UFC: Rising Contenders to Watch This Fall

Last Updated on Setembro 16, 2026 11:18 pm by Erwin Noguera

A month ago, we wrote about the UFC’s most dangerous rising contenders and listed nine fighters: Prates, Morales, Rakhmonov, Imavov, Chimaev, Evloev, Tsarukyan, Natália Silva and Blanchfield. Every one of them was already established in a divisional top ten.

This is the tier underneath, and it has moved more in six weeks than the one above it has in six months.

A debutant knocked out a top ten lightweight in 2:35. A fighter who was a 4-to-1 underdog removed the division’s obvious next title challenger with an uppercut. A 26-year-old submitted one of the hardest men at 155 pounds to submit, inside a round, in his first main event.

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Here are the fighters who will decide how autumn looks.

Salahdine Parnasse — Lightweight

The most emphatic arrival in the promotion this year, and it took him two and a half minutes.

Parnasse came into the UFC on 5 September in Paris carrying a reputation almost nobody outside Europe had verified: a two-division KSW champion, 23-2 with 15 finishes, whose only setback in recent memory came attempting to win a title in a terceiro weight class. He spent years being described as the best fighter competing outside the UFC, which is a phrase that has meant very little for most of the last decade.

He knocked out Dan Hooker (ranked tenth at lightweight) at 2:35 of the first round.

The context makes it larger. Hooker is a decade-long fixture in the rankings, a four-time main-event fighter, and a man whose defining quality was durability. Parnasse removed him inside a round, in front of a home crowd in Paris, in his first UFC appearance. He is now 24-2 at 28 years old.

We were on the wrong side of it. We took Hooker at +275 on the basis that the price on a debutant at -550 was too short and that UFC lightweight punishes outside champions. The reasoning was sound, and the result was not close.

What makes him an autumn story rather than a one-night story is what he did afterwards. Parnasse used his post-fight interview to call out Max Holloway, describing it as his dream fight. That is a jump most debutants do not get to make, and the fact that it was taken seriously tells you how the performance was received.

Watch for: whether the UFC books him against a ranked opponent immediately or makes him take one more step. Either answer tells you what they think they have.

Song Yadong — Bantamweight

The single most consequential result of the past six weeks, and the one that reordered an entire division.

On 29 August in Shanghai, Song met Umar Nurmagomedov: unbeaten, priced as short as -450, and universally treated as the next title challenger at 135 pounds. The market considered the fight a formality.

Song knocked him out with an uppercut at 1:48 of the second round.

That is not an upset in the ordinary sense. It is a divisional reset. Nurmagomedov’s path to a title shot had been built over years; it now carries a knockout loss. And the man who inflicted it was, until that night, a very good top six bantamweight who had never quite produced the definitive win.

He is now ranked second at Bantamweight, and the campaign for what comes next started immediately. UFC Hall of Famer Urijah Faber has publicly pushed for Song to face champion Petr Yan, which would be a rematch of a fight from earlier in Song’s career.

The case for him to be ready this time is the performance itself. Song has always been an excellent boxer; what he had not done was end a fight of that magnitude with a single shot against an elite wrestler. He did it at home, in front of a Chinese crowd, on a card the UFC built around him.

Watch for: the Yan booking. No fight has been announced, and the division cannot move until it is.

Mauricio Ruffy — Lightweight

The most improved fighter in the sport this year, and he finds out on Saturday whether it is enough.

Ruffy’s 2026 has been a transformation with a clear cause. He relocated his preparation to Australia and now trains alongside featherweight champion Alexandre Volkanovski: a camp that has specifically solved takedown defense for strikers before.

The results have been unambiguous. In February he stopped Rafael Fiziev in the second round, beating one of the most technically accomplished strikers in the division at his own game. In June he went to The White House for UFC Freedom 250 and battered Michael Chandler (a former Bellator champion and long-time contender) in a performance the UFC described as clinical.

On Saturday at UFC 331, he faces Arman Tsarukyan in a five-round co-main event, with the winner widely expected to be next in line for a title shot. Tsarukyan is a -350 favorite, and the reason is the one question Ruffy has never answered: nobody has genuinely tested his wrestling defense.

That is the fight. If the work in Australia holds, Ruffy is a title challenger by Christmas. If it does not, he is a very dangerous striker with a ceiling.

Watch for: the first two rounds. Tsarukyan’s entries come early, and Ruffy’s answer to them is the entire evening.

Quillan Salkilld — Lightweight

The cleanest statement of intent on this page.

On 8 August, Salkilld was handed his first UFC main event contra Mateusz Gamrot: a fighter who has hovered around the lightweight top ten for years and whose defining trait is extremely difficult to submit.

Salkilld submitted him with a rear-naked choke in the first round and collected Performance da Noite.

He is 13-1 e 26 years old. Finishing a gatekeeper of that quality inside a round, in a first headline assignment, is the kind of result that moves a fighter three or four places up a divisional queue in a single evening.

He has already named his next step. Salkilld has said he wants Benoît Saint-Denis (the Frenchman who beat Dan Hooker earlier in the cycle), preparing it as “top 15 now top 10.” That is a fighter who understands exactly where he sits and what he needs.

Watch for: whether the UFC gives him the ranked opponent he has asked for or protects the timeline. He has earned the former.

Iwo Baraniewski — Light Heavyweight

The most extreme statistics are in the promotion, and it gets tested on Saturday.

Baraniewski is 9-0. Since earning a contract on the Contender Series, he has produced three consecutive first-round stoppages (over Ibo Aslam, Rua Austen e Tafa Júnior) in a combined 3 minutes and 22 seconds of Octagon time.

That is roughly one minute per fight. The 27-year-old has never seen the fourth minute of a fight, let alone a second round.

The opposition is not padding. Tafa is a legitimate UFC light heavyweight with knockout power of his own, and Baraniewski removed him inside a round like the others.

What nobody knows is what happens in round two, because nobody has taken him there. Conditioning, composure, how he responds to adversity- all of it is theoretical. That is why the UFC matched him with Alonzo Menifield at UFC 331 on Saturday: a durable veteran who is 3-1 in his last four and whose entire job is to survive ninety seconds and ask the question.

Watch for: the two-minute mark. If Baraniewski is still fighting comfortably at that point, light heavyweight has a genuine problem on its hands.

Tommy McMillen — Featherweight

The most heavily pushed prospect on the roster, and he has not given the UFC a reason to slow down.

McMillen earned stoppage wins and performance bonuses in each of his first two UFC appearances, então requested a place on the Noche UFC card in Glendale: ten minutes from Red Hawk Academy in Peoria, where he trains.

He is unbeaten across 18 straight fights between his professional (11) and amateur (7) careers.

On 12 September, he beat Marwan Rahiki by unanimous decision in a matchup of two undefeated featherweight prospects, in a fight the market priced as a near coin flip at -135/+115. It was the first time he had taken the distance in the UFC, and going three rounds against a live opponent and winning them is arguably more useful for his development than another ninety-second finish.

We picked Rahiki for plus money, and it cost us. The reasoning was that a genuine pick’em should be bought at plus odds; the result was that McMillen is simply the better fighter.

Watch for: the step up. Three UFC wins and an unbeaten record across nearly two decades of competition means the next opponent should carry a ranking.

Ryan Gandra — The One Nobody Is Talking About

Two UFC fights. Two knockouts. Under two minutes combined.

Gandra (nicknamed “Problema”) graduated from the Contender Series last autumn and has since dismissed Jose Daniel Medina e Zach Reese in a combined time under two minutes. His overall winning streak now stands at nine.

He fights Ozzy Diaz at UFC 331 on Saturday, and at the time of writing no betting line had been posted, which is itself a small indicator of how little attention he is getting relative to the results.

The structural question is identical to Baraniewski’s: a finisher whose gas tank has never been examined, against an opponent who has been in with UFC-caliber competition and gone the distance. Diaz is 1-2 in the promotion and lost to Joe Pyfer on the Contender Series four years ago, so he may not be the man to supply the test, but the test is coming eventually.

Watch for: a third straight quick finish. Three in a row at that rate forces a matchmaking decision.

Where the Traffic Is

Three of the seven fighters above are lightweights, and that is not an accident. Parnasse, Ruffy and Salkilld have all produced career-defining results within six weeks of each other in the same division: a division that already contains Tsarukyan waiting for a title shot and Benoît Saint-Denis in the top ten.

There are not enough title shots to go around, which means the UFC has to start matching these fighters against each other. Salkilld has already asked for Saint-Denis. Parnasse has asked for Holloway. Ruffy is fighting Tsarukyan on Saturday.

By December, at least two of them will have lost, and the queue will sort itself out the way it always does.

What the Calendar Holds

UFC 332: Saturday, October 3, Delta Center, Salt Lake City.Natália Silva faces Wang Cong for the vacant women’s flyweight title, and it is the first numbered UFC main card to air on CBS. Silva was on our August list; this is the fight that confirms whether we were right about her.

UFC Fight Night: Buckley vs. Malott. Saturday, October 17, Rogers Place, Edmonton.Joaquin Buckley meets Mike Malott in the welterweight main event, with Erin Blanchfield vs. Jasmine Jasudavicius in the co-main, another name from the August list getting her answer.

Also confirmed on the 2026 calendar: Justin Gaethje vs Paddy Pimblett e Alexander Volkanovski vs Diego Lopes 2.

Start with Saturday. Ruffy, Baraniewski, and Gandra all fight at UFC 331, and by Sunday morning we will know which of the three names on this page were worth writing down.