What a year 2024 has been for the UFC! From watching a fan favorite Alex Pereira reign supreme over the Light Heavyweight division, to an underdog in Ilia Topuria shock the world with his performances against Volkanovski and Holloway, 2024 has had a few epic stories. But that’s not what we are here for today! Today, we are here to talk about the most uneventful moments in UFC in 2024. While MMA fans across the world are busy debating who the ‘Fighter of the Year’ is, what about the ones who did not have a good year? What about those fighters who ended 2024 on a low note?

While Dana White and Co. did find tremendous success in many ways with the UFC, the year 2024 unfortunately saw a lot of fight cancellations. Mostly due to last-minute fighter pullouts. Another interesting observation – the year witnessed tremendous shifts in rankings with a lot of fighters losing their top spots. With that in mind, the first fighter on our list is none other than ‘The Highlight’ Justin Gaethje.

Justin Gaethje

After ending 2023 with a bang, former BMF champion Justin Gaethje appeared to have moved down the pecking order after his highlight of a knockout loss to Max Holloway at UFC 300. While ‘Blessed’ came out of that fight to be on the right side of UFC history, it was the same for the former interim lightweight champion- albeit in a negative way.

Justin Gaethje was touted to be next in line after his UFC 291 win over Dustin Poirier to earn his rightful title shot, and guess what? He even claimed that this run to the top would be his last before he called it a career. However, Gaethje’s UFC 300 loss saw Poirier get his hands on the title first, although ‘The Diamond’ couldn’t win the big one.

After just one fight in 2024, it’s unclear as to what lies ahead of the 36-year-old. Could he return to fight for the BMF title now that Max Holloway also failed to recapture the featherweight gold? Hey, who wouldn’t want to see Gaethje vs Holloway 2? While that remains to be seen, let’s take a look at our next entry.

Alexander Volkanovski

‘The Great’ sadly did not have a ‘great’ year to be honest after he ended 2023 on a losing note. Following his vicious head-kick knockout loss to Islam Makhachev, Alexander Volkanovski made a rather quick turnaround to defend his featherweight title against Ilia Topuria. However, their UFC 298 encounter ended in a similar fashion to ‘Volk’s previous fight, as he fell on the canvas after he could not take the barrage of strikes from ‘El Matador’ anymore.

Since then, the featherweight landscape has changed a bit. While Ilia Topuria had a successful first title defense, the Georgian-Spaniard also became the first fighter to finish former champion Max Holloway. Moreover, getting into the title picture again could start from the back of the line for Alexander Volkanovski because contenders like Diego Lopes and Movsar Evloev are also coming into title contention after a string of impressive performances.

Also, early in the year, Alexander Volkonovski would talk about his mental struggles and how he’d resorted to drinking due to immense mental pressure. “Just little, little pressure that a lot, that everyone goes through, and a little uneasy. The drinking was helping, and I just wasn’t happy where I was. I was, again, like you said, self-aware. I’m someone who’s very self-aware, and I’m always good like that,” ‘Volk’ told Israel Adesanya on YouTube.

While the former champion looks to be in good spirits now from a personal standpoint, he might have to still earn his way back to the title picture again. Maybe a couple of wins could do the trick, but who knows? We’ll only know that when 2025 arrives, so now, here’s the final and the most obvious entry in this list, who’s also a former champion.

Conor McGregor

Perhaps nobody had the kind of up-and-down trajectory this year like Conor McGregor, who started 2024 with an exciting announcement for the fans. The Irishman announced that he would be making his return at UFC 303 during International Fight Week in June. Before that, McGregor made his first mark in Hollywood with Road House, which may not have been the hit that fans were hoping for, but the Irishman received praise for his entertaining work in the movie.

Coming back to his UFC comeback, everything was planned up – the promos were out, the fans were excited and UFC 303 was set up as Michael Chandler seemed ready to go. However, with just days to go for the PPV, reports came out that Conor McGregor injured his toe, compelling Dana White to postpone the fight. Fans were understandably furious, but Dana White maintained that the former double champion will be back soon.

Furthermore, in the final quarter of 2024, Conor McGregor lost a civil lawsuit, which led him to lose millions of dollars and he saw many of his business deals falling off. Now, his UFC comeback looks far from coming to fruition, but he has teased a potential boxing match against Logan Paul. It remains to be seen if that comes to fruition as well.

Do you agree with our list? Let us know your picks for the fighters with the most uneventful 2024 in the comments down below.