Dana White teased fight fans in his final UFC press conference of 2024 by claiming that there is something in the works for 2025 that will have fans losing their minds when it gets announced. Speaking after the promotion’s Fight Night event in Tampa, the UFC boss spoke about how they always manage to exceed the previous year after going all out.
Without giving anything away, he said that alongside the big fights that have already been announced for next year’s schedule, there’s something fresh off the press that nobody will be able to predict ahead of time.
“I anticipate a lot of big fights, I’ve got something in the works right now that’ll drive you [media] crazy. All you guys will be running around. I got something in the works that you will never f**ing see coming for 2025. It literally started to come together last night. Yeah, we got some fun stuff coming up.”
In a response to White’s comments, former UFC fighter Brendan Schaub attempted to speculate what this mind-blowing fight announcement could possibly be. The return of the former lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov would elicit that kind of reaction in Schaub’s opinion but he also knows that “The Eagle” has made it very clear that he will not go back on his decision to retire.
One potential major shift in the MMA landscape that Schaub did pinpoint is the current status of Francis Ngannou. “The Predator” recently made his return to the cage in his PFL debut at Battle of the Giants where he stopped Renan Ferreira in the first round.
After tearing right through his Brazilian foe, there were two big questions on everyone’s mind, who is out there for Ngannou to face next and is he still the best heavyweight on the planet considering that he never lost the UFC title having vacated it when he departed the promotion? Schaub believes that Ngannou stepping back inside the Octagon to mix it up with the likes of the division’s two titleholders, Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, would come out of left field and set the bar extremely high for 2025.
“With the internet today, and like the rumors and fake news, it’s damn near impossible to blow somebody. No matter what he [White] says, when I heard them like, ‘What could it be?’ The only thing that would blow me, like blow me hard, like b*st hard, would be if it’s Francis. He has one fight left on PFL contract. He’s going to finish that out fighting who, God knows what poor soul they’re going to find to get knocked out by him.
“And then, he’ll be a free agent. If they’re like, ‘We got Francis back in the mix. Francis is going to fight the winner, guaranteed winner, of Aspinall-Jones.’ That would blow me. But that’s where I’m at. That’s very difficult to get done. Outside that, what else could it be?”
