UFC's Rising Stars for 2017: 10 to Watch in the Next Year
The UFC is increasingly running a star-driven business.
Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey accounted for 61 percent of the UFC's pay-per-view business in 2015, a much greater proportion of the total than the biggest stars in the past have drawn. McGregor is the biggest draw the sport of MMA has ever seen.
The UFC knows this, which is why the promotion has gone out of its way to invest in new stars. Up-and-coming talent is on the rise in practically every division, injecting new blood into even some of the more static weight classes.
Let's take a look at 10 fighters who could break through in 2017.
Paige VanZant
1 of 10
Love her or hate her, win or lose, Paige VanZant isn't going anywhere. The UFC has invested a tremendous amount of time and energy promoting the 22-year-old strawweight, including making the call to get her on Dancing with the Stars in 2016.
More than any other fighter, VanZant embodies the new direction the UFC has begun to take over the last several years, a change of focus that places more emphasis on attracting pay-per-view buys and mainstream media attention than in-cage performance.
This is the same promotion where Dan Henderson, 4-6 in his last 10 fights, got a title shot and where a welterweight rematch between a featherweight and a lightweight, Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz 2, set the UFC record for pay-per-views, according to MMA Fighting's Dave Meltzer.
Conventionally attractive, well-spoken fighters with crossover appeal are at the heart of this new order, and that describes VanZant to a T.
That's not to say VanZant is a bad fighter. She's athletic, relentless and durable and fights with real heart and passion, overwhelming her opponents with her pace and a steady dose of offense in the clinch and on the ground. She's still raw, but that's to be expected from a 22-year-old with only nine professional fights under her belt.
It's an open question, however, as to whether VanZant can break through and reach the strawweight elite. Optimists might point to her youth and athleticism as evidence of how far she still has to go before she reaches the ceiling of her talent; conversely, pessimists might focus on her subpar defense or lack of a single stand-out skill set.
Neither perspective would be totally wrong, but following her loss to Michelle Waterson at UFC on Fox on December 17, her ceiling looks a lot lower than it did a year or two ago. Unless she quits MMA, though, the UFC will be in the VanZant business for the foreseeable future.
Mickey Gall
2 of 10
With three wins under his belt in the UFC, including high-profile victories over CM Punk and Sage Northcutt, the UFC has something in Mickey Gall.
Precisely what it has is harder to say. Two of his three opponents had no professional record entering their fights with Gall, and the third, Northcutt, had shown himself to be a limited fighter. Still, despite that lack of experience against UFC-level competition, nothing about Gall's run points to him being a flawed talent. In fact, most of what we've seen varies between promising and outstanding.
The New Jersey native is a strong, skillful grappler who has competed on the submission circuit against talents like Gordon Ryan and acquitted himself well. Each of his four fights has ended by submission, and he's an improving wrestler. Striking isn't his strong suit, but that's not unexpected from a fighter who's only been competing professionally for 13 months.
Gall seems to be surrounding himself with the right people. For his last fight, he worked with Firas Zahabi at Tristar in Montreal, one of the best coaches in the sport. That's the kind of instruction and environment that will allow him to continue to grow.
More than anything else, Gall has shown a willingness to get out there and promote himself. He always has a call-out ready after a fight, he's fun on the microphone and he gives a great quote. That's a talent that matters in the UFC these days.
With the win over Northcutt under his belt, 2017 will be a big year for Gall. Can he continue to grow and pick up wins? If he does, he could be one of the new stars the UFC has been looking for.
Kelvin Gastelum
3 of 10
There's no doubting The Ultimate Fighter 17 winner Kelvin Gastelum's talent. He has only lost twice in the UFC, both of them split decisions, against top-10 welterweight Neil Magny and welterweight champion Tyron Woodley.
The big question was, is and will always remain Gastelum's ability to stay disciplined and manage his weight. For now, he plans to remain at middleweight, and he was just booked in a headlining bout against Vitor Belfort in Brazil in March.
That's a winnable fight for Gastelum, who has shown he can compete with large, thickly muscled middleweights like Tim Kennedy and Nate Marquardt, both of whom Gastelum dominated. Belfort is dangerous, but Gastelum will likely enter the fight as a sizable favorite.
At some point, however, Gastelum will face one of the monsters of the middleweight division. The 5'9" Gastelum would give up six inches in height to former champion Luke Rockhold and five to Chris Weidman. Even Robert Whittaker, a short middleweight at 6'0", would still have three inches on Gastelum.
Size matters, and at middleweight, it will eventually become a factor that will work against Gastelum. If he can safely go back down to welterweight, however, the sky is the limit. In fights where he has comfortably made the weight, an indicator of his offseason discipline more than his work ethic in camp, Gastelum has looked like a world-beater. When he has neglected his diet, he hasn't looked good.
Whether he sticks around at middleweight or heads back to 170, Gastelum is one to watch in 2017.
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Mirsad Bektic
4 of 10
As much as it's possible for a future champion to fly under the radar, Bosnian-American Mirsad Bektic has mostly avoided the public eye. The American Top Team product doesn't go out of his way to draw media attention, and injuries have hobbled his ability to put together a string of signature wins. Despite these setbacks, however, Bektic has looked like a monster every time he has made the walk to the Octagon.
Of Bektic's four UFC outings, only the first, against Chas Skelly, was competitive. In the three fights since, Bektic plastered Paul Redmond, dominated Lucas Martins and then submitted Russell Doane inside the first round.
Athleticism defines Bektic's game. The 25-year-old is a freak with off-the-charts strength and explosiveness, but he backs up his physical gifts with sharp, technical skills in every phase. He boxes well on the feet and packs fight-ending power in his hands, and his strikes lead directly into a potent double-leg takedown. He's vicious enough from top position to finish the fight from inside his opponent's guard.
If that weren't enough, Bektic has shown improvements in every outing. The highly touted prospect has lived up to every expectation thus far, and all that remains is to prove his talent against a top-flight opponent. If he can stay healthy in 2017, this should be the year it happens.
Francis Ngannou
5 of 10
True heavyweight prospects are one of the rarest commodities in MMA. In a marketplace for athletic talent that places a premium on the talents of enormous, athletically gifted men, few of them choose to follow the siren song of MMA's relatively low wages when more lucrative opportunities lie elsewhere.
When a real prospect does show up in a thin division like heavyweight, where a half decade might pass without much turnover in the top 10, he tends to get noticed. Francis Ngannou seems like that prospect.
A native of Cameroon who has spent most of his life in France, Ngannou has only been fighting professionally for a little more than three years. His growth in that short period has been nothing short of shocking.
Ngannou is, without exaggeration, one of the most physically gifted heavyweights in the sport. His 6'4" height and 83-inch reach are fantastic for the division, and he carries very little fat on a frame that holds nearly 250 pounds. He's fast, athletic, strong and shockingly powerful, capable of finishing a fight with a single shot at any point.
Physicality is one thing, and that alone might make Ngannou a top-10 heavyweight. What makes him special, however, is how quickly he's picking up new skills.
Before knocking out Luis Henrique in his UFC debut in December 2015, Ngannou had some trouble defending takedowns and spent some time being controlled on his back. In his very next fight, against junior college national champion wrestler Curtis Blaydes, Ngannou stuffed most of Blaydes' takedown attempts and effortlessly stood up when briefly planted on the mat.
In his last fight against Anthony Hamilton, the veteran heavyweight grabbed a rear waistlock on Ngannou. The Frenchman then grabbed a double wrist-lock and used it to force Hamilton to the ground, where he finished the submission a moment later. If Ngannou's post-fight speech is to be believed, his coaches had showed him that technique in the locker room before the fight.
Ngannou will face Andrei Arlovski on January 28 on Fox, and that will be the Frenchman's opportunity to announce his arrival as the next big thing at heavyweight.
Robert Whittaker
6 of 10
Australia's Robert Whittaker isn't exactly a new face—he entered the UFC four years ago as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes—but the 25-year-old is riding the wave of a six-fight winning streak, five of which have come since he moved up to 185 pounds.
The middleweight division is starved for young talent. The champion, Michael Bisping, is 37 years old, and the top contender, Yoel Romero, is 39. Former champions Chris Weidman and Luke Rockhold are both 32. In fact, Whittaker, along with blown-up welterweight Kelvin Gastelum, are the only fighters under 30 currently ranked in the top 10.
The division is due for some turnover, and Whittaker is the man on the spot. He has steadily worked his way up, defeating a variety of stylistic matchups while showing that at least for him, his lack of ideal size hasn't hampered his game. His knockout win over Derek Brunson, on paper a tough stylistic matchup for him, showed his ability to deal with pressure and wrestling.
Now is the time for Whittaker to step up. The division is in flux and aging rapidly at the top, so Whittaker will get his chances in 2017.
Yair Rodriguez
7 of 10
Mexico's Yair Rodriguez burst onto the scene as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America in 2014, and he's done nothing but impress since then. The 24-year-old has run off five consecutive victories, including a highlight-reel knockout of Andre Fili and a barnburner of a five-round decision over Alex Caceres in his first headlining opportunity last August.
The UFC sees a real future in Mexico as a potential market, which is why it's run several iterations of The Ultimate Fighter there and run four events in the country in the last several years. Rodriguez could be the star, or one of them, that the promotion needs to break through into the mainstream.
Rodriguez's talent is off the charts. He's an incredible athlete with exceptional speed and a big frame for the featherweight division, and he fights with great charisma and flash. The former taekwondo practitioner throws lightning-fast kicks in bewildering varieties, from spinning to front to round to jumping to side to oblique, and melds them with high-amplitude takedowns in the clinch.
It's a creative, entertaining mixture of skills, and Rodriguez does it all at a punishing pace. He threw 338 strikes in 25 minutes against Caceres, per FightMetric, most of them kicks. What's even crazier is he maintained that workrate in the altitude of Salt Lake City. That's an incredible feat, and it bodes well for him in the future.
The UFC has set Rodriguez up with BJ Penn in the former two-division champion's return to fighting on January 15 in Phoenix. It's a safe bet Rodriguez will be an enormous favorite in that fight, and he'll accrue some much-needed name value if he wins.
Everything is lining up for 2017 to be a big year for Rodriguez. After Max Holloway fights Jose Aldo, the next challenger in the division is up in the air, and it could well be the young fighter out of Mexico.
Cody Garbrandt
8 of 10
Even in a bantamweight division chock full of rising talent with fighters like Thomas Almeida, Aljamain Sterling, Jimmie Rivera and John Lineker, Ohio's Cody Garbrandt stands out from the pack. The 25-year-old has strung together five straight wins in his two years in the promotion, and he has finished four of them by devastating knockout.
This, more than anything else, is why Garbrandt will be fighting Dominick Cruz for the bantamweight title at UFC 207 on December 30. He's an exciting fighter by nature, one blessed with exceptional speed and crushing power in his hands, and he has the crisp boxing skills to turn those physical gifts into knockouts with regularity. At Team Alpha Male, he has the training partners to hone those skills into an elite package.
Garbrandt is a willing self-promoter and has talked a substantial amount of trash (warning: NSFW language) about Cruz, though nobody will confuse him for Conor McGregor or Chael Sonnen on the microphone.
The combination of his willingness to talk and his exciting style has helped the UFC get behind him as it does for few other young fighters. He has been booked for media days and appearances to help promote his fights and seems to be a favorite of the PR crowd.
Even if Garbrandt loses to Cruz, as the oddsmakers listed on OddsShark currently think he will, Garbrandt's career will hardly be over. He's young, he's still getting better from fight to fight and he has a long and fruitful road ahead of him. Whether he begins 2017 as the newly crowned bantamweight kingpin or a former title challenger, the next year will bring new attention to Garbrandt.
Alexa Grasso
9 of 10
Alexa Grasso has only officially been in the UFC since November 2016, when she took a wide decision from journeywoman Heather Jo Clark, but the hype has been building around the Guadlajara, Mexico, native for years.
Prior to coming to the UFC, Grasso won four fights under the banner of Invicta FC, defeating talented competitors like Mizuki Inoue and Jodie Esquibel. That was despite missing more than a year due to injuries. Despite fighting legitimate competition, Grasso never truly struggled, and in every fight she showed substantial improvements. That's the mark of a serious prospect.
The 23-year-old Grasso brings a fan-friendly style with her into the cage. She's mostly a boxer, flashing quick hands in crisp combinations that carry real power. Everything she throws is fundamentally sound, which allows her to work at an exceptional pace and drown her opponent in pressure and volume. She can wrestle well enough to stay standing, and she's a surprisingly nasty clinch fighter as well.
In the cage, there's no doubt as to Grasso's talent. Even in a strawweight division stacked with up-and-coming talent, Grasso stands out.
What makes her a rising star, however, isn't just her obvious talent or even her youth. She hails from Mexico, a market the UFC into which the UFC has poured a great deal of time, effort and money, and she has the look the UFC quite obviously prefers when it comes to the female stars it chooses to promote.
When you combine the looks, the talent and the market, it's not hard to see why Grasso is a fighter to watch in 2017. She'll get the chance to prove she deserves the hype against Felice Herrig at the upcoming February 4 Fight Night in Houston. If Grasso emerges victorious from that fight, it won't be long until the UFC starts a serious push to make her a household name.
Khabib Nurmagomedov
10 of 10
If it feels like Khabib Nurmagomedov has been on the cusp of stardom for years now, that's because he has. The 28-year-old native of Dagestan, Russia, debuted in the UFC nearly five years ago, and since then he's strung together eight consecutive wins, a streak that culminated in a brutal submission win over Michael Johnson at UFC 205 in November.
The reason Nurmagomedov is still a rising star, rather than an established one, is entirely due to injuries. He spent two years on the shelf with a variety of ailments following his win over future UFC lightweight champion Rafael Dos Anjos, during which he pulled out of two scheduled bouts with Donald Cerrone and one with Tony Ferguson.
When Nurmagomedov finally returned to action, he blew the doors off Darrell Horcher, who replaced an injured Ferguson. Seven months later, he dominated Johnson at UFC 205. The series of injuries might have been serious and time-consuming, but they obviously haven't diminished Nurmagomedov, and he's now a shoe-in for either an interim title bout with Ferguson or a title fight with Conor McGregor.
If he can stay healthy, Nurmagomedov might just be the best lightweight on the planet. Recent fights have made clear that the only way to beat the stifling Russian is to keep him at arm's length; the moment he grabs ahold of his opponent, the round, and potentially the fight, is as good as over.
The sport of MMA has never seen a wrestler and grappler who can control his opponent on the mat as effectively as Nurmagomedov while still inflicting enormous amounts of damage. He breaks his opponent, mentally and physically.
"You have to give up," Nurmagomedov told Johnson in the middle of the tremendous beating the Russian put on his helpless opponent. "I need to fight for the title. You know this. I deserve it." He punctuated his words with punches and elbows, and eventually forced Johnson to tap out.
That's strong evidence of Nurmagomedov's scary charisma. Between rounds at UFC 205, he turned on the stool and addressed UFC president Dana White. "Hey, be careful. I'm gonna smash your boy," he said, referring to McGregor. He repeated that challenge in his post-fight speech. "I want to fight with your chicken. This is No. 1 easy fight in lightweight division."
That was a star-making line after a star-making performance in front of a huge audience. If Nurmagomedov can carry that momentum through into 2017, the sky is the limit.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. For the history enthusiasts out there, he also hosts The Fall of Rome Podcast on the end of the Roman Empire. He can be found on Twitter and on Facebook.
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