While it’s been another massively successful year for UFC as a business, there’s a whole lot of fans who would argue that 2025 has not been great as far as the quality of product the promotion is serving up.

Blame injuries, blame failed negotiations, blame matchmakers, blame the UFC’s grueling schedule, blame parent company TKO’s penny pinching. Or don’t even get into the blame game. Just acknowledge that a company with over 600 of the best fighters in the world should be putting together better cards with bigger fights more regularly.

At this point in the year you can count the number of marquee fights the UFC has staged on one hand. The outlook for the rest of 2025 doesn’t appear much better. It’s to the point where online commentators have speculated that the UFC might be purposefully holding off on booking the biggest fights to ‘keep their powder dry’ for the big 2026 switch to Paramount CBS.

But I still have hope that the UFC may be looking to end their seven year relationship with a bang, and one way to do it is with fast turnarounds for its biggest names and up-and-coming standouts.

Following Khamzat Chimaev’s one-sided beatdown of Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319, there’s a lot of talk that the new middleweight champ could defend his title at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi. That card is already headlined by a heavyweight title fight between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane. While it has the stink of a consolation fight in lieu of Aspinall vs. Jon Jones, it’s still big enough to prop up the card on its own.

Normally, in the era of bottom-line obsessed TKO ownership, they’d spread Aspinall and Chimaev out onto their own cards. But now UFC CEO Dana White sounds very interested in stacking them on the same card. He was also supportive of Carlos Prates carrying the hype from his UFC 319 spinning elbow knockout into UFC Rio in 8 weeks. Will it be against Michael “Venom” Page as both Prates and Page hope?

UFC Rio is another card that already has a big headline fight between Charles Oliveira and Rafael Fiziev. That’s an impressive main event for a traveling Fight Night, and adding Prates vs. Page to the card would be another notable exception to the UFC’s practice of spreading the peanut butter as thin as possible on the toast that is their busy schedule.

Dana White and the UFC know that turning fighters around fast creates stars. That’s how Khamzat Chimaev burst onto the scene to become one of the most popular characters on the roster. White turned Chimaev training partner and Contender Series standout Baysangur Susurkaev around on three days notice to a lot of increased attention. And now we have two more potential quick returns on the horizon featuring three fun guys from UFC 319.

If the UFC wants to sprint into 2026 with some serious momentum, the way is clear: capture the momentum of fighters that are making waves, turn them around as quick as possible, and don’t be afraid to slot them onto cards that would normally be considered ‘good enough.’