I've been following the sport for about 25 years, since I was in high school. And I think right now the sport is at all time low as far as interest levels go. I'm not going to say the sport is dying, but I think something needs to change.
The major issue is lack of exciting champions and rivalries. The sport is woven of narratives, people need to care about the fights. But most divisions have a lack of interesting rivalries.
Flyweight hasn't had a dominant champion since at least Cejudo, if not DJ. It's a fun division that always delivers, but Pantoja doesn't seem to have any interesting rivalries in the division waiting, and he is a very bland character.
Bantamweight is, I think the most exciting division right now. O'Malley, love or hate, is a very exciting fighter, and there's lots of interesting fights there: Merab, and Umar down the line. It's a very fun division to watch overall.
Featherweight just crowned Topuria, who is very exciting, but also unfortunately very unlikeable and tryhard. The issue is everyone under him is a veteran that can only offer possible former champions to return: Holloway, Volk, Ortega, Yair... Evloev is the only fresh contender, but about as charismatic and exciting as a cucumber. The really exciting fight here would be with O'Malley, provided the latter gets past Merab, which is far from a given.
Lightweight was incredibly exciting a few years ago, but has become exhausted and filled with veterans that have spent their shots. Islam stands without par, and there's no one reasonably that could challenge him. Arman is very good, but we've seen that fight before, and Islam is better than ever. Even Islam himself talks about the staleness of the challenges in the division. And he's injured...
Welterweight is another division mostly filled with veterans, and with a particularly unpopular champion. Leon was not exactly the most colorful or exciting fighter out there, and Belal is even less popular and often even more unexciting. The saving grace for the division is Shavkat, who is truly an interesting prospect that could very well be the next big thing.
Middleweight has a recently crowned champion that seems fickle in his position, with guys like Izzy, Strickland, Imamov and Whitakker in the periphery. After Pereira deserted the division, the Izzy-Alex rivalry which was super interesting waned, and now the division feels a bit lackluster. Khamzat was supposed to be the next big thing, but health issues and unreliability prevented that.
Lightheavyweight has Pereira at the top, and a bunch of familiar, tried faces at the bottom. Other than Ankalaev, who is probably even more unpopular than Belal, there doesn't to be anyone to challenge.
And HW is as usual the worst division out there. We are getting Jones vs. a nonagenarian Stipe, Ngannou fled the division, and Aspinall is there hanging loose with no interesting contenders to face.
I'll spare the ladies the sermon.
