Now that the MVP MMA event on Netflix in May is starting to really take shape, it seems worth examining where everyone — including the UFC and its White House fight card just one month later — stands now. Here are the biggest winners and losers after this week’s most recent additions and announcements.
Winner: Ronda Rousey
Six months ago if you’d asked MMA fans about Rousey they probably would have remembered the highs of her peak but also the lows of her exit. Walking through the airport with a pillow covering her face? Yeah, that image sticks. And leaving the sport bitter and defeated, still mad at the fans and the media and everyone else all these years later? It wasn’t a great look, honestly.
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Now she signs on for one fight against an opponent even further removed from her glory days and suddenly she gets to play hero and savior again. She positions herself and this MVP MMA show as the antidote to the UFC, or at least the gadfly nipping at its hide to wake it from its torpor. Few people know how to create a feud out of nothing and then put their backs into it quite like Rousey. If she can actually help turn this into something we don’t regret watching when the time comes, her legacy may shine because of it.
Ronda Rousey and Francis Ngannou make for unlikely allies, but maybe MMA as a whole can benefit from this collaboration. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)
(PATRICK T. FALLON via Getty Images)Loser: Jailton Almeida
Didn’t the big man say he had an offer to fight on this card and turned it down to take a deal with Russia’s ACA organization? Ooof. It’s bad enough he got released from the UFC while still a ranked heavyweight, all because his last couple fights were just that awful. But you’re telling me he had a chance to bounce back on Netflix as part of what could be one of the year’s biggest MMA events and instead he decided to toil in relative Russian obscurity? Rough, bro.
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Winner: Nate Diaz
Let me take you back to September of 2022. Diaz was on the last fight of his UFC deal and wanted out. He wouldn’t sign a new contract. He was willing to fight anyone the UFC gave him all so he could get free of the UFC shackles and pursue his fortune elsewhere. So fine, the UFC gave him Khamzat Chimaev. That would show him, right? He’d get mauled. The UFC would get to transfer some of Diaz’s aura to the hard-charging Chechan. Then Diaz would head into free agency as damaged goods. The same game plan the UFC has used on departing fighters since this century was still in single digits.
But then, uh-oh, Chimaev missed weight by more than seven pounds. The Diaz fight was off. The entire card had to get reshuffled, which left Diaz fighting Tony Ferguson, a peer even closer to the end of his rope than he was. This is how Diaz left the UFC on a win and went grinning into free agency. That led to a couple boxing matches (one of which he had to sue over, alleging non-payment) and now this return to MMA against Mike Perry.
Most fighters would not have retained as much of their popularity or even name recognition over these last several years. But Diaz isn’t most fighters, which is why it was smart of him to bet he could do better on his own. Can you imagine what the UFC would be using him for if he was still under contract? Let’s just say it wouldn’t have drawn millions on Netflix and probably wouldn’t have paid nearly as well.
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Loser: Conor McGregor
A trilogy fight looked like the best possible choice for his UFC comeback. There’s history there, plus a name on the other side who could do just as good of a job hyping the fight in his own way. It also would have been one of the more winnable options for McGregor at this stage, and there aren’t a ton of big names who fit that bill right now.
With Diaz fighting in May, there seems to be little hope of him turning right around to sign a new deal with the UFC. Everything we know about him suggests he’s more likely to take his money and go away for a while. McGregor needs a comeback fight soon, ideally this summer or fall, and Diaz seems to have figured a way to get paid while leaving the Irishman out of it.
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Winner: Somehow maybe also Conor McGregor?
The UFC has to be feeling some heat now. MVP is putting together a solid card and grabbing a lot of headlines. The pressure is on to deliver something big, something fun, maybe even something that might help the MMA leader shake free of these highly profitable yet not terribly exciting doldrums of late. In other words, maybe there’s never been a better time to be the only superstar left in the company, even if the shine and the sparkle have dimmed considerably.
Winner: Francis Ngannou
Just when it was beginning to look like we’d never see him in MMA again, the lineal MMA heavyweight champ is back. He also got free of his PFL deal just in time, which is just as well. What was there for him to do over there anyway? Here at least he’s part of a big show, even if it’s against an opponent most hardcore fans couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
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Loser: Hunter Campbell
One minute you’re quietly accumulating power and influence on your rise to become UFC chief business officer, pulling strings from the darkness and remaining largely unknown to most fans. Next thing you know Ronda Rousey has sworn a blood feud against you and is putting your name in the streets. That might be a sincere position on Rousey’s part, or it might be just a clever way to pick a fight with the UFC without going straight at Dana White personally. Either way, it must be getting hot under that spotlight. With everyone from fighters to UFC executives saying he’s now the one running the show, with White serving mostly as a public face who’s totally detached from matchmaking and event planning, Campbell could end up becoming the poster boy for a version of the UFC that repeatedly fails to make the big fights.
Alex Pereira punches Magomed Ankalaev in their light heavyweight title fight at T-Mobile Arena on Oct. 4, 2025, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC)
(Cooper Neill via Getty Images)Winner: Alex Pereira
Along with Ilia Topuria, he’s one of the last active fighters the UFC has who still qualifies as anything resembling a star. He’s also the one willing to go up in weight and take big risks in big spots, all to make history as the UFC’s first three-division champ. He’s now more valuable than ever, and with Tom Aspinall out he gets a very favorable matchup against Ciryl Gane, who’s game should play to all of Pereira’s strengths while totally ignoring his weaknesses.
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That’s not to say this is a gimme fight for “Poatan.” These weight classes exist for a reason, and Gane showed how dangerous he is (in more ways than one) during those brief minutes of the Aspinall fight. But given the likely options, this is as good a chance as Pereira might ever get to win a version of the UFC heavyweight title on a big stage.
Loser: UFC White House event
The comparisons were probably going to be inevitable even if Rousey didn’t go out of her way to make them. While the top two fights on that unique offering are still much better than anything MVP is bringing to Netflix — at least in terms of meaning and relevance, not to mention overall fighting ability — there’s a lot less pop to the lineup than we expected. And that’s the issue, the gap between expectations and reality.
Here, there really were no expectations. No one was sitting around waiting for MVP to put together an MMA card at all. The announcement of a Rousey vs. Carano fight got our attention in a hurry, even if it wasn’t anything we really felt like we needed until we heard it was already booked. Then the addition of the lineal MMA heavyweight champ Ngannou. Then finally Diaz and Perry, who combine to bring the crazy chaos that fight fans are such suckers for.
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Again, the UFC’s White House card is still a better event, just in terms of pure mixed martial arts. But MVP has swooped in and stolen some of the thunder with an event that goes down a month sooner — and which regular fans will actually be able to attend.
Winner: MMA fans
Oh yeah, I remember this feeling. It’s the faint whiff of competition. Not in the sense of an organization that might one day pull ahead of the UFC. That doesn’t appear to be the goal for MVP or Netflix, nor should it be. But there’s something magical that happens when we get another player in this space willing to make moves and write checks in order to put on a show. It has a way of prodding the UFC into action, if only for reasons of ego. That’s a good thing for the entire sport.
The UFC is so very alone at the top in MMA that it sometimes can’t help but get complacent. The first few months of 2026 have shown us this. When you dominate the entire landscape and rake in over a billion dollars a year just for existing and putting on a show — any show — you might inevitably get a little lazy. You can hear it in Dana White’s voice when he goes live on Instagram to announce new matchups, by which I mean read them off a piece of paper. There’s not much fire in the belly lately.
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Having Jake Paul and MVP and darling Rousey herself start throwing up taunts and challenges should fix that. And a motivated UFC always puts on better events and bigger fights than a bored and listless one.