{"id":48543,"date":"2026-07-29T19:44:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gambyl.com\/?p=48543"},"modified":"2026-07-29T19:44:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:44:38","slug":"ufc-rising-stars-that-fans-cant-ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gambyl.com\/es\/ufc\/ufc-rising-stars-that-fans-cant-ignore\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Rising Stars that Fans Can’t Ignore"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UFC roster turns over faster than any other major sport. Dana White’s Contender Series, The Ultimate Fighter, and Road to UFC feed dozens of new fighters into the promotion every year, and most of them disappear inside eighteen months. A handful do not. Right now there is a group of fighters in their early and mid-twenties who have already forced their way into the rankings, finished ranked veterans, and started changing how their divisions look.

These are the names worth learning before they headline cards. Some are already there.

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Kevin Vallejos \u2014 Featherweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Vallejos is 24 years old and already ranked in the top 10 at featherweight. That sentence does most of the work.

The Argentinian arrived with hype after a competitive decision loss to Jean Silva on Season 7 of the Contender Series; a loss that got him signed anyway. He knocked out SeungWoo Choi in the first round of his debut. His second fight, against Danny Silva, was an ultra-competitive contest that could have gone either way and had people quietly lowering their expectations.

Then he fought Giga Chikadze on the final card of 2025 and knocked him out in the second round. Chikadze had never been finished with strikes before. Vallejos dropped the first round while stuck at the Georgian’s range, made the adjustments mid-fight, and ended it.

That is the part that matters. Not the knockout; the correction. He was losing, he identified why, and he fixed it in real time at 24 years old with three UFC fights of experience. He moved from No. 13 to No. 10 in the rankings on the strength of it, and he has a realistic path to spending the next decade in the featherweight top 15. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quillan Salkilld \u2014 Lightweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Salkilld was named the 2025 UFC.com Newcomer of the Year, and it was not close.

The 26-year-old from Perth debuted with a 19-second knockout. That put him on the map. What put him on a much wider radar was a short-notice assignment against Nasrat Haqparast at UFC 321, where he landed a first-round head kick that was one of the best finishes of the year. Haqparast had been finished only once in fifteen previous UFC appearances.

He beat Anshul Jubli by knockout and Yanal Ashmouz by decision in the same year. He opened 2026 by knocking out Jamie Mularkey at UFC 325. He is 11-1 as a professional with ten straight wins since losing his pro debut.

He sits just outside the lightweight top 15 in the deepest division in the sport, and he has the one quality the UFC cannot manufacture: an electric style that makes fans stop what they are doing. He will be ranked before the year is out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Payton Talbott \u2014 Bantamweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Talbott is the fighter on this list who has already answered the hardest question asked of him.

He went 3-0 to start his UFC run with a submission and two stoppages, and the hype got loud fast. Then Raoni Barcelos took him down repeatedly at UFC 311 and beat him. That is normally where prospects stall: a grappling-heavy loss exposes a hole, and the fighter either fixes it or spends the rest of his career avoiding it.

Talbott fixed it. He outworked Felipe Silva in his next fight, and then he was matched with Henry Cejudo at UFC 323 in the two-division champion’s retirement fight. Talbott won, and he did so by initiating and controlling the wrestling against an Olympic gold medalist. He hit Cejudo with Cejudo’s own inside trip takedown.

He is 27, 5-1 in the UFC, and ranked No. 11 at bantamweight. The competition only gets harder from here, but a fighter who responds to a loss by adding the exact skill that beat him is a fighter with a long runway. A push toward the top five and title contention is not unreasonable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baisangur Susurkaev \u2014 Middleweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nobody had a stranger or better second half of 2025.

Susurkaev won his Contender Series fight by first-round stoppage on August 12. Then he asked the UFC to book him again immediately, and they put him on UFC 319 in Chicago: four days later. He submitted Eric Nolan in the second round. Three months after that, he knocked out Eric McConico in the third round at UFC 322 in New York.

The Chechen middleweight is 11-0, turned 25 in January, and trains at Kill Cliff FC alongside a strong team. Taking a UFC fight four days after earning a contract is either reckless or a statement about self-belief, and so far the results say the latter.

The one real question is discipline. Susurkaev has looked a little too comfortable trusting that he can find another gear when he needs it, which works against opponents at this level, and stops working against ranked oposition. If he tightens that up, he will hold a ranking for a very long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mario Pinto \u2014 Heavyweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Heavyweight has needed fresh talent for years. Pinto is the most convincing answer the division has produced recently.

The Portuguese fighter, based in London, earned his contract with a first-round knockout on the Contender Series in October 2024. He then went 2-0 in his rookie UFC year with two second-round stoppages: a right hook that starched former NFL defensive lineman Austen Lane, and a fight in Rio where he took Jhonata Diniz to the mat and rained down punishment from mount.

That took him to 11-0 as a professional at 27. He got his first ranked opponent in March against Mick Parkin.

What separates Pinto from the usual heavyweight prospect is how he talks about the job. He has a clear-eyed understanding of where he sits, what he needs to develop, and how the promotion works. Heavyweights with power are common. Heavyweights with power and a plan are not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ateba Gautier \u2014 Middleweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gautier is 23 years old, 4-0 in the UFC, and produced three of the most violent knockouts of 2025.

The Cameroonian middleweight finished Jose Medina, Robert Valentin (who fights this weekend in Belgrade), and Tre’ston Vines, all inside the distance, all emphatically. Coming into 2026, he had as much hype as any prospect on the roster.

Then he beat Andrey Pulyaev at UFC 324 in January by a fairly tepid decision instead of the highlight-reel finish everyone expected. That is worth being honest about. It was a win, and undefeated in the Octagon is undefeated, but it was not the performance that had people talking.

He is 23. There is no urgency here. The power is real, and the finishing instinct is real, and one flat night against a durable opponent does not change the trajectory. The next performance is the one that tells you which version of Gautier is more feasible to see in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magomed Zaynukov \u2014 Lightweight <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Zaynukov trains with Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov, which is enough to get any lightweight noticed. What makes him interesting is that he does not fight like them.

Unlike most of his training partners, Zaynukov comes from a striking background: a legitimate Muay Thai r\u00e9sum\u00e9 rather than a wrestling one. That combination, elite Dagestani grappling coaching layered onto genuine striking fundamentals, is an unusual profile.

He earned his contract on the Contender Series in October and won his UFC debut against Damian Rzepecki last weekend in Abu Dhabi by unanimous decision, 30-27 across all three cards. That was an all-undefeated matchup between two prospects, and Zaynukov swept it.

He is 31, which is old for a prospect, and 9-0. The clock means he will need to move quickly. The team behind him means he probably will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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