped me. It made me who I am. Without them, I probably wouldn’t be in this position that I’m in now.”
Gaethje is not the most technical striker but remains a menace on the feet under the tutelage of Trevor Wittman. Pimblett will have to deal with an onslaught of devastating leg kicks and swing-for-the-fences punches. That’s not a great place for “The Baddy” to be with his rigid stance and high chin. I want to pick Gaethje, I just think his defensive liabilities and deteriorating chin are going to cost him the fight. Sooner or later this thing is going to devolve into an ugly bar fight and Pimblett is going to be in a world of trouble — right up until he slumps Gaethje with a Hail Mary outta nowhere.
Prediction: Pimblett def. Gaethje by technical knockout
135 lbs.: “Suga” Sean O’Malley (18-3, 1 NC) vs. Yadong “Kung Fu Kid” Song (22-8-1, 1 NC)
Sean O’Malley was probably never going to see another title shot against Merab Dvalishvili after getting dominated in back-to-back losses. Then lo and behold, former champion Petr Yan upset the 135-pound apple cart by toppling “The Machine” at UFC 323. Since “Suga” already has a victory over Yan in what proved to be a hotly-contested decision at UFC 280, it feels like O’Malley is right back in the title hunt — so long as he keeps winning. I don’t see any reason why he would lose to Yadong Song, who is certainly a gamer, but the limitations of Song’s striking game were exposed in decisive losses to Cory Sandhagen and Petr Yan. Outside of that, “Kung Fu Kid” is not the kind of elite wrestler who can take the former champ down at will, so I would expect most of the action to play out on the feet.
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For however long that lasts.
“Someone like Song is going to bring the best out of me. He’s very durable, explosive, hungry, experienced. Very, very difficult fight for me,” O’Malley said at the UFC 324 media day. “He’s powerful, fast. Some guys are powerful, but they’re not that quick. Some guys, they’re really quick, but they don’t hit that hard. Song’s got both. I think the UFC wanted me on the Paramount card for a reason. And that says everything I need to know. We’re still a draw, we’re still here. I’m in a good spot. I’ve been saying, 2025 was probably one of the best years I’ve ever had just in general as a person outside of fighting. But it would be nice to be able to add a win to the life experience again.”
Song has not competed since defeating Henry Cejudo at UFC Seattle early last year, which may have meant something a few years prior. Unfortunately, the 2025 version of “Triple C,” just a few weeks in front of his 39th birthday, was forced to retire after losing four straight. I’m expecting the O’Malley who blew through Aljamain Sterling and Marlon Vera to show up on fight night and that’s bad news for Song. I think he’ll survive — he’s only been stopped once over the last decade and that was from a cut — but O’Malley is going to stay one step (and one punch) ahead of him for most of the fight.
Prediction: O’Malley def. Song by decision
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265 lbs.: Derrick “Black Beast” Lewis (29-12, 1 NC) vs. Waldo “Salsa Boy” Cortes-Acosta (16-2)
Derrick Lewis has 16 knockouts in his UFC career, which is currently the all-time record. While that looks great on paper, it’s worth noting that “Black Beast” has also been knocked out seven times and submitted twice, which is kind of like those guys in baseball who clobber 50 home runs and strike out 120 times. There’s something to be said for his “live by the sword” offense because to date, it’s produced eight post-fight performance bonuses totaling $300,000 in extra cash. But is it MMA? No, and to be honest, fans don’t really want MMA or they wouldn’t be booing every time a fight hits the ground. Lewis is agile for a heavyweight and a surprisingly competent offensive wrestler but his takedown defense sucks. The Texan has been dragged to the canvas nearly 50 times in his UFC career with Jailton Almeida and Serghei Spivac making him look like a beached whale struggling to roll back into the ocean. When Lewis is dialed in, his fights are electric. When he’s not … bowling shoe ugly.
“I don’t be seeing what these oddsmakers be seeing when they’re picking against me,” Lewis said at the UFC 324 media day. “Every time, I’m like, ‘What in the hell are they talking about?’ I just watched the same video, the same fights that these people been watching. Are you really serious betting against me like that? Like once again, Saturday you will see. He should’ve had no business in the cage with me. He reminds me a lot of a Roy Nelson, the way his style is a little bit. The way he winds up his right hand. It’s just like Roy Nelson, so it ain’t nothing I never seen before.”
The jury is still out on Waldo Cortes-Acosta, at least for me, despite his impressive run over the last four years. “Salsa Boy” cut his teeth on Dana White’s “Contender Series” back in late 2022 and racked up an impressive 9-2 record with four knockouts. From a rankings perspective, his most impressive victory to date has come over the aforementioned Spivac. I know the “Polar Bear” has a win over Lewis, but he also got annihilated by heavyweight A-listers Tom Aspinall, Ciryl Gane, and Jailton Almeida, among others. The only time we’ve seen Cortes-Acosta wrestle is the night he embarrassed Robelis Despaigne at UFC St. Louis, the same event that saw Lewis pop and drop Rodrigo Nascimento. Wrestling the “Black Beast” is certainly an option for UFC 324 and a good way to avoid those night-ending haymakers, I just think the Dominican has something to prove. Then again, a lot of rising contenders before him wanted to prove the same thing and ended up smelling salts to clear the cobwebs.
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Every Derrick Lewis fight is a pick ‘em because of his reckless offense and we’re probably not going to see anything different from Cortes-Acosta, so either we get another Lewis-Ngannou staring contest or a first-round knockout. I’m leaning toward the latter and also playing the percentages, which suggest Lewis is due for another loss.
Prediction: Cortes-Acosta def. Lewis by technical knockout
125 lbs.: “Thug” Rose Namajunas (14-7) vs. Natalia Silva (19-5-1)
I don’t know what happened to Rose Namajunas over the last five years but it’s kind of depressing. The former strawweight champion was coming off a knockout victory over Zhang Weili and had captured three straight performance bonuses — including two “Fight of the Night” honors — then turned in seven straight decisions, which includes one of the worst outings I’ve ever seen opposite Carla Esparza at UFC 274. For a fighter known as “Thug” she hasn’t been very thuggish inside the cage and I don’t know whether that has to do with her jump to flyweight or the fact that she’s checked out completely. Namajunas was a large, lanky 115-pounder with an unorthodox style that frustrated her strawweight opponents but at 125 pounds, the former babyfaced TUF 20 finalist is merely average. Losses to top shelf talent like Erin Blanchfield and Manon Fiorot may have established a ceiling for Namajunas, who is now tasked with taking on the division’s No. 2 contender.
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“I’m a great mixed martial artist and obviously I have a lot of submission wins, and my jiu-jitsu is amazing and my wrestling too, but I love to strike,” Namajunas told MMA Junkie. “I love to move. I love to make people miss, and I love to make them pay for their mistakes. So, you know, that’s what I’ll be looking to do. It’s very similar to Joanna [Jedrzejczyk] in the same sense where Joanna, she definitely defeated a lot of people because they didn’t believe in their striking, and I believe in my striking 100 percent. Obviously, that’s my bread and butter.”
Natalia Silva has also turned in a string of decisions over the last few years as the promotion started turning up the heat. That included back-to-back fights against former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade and ex-flyweight titleholder Alexa Grasso. You can argue that a victory over Andrade doesn’t hold the weight it did five years ago — the Brazilian has now lost six of eight — and Grasso appears to be lost at sea in the wake of her trilogy against Valentina Shevchenko. Silva does not have the resume that Namajunas does but at the same time, she hasn’t been fighting cans, either. Let’s also remember that Silva is just 28 years old (Namajunas is 33) and may still be a year or two away from her fighting prime. I think the difference here will be Silva’s speed and the fight may not look much different than Namajunas vs. Fiorot. It would not be a complete shock to see “Thug” break out of the doldrums and set up a Shevchenko showdown, but there hasn’t been much over the last few years to feel confident enough to pick it.
Prediction: Silva def. Namajunas by decision
145 lbs.: “Lord” Jean Silva (16-3) vs. “Almighty” Arnold Allen (20-3)
Jean Silva will be looking to rebound from the first loss of his UFC career after going down in flames against Diego Lopes at Noche UFC last fall, part of the unceremonious “Fighting Nerds” collapse in 2025. I know the easy explanation is that Silva “got caught” by a wild spinning elbow, but that requires us to ignore the fact that “Lord” lost the first round. Silva got beaten at his own game and hopefully realized there has to be a Plan B when Plan A starts getting your ass handed to you. Nevertheless, Silva has won four straight performance bonuses including two “Fight of the Night” honors. He’s one of the promotion’s most violent featherweights with a knack for picking his spots. It also helps that he’s been paired with such willing dance partners like Drew Dober, who sports nine performance bonuses of his own.
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“My tactic has no secret,” Silva told Ag Fight. “I’m going to control the distance, hit him without throwing strikes, and when he makes a mistake, I’m going to knock him out. He’ll probably want to take me down in desperation, but this time I’m not going to do the spinning takedown. My prediction is to knock him out in the second round. I’m going to beat Allen and hope Diego wins. I refuse to die without fighting Diego again, but my focus is on the belt. If he loses, I’ll fight [Alex] Volkanovski. It’ll be two bald guys beating each other up, and I’ll be the champion.”
That’s what makes this fight such an intriguing battle. Arnold Allen is the anti-Silva in terms of offense and has turned away some very talented strikers like Calvin Kattar and Giga Chikadze, among others. “Almighty” is 2-2 over his last four but those losses came against featherweight deity Max Holloway and undefeated Russian bruiser Movsar Evloev, who also holds victories over Aljamain Sterling and the aforementioned Lopes. It’s also worth noting that Allen started getting better in both of those losses as the clocked dragged on, showcasing his ability to pivot and adjust his gameplan accordingly. The question is whether or not Allen can neutralize the Brazilian’s brutal onslaught — or at least survive it — and do enough in return to stay competitive. I think he goes one step above that and shuts it down completely, leading Silva to have a crisis of confidence as the fight carries into the second and third rounds.
Prediction: Allen def. Silva by decision
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