2019 was one of the most exciting years for the UFC. Long-time titleholders such as Tyron Woodley and Max Holloway lost their belts to dominant challengers, while others like Amanda Nunes, Valentina Shevchenko, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Jon “Bones” Jones continued their dominance. We saw Henry Cejudo become just the fourth simultaneous double champ and new stars like Isreal Adesanya and Zhang Weili claimed the crowns to their divisions. We even saw Stipe reclaim his throne at the heavyweight division. Jorge Masvidal became the biggest fighter since Conor McGregor and claimed the BMF belt. All in all, it was one crazy year with tons of exciting fights. So now let’s look ahead at what next year has in store for each UFC division.

Heavyweight 

This is possibly the weirdest division in the UFC; it is filled with a ton of old guards who new challengers are finding a tough time overcoming. Further, that old guard is not giving any reason for themselves to be fighting for the title. Stipe Miocic claimed his revenge on Daniel Cormier and is once again the champ but is left without a ton of options. Francis Ngannou is always a great choice but he already beat him once and not a lot of people want to see that guy twice… But you can’t give the title shot to anyone who Francis has beat, which is nearly everyone recently. This leaves you with two options, the trilogy fight with Daniel Cormier or is this the year Jon Jones finally moves up to heavyweight?

Stipe apparently wants to make DC wait for his title shot as payback for DC doing the same to him, but that is currently the only intriguing matchup at the top of the division. The only other challengers I can think of is the winner of the Francis Ngannou vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik fight that takes place in March (let’s just hope this doesn’t turn into a Ngannou vs Lewis fight where they are both too scared of each other to throw anything). The dark horse in all of this is Alexander Volkov, who in case you forgot was about 20 seconds away from a title shot until Derrick Lewis knocked him out in stunning fashion. Volkov will need another win against a top 5 opponent for sure. Francis already has a dance partner even though these two fighters apparently have beef, and Junior Dos Santos has already been rumoured for multiple fights including Curtis Blaydes making Volkov the odd man but should an injury occur I have to imagine Volkov would be more than happy to step in. 

Now let’s get to the big question. Jon Jones. The Light-Heavyweight king has been rumoured to move to heavyweight for years now, and one has to imagine that if he does make the jump he would only be doing it for the title or for a big money trilogy fight with DC (something neither fighter has shown that much interest in). The fight I would be most interested in seeing would be Jones vs Francis. I think that not only piques Francis’s interest but also fan interest. How would the best fighter in the world deal with the scariest person in the UFC? Jones has faced a lot of one-shot KO guys lately like Santos (who gave him the most trouble he has ever been in) and Anthony Smith, but man those guys just don’t hit like Francis does. The only issue is why would Jones take this fight? No one really wants to get in the ring with this guy and Jones doesn’t have a lot to gain from this fight. But man would it be fun to see. Long story short we are likely going to see Stipe vs DC for a third time before the end of the year and it will mark the end of an era for the UFC as DC has announced he wants that to be his last fight. Heavyweight is a division that doesn’t have any title fight lined up but it seems like DC is the only realistic challenger in the immediate future. That is unless Jones decides to stop messing up light heavyweights and finally make the anticipated jump to the UFC’s biggest division. The key fight for this division has to be Francis vs Rozenstruik, the winner gets the champ simple as that in my opinion. Let’s see if 2020 is the year that the heavyweight division finally gets us some new stars.