Over the years, we've missed out on some huge MMA fights because the two athletes involved were signed to different promotions.

Some of the best examples of this involved heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko, who fought for PRIDE and Strikeforce, but never made it to the UFC. Had the Russian and the UFC's top heavyweights not been locked up in restrictive contracts that made it possible for them to jump between promotions, we might have seen him battle the likes of Randy Couture, Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez and others before he retired.

Instead, we missed out on what would have been some of the biggest heavyweight fights of all time.

Unfortunately, this problem isn't going to go away.

Promotions—the UFC being the worst offender—have and always will do whatever they can to lock their fighters into restrictive, long-term contracts. But let's imagine, for a few sweet minutes, that this wasn't the case. Let's pretend we live in a world where fighters are allowed to move freely from promotion to promotion, seeking out the biggest and most lucrative fights possible.

What fights could we potentially see if we lived in that world in 2023? Keep scrolling to find out.

Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou

Jon Jones vs. Francis Ngannou might be the biggest fight possible in MMA right now.

We came very close to seeing it when both men were in the UFC. That was back when Ngannou was the UFC heavyweight champion, and Jon Jones, who held the light heavyweight title for years, was in the process of bulking up to move up a division.

Unfortunately, Ngannou and the UFC did not see eye to eye, and after a long and heated contract dispute, the French-Cameroonian knockout artist left the promotion and dropped the belt on his way out the door.

Only months after Ngannou left, Jones defeated Ciryl Gane to claim the promotion's vacant heavyweight title.

Ngannou has since signed with the PFL, who are now the sole benefactors of his services in MMA. Jones, meanwhile, is locked up tight in a new UFC contract. In other words, we're never going to see this fight happen.

If we could, though, it would be titanic. Ngannou, considered one of the best heavyweights ever, is arguably the hardest puncher in all of combat sports. Ever. Period. Jones, meanwhile, might be the greatest MMA fighter of all time in any weight class, and seems to be very comfortable in his new division.

It would be one of those unstoppable force vs. immoveable object situations and a delicious treat for fans.

Jon Jones vs. Anatoly Malykhin

Francis Ngannou isn't the only heavyweight outside the UFC who would make a good opponent for Jon Jones.

Anatoly Malykhin would also be a big fight for the UFC heavyweight champ.

Russia's Malykhin, who is a perfect 13-0 to start his MMA career, now holds ONE's heavyweight and light heavyweight titles.

He won ONE's interim heavyweight title with a knockout of Kirill Grishenko early last year and claimed the light heavyweight belt with a knockout of Reinier de Ridder last December—truly one of the most violent beatdowns you will ever see.

His last fight occurred late last month when he knocked out former UFC heavyweight Arjan Bhullar to claim ONE's undisputed heavyweight strap.

Malykhin can do it all. He has very good boxing and absurd knockout power. He also has great wrestling, though we don't often see it thanks to his habit of knocking people senseless on the feet. And in his recent beatdown of Bhullar, which reached the midpoint of round three, he proved he has good cardio, which was a genuine concern for a while, given how quickly he was winning his fights.

He'd be an underdog against Jones—that goes for pretty much everyone on earth at this point—but he'd be a great opponent for the UFC champ.

Israel Adesanya vs. Johnny Eblen

UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya has a tough fight on the horizon in the form of No. 1 contender Dricus Du Plessis. Yet if we lived in a world where fighters could move freely between promotions, it's very possible the UFC champ would be gearing up for a fight with Bellator middleweight title-holder Johnny Eblen.

Eblen, like Malykhin, is a perfect 13-0 to start his career. He won the Bellator middleweight title with a lopsided decision defeat of former UFC contender and Strikeforce champ Gegard Mousasi last summer and defended it with a similarly one-sided beating of Anatoly Tokov this past February.

What really makes this fight interesting, though, is that Eblen is one of the best wrestlers competing in the middleweight division in any promotion. That makes him a huge threat to the striking specialist Adesanya who, despite finding a way to win against wrestlers like Derek Brunson and Yoel Romero, has historically been vulnerable to takedowns.

Leon Edwards vs. Yaroslav Amosov

We're all still waiting to learn whether UFC welterweight champ Leon Edwards will next defend his belt against Colby Covington, Belal Muhammad, or somebody else. If we didn't have to worry about fighters being confined to a single promotion, it's very possible he would be looking at Ukraine's Yaroslav Amosov as his next opponent.

Amosov, Bellator's reigning welterweight champion, is very, very good. His record certainly suggests that much, as he is now a ridiculous 27-0 overall. He's beaten some solid opposition to, defeating the likes of Roberto Soldic, Gerald Harris, Erick Silva, Douglas Lima, and most recently, Logan Storley.

The win over Storley, a clear-cut unanimous decision back in February, was impressive under any circumstances. That it came after Amosov spent much of 2022 fighting against Russia's invasion of Ukraine made his performance all the more impressive and impactful.

Edwards, meanwhile, is clearly no slouch, having won back-to-back fights over former pound-for-pound king Kamaru Usman.

This would be a huge fight for the welterweight division—one of the biggest possible right now.

Islam Makhachev vs. Christian Lee

If we lived in a world without exclusive contracts, UFC lightweight champ Islam Makhachev would be starting down some seriously tough challenges. He'd seemingly be off the hook for a fight with Bellator lightweight champ Usman Nurmagomedov, who is his close friend and training partner, but would probably have to test himself against two-division ONE Championship titleholder Christian Lee.

Lee, from Hawaii, was extremely underrated for a lot of his career, due in large part to the fact that he's been fighting since he was a teenager and is still only 25. However, after coming up short in a bid for ONE's featherweight title, he found new life at lightweight, and later at welterweight.

He claimed the lightweight title with a TKO win over Japanese legend Shinya Aoki in 2019, and defended it against tough opposition in Dagi Arslanaliev, Iuri Lapicus and Timofey Nastyukhin before losing it with an extremely controversial decision loss to South Korea's Ok Rae Yoon. Lee then reclaimed the belt from Ok with a destructive second-round stoppage and hiked up to welterweight to challenge Kiamrian Abbasov for a second title. He was almost finished in the opening round of that fight, but ultimately wore Abbasov out to win a second belt by fourth-round TKO.

Interestingly, Makhachev was actually in the building for Lee's win over Abbasov, having traveled to Singapore to corner his training partner Saygid Izagakhmaev, so the pair have actually be in each other's orbits before.

If we didn't have to worry about exclusive contracts, this is a fight we would definitely need to see.

Demetrious Johnson vs. Henry Cejudo III

We're all still digesting Alexandre Pantoja's exciting flyweight title win over Brandon Moreno at UFC 290 last weekend, but long before we were talking about either of those guys as potential title contenders, the division was the domain of Demetrious Johnson.

Johnson ruled over the division for years, and defended his belt a record-breaking 11 consecutive times in that span. One of those wins was a first-round TKO over former Olympic wrestler Henry Cejudo, who ultimately became the man to end Johnson's reign with a controversial decision win in a rematch a few years later.

After losing the belt to Cejudo, Johnson migrated to ONE Championship.

He got off to a sizzling start in ONE, winning the promotion's flyweight grand prix, but then suffered a shocking knockout loss to the flyweight champion at the time, Adriano Moraes. The pair rematched a little over a year later, and Johnson got his revenge—coincidentally with almost the exact same finishing sequence that was his undoing in the first fight.

Johnson was last in action in the main event of ONE's US debut in May, when he defended his belt with a decision win in a tie-breaking trilogy with Moraes. With that result, his rivalry with the Brazilian is over.

His rivalry with Cejudo, however, remains unsettled.

For a while, it looked like Cejudo was done fighting, having retired after claiming and defending the bantamweight title soon after he beat Johnson. However, he recently returned from a three-year absence to challenge bantamweight champ Aljamain Sterling for his belt, and while that fight didn't go his way, he's now back in the mix.

It'd be great to see him and Johnson settle their tie at some point, though their contracts—and the fact that they seem to have become close friends over the course of a few training sessions—will definitely make it difficult.