Since exiting the UFC in 2020 after a submission loss to Amanda Ribas at UFC 251, Paige VanZant has handled fight sports activities like a buffet, leaping between naked‑knuckle boxing, influencer boxing, slap combating and a brief run in professional wrestling.
What Occurred to Paige VanZant?
She signed a profitable multi‑combat take care of Naked Knuckle Preventing Championship price over $1 million, went 0-2 there towards Britain Hart and Rachael Ostovich in 2021, inked a contract with All Elite Wrestling in 2022, boxed influencer Elle Brooke in 2024, and most not too long ago turned one of many faces of Dana White’s Energy Slap.
On paper, that sounds busy. In actuality, VanZant’s combat schedule has been cease‑begin. A deliberate BKFC return in 2022 fell by way of after she fractured her foot throughout a visit to Alaska, an harm that exposed two older breaks on X‑ray and pushed again a 3rd naked‑knuckle bout she hoped to have “in all probability in April” 2023. Earlier than that, her UFC run had already left a mark: she has damaged the identical arm 5 occasions, wanted two surgical procedures and now carries a plate that runs the size of her forearm, one thing she admits makes the thought of a full MMA return “arduous” mentally even when the arm is purposeful.
In 2022 she shifted some focus to professional wrestling, signing a protracted‑time period AEW deal and debuting on Dynamite in an angle with Dan Lambert’s American Top Team steady. The run by no means actually took off; by 2023 she was quietly off AEW’s books regardless of nonetheless being listed on some roster pages. Consideration then moved again to placing sports activities.
In Might 2024 she made her skilled boxing debut towards Misfits middleweight champion Elle Brooke in Houston, getting dropped within the first spherical however rallying to a 5‑spherical cut up draw as Brooke retained her title. A month later she stepped into slap combating for Energy Slap, beating Christine Wolmarans on factors and at last snapping a protracted winless run.
The place is Paige VanZant?
The actual motive followers have seen much less of her recently is a severe neck injury. In 2025 VanZant was booked to rematch Michelle Brown for the primary girls’s Energy Slap title throughout Worldwide Battle Week in Las Vegas. Weeks earlier than the occasion she pulled out and went public on Instagram: medical doctors had found a spontaneous spinal epidural hematoma in her neck, a uncommon “one‑in‑a‑million” bleed across the spinal twine that, in lots of instances, leaves sufferers with paralysis or fast lack of arm perform.
A neurosurgeon reviewing her MRI was reportedly stunned she had no neurological deficits, and she or he was warned that the flawed type of affect may change that rapidly. Energy Slap shelved the ladies’s title plans and, in keeping with studies, is ready to attend for her relatively than crown one other champion.
That scare has led to a de facto hiatus from taking harm, but it surely has not pushed VanZant out of the highlight. She stays one of the vital adopted ex‑UFC fighters on social media, with round 6 million mixed followers throughout platforms, and she or he has leaned arduous into modeling and content material.
VanZant has an ongoing presence with Sports activities Illustrated Swimsuit, which continues to run galleries, bikini options and magnificence items constructed off her 2019 shoot and newer content material. She has additionally mentioned her content material web page turned her primary income stream.
Regardless of the neck situation, VanZant retains speaking like somebody who expects to compete once more. Earlier in 2025, BKFC president David Feldman mentioned she nonetheless has one combat left on her contract and is “100%” in his plans for at the very least yet another bout, ideally within the first half of the yr.
