The UFC’s 135-pound weight class is in the midst of a renaissance. The long-lost Dominick Cruz regained his title against usurper T.J. Dillashaw back in January in a strong contender for “fight of the year” honors. Cruz had not fought since September 2014, a non-title bout against Takeya Mizugaki, and had last defended his title in October 2011. His opponent that night, Demetrious Johnson, has since won the UFC’s flyweight title and defended it eight times. More than five years passed with Cruz, the once and future king, on the sidelines.

With Cruz now back and set to complete his trilogy with Urijah Faber at UFC 199 on June 4, the division has gained some new luster.

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More than the return of the champion, however, the rise of new and exciting talent has made bantamweight the division to watch. Almeida and Sterling are those rarest of commodities: blue-chip prospects who have actually developed into the elite talents prognosticators thought they would. It’s still a bit too early to say for Garbrandt, but he too has the look of a future contender.

What do these three fighters share in common? Where do they differ? And what can we expect from each moving forward?

All three are excellent athletes. Garbrandt moves like he’s been shot out of a cannon, Sterling is blessed with outstanding timing and proprioception in addition to his raw speed, and while Almeida isn’t quite as physically overpowering, he’s still well above average in terms of his physical gifts.

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After that, however, the three young guns dramatically part ways. Almeida is an aggressive, pressure-oriented swarmer who does his best work with counters and flurries in the pocket. Garbrandt is a smooth, rangy boxer with crushing power in his hands. Sterling is a masterful wrestler and grappler with slick takedowns and a gift for finding chokes as his opponent desperately tries to get back to his feet.

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Each, in his own way, is a fighter on the cutting edge of mixed martial arts.

Almeida’s combination of pressure and slick counters is in vogue right now, exemplified by fighters such as Anthony Johnson and Cris Cyborg. The art of aggressive counterpunching is one Almeida has mastered, but where he differs from compatriots like Johnson and Cyborg is in his pace. Per Fightmetric, Almeida lands 6.82 strikes per minute, which is currently the highest rate in the UFC. He’s also exceptionally accurate, landing 50 percent of the strikes he throws.

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What do those numbers mean in practical terms?

They speak to Almeida’s aggression and preference for fighting at extremely close range. The Brazilian is a specialist in the pocket, the closest a fighter can be to his or her opponent without actually touching.

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Almeida’s constant forward movement brings him into that range. If his opponent throws a strike to get Almeida to back off, the Brazilian can counter and initiate a back-and-forth exchange in which his power and skill with combinations is sure to give him an edge. If his opponent retreats, eventually he’ll hit the fence, and that’s where Almeida can unleash flurries of punches, knees, and elbows. This is what he did to one of his last opponents before he entered the UFC:

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Let’s take this apart one piece at a time. Almeida breaks the clinch with an elbow that comes over the top. His opponent tries to use a half-hearted push kick to force Almeida backwards, but Almeida doesn’t bite; instead, he responds with a right hook to the head, follows with a pair of left hooks to the body and head, and then a right uppercut. At this point, it’s clear his opponent is done, and Almeida flurries with punches, 10 in total, before hitting a knee on the way down.

That’s the essence of Almeida’s game, and he’s only gotten better at it in the past two years. Mind you, this was 17 minutes into a grueling, back-and-forth fight, and Almeida still had the energy to back his opponent to the fence and unload. Here’s the Brazilian more recently: it’s six minutes of great action you won’t regret watching:

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Almeida got in trouble early against the crafty veteran Brad Pickett, suffering a pair of knockdowns while exchanging with the heavy-handed Englishman. Eventually, Almeida adapted and began to note Pickett’s tendencies in the pocket, especially how Pickett would duck down to roll under Almeida’s punches. The perfect strike to counter a ducking opponent is a jumping knee, and Almeida hit Pickett with a monstrous one in the second round for the finish.

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Pressure, pace, slick counters in the pocket, and potent flurries are the basis of Almeida’s game. Not many fighters can stay technically sound while maintaining the killer instinct necessary to finish 19 of 20 professional fights, but Almeida walks that line with great skill.

Cody Garbrandt will face Almeida on Sunday. The 24-year-old Ohioan compiled a record of 32-1 as an amateur boxer, and in eight professional MMA outings has finished seven of his opponents with strikes. Speed, power, and basic fundamental soundness define his game more than flash, but his physical gifts make him a marvel to watch and point to just how high a ceiling he has as a prospect.

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Where Almeida pushes an insane pace, Garbrandt is measured and surprisingly patient for such a young fighter. The Ohioan aims to set a long distance with his jab and a steady diet of low and middle kicks. Once he’s established that range, he uses his speed advantage either to cover that distance with a forward-moving combination or to draw out an ill-advised attack from his opponent that he can counter with strikes or takedowns.

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Counters are the heart of Garbrandt’s game, where he shows off a shocking depth of skill and a variety of options despite his inexperience.

He can time his opponent’s punch and pull his head off line to avoid it while landing a shot at the same time; he can stand in the pocket, block a strike, and come back with his own; he can use his head movement to slip or roll, and then return fire, as he does here; or he can step back, plant his feet, and throw with power. The same openings that allow him to land strikes also create openings for takedowns.

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Respectively, these are known as same-time counters, half-beat counters, full-beat counters, and pull counters. Same-time counters are fastest but require great timing and anticipation of what the opponent; half-beat counters are triggered by something the opponent does, which then leads to an automatic response; full-beat counters require well-trained head movement; and pull counters necessitate a precise understanding of space, angles, and anticipation of the opponent’s distance. His UFC debut against Marcus Brimage in January 2015 was a master class in various kinds of counters:

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Garbrandt can hit all of those types of counters and more. They play off his innate timing and speed, but more than that, each requires substantial training and polish to pull off. It’s hard to overstate just how surprising it is for such a young fighter to have this much skill at his disposal.

While Almeida and Garbrandt are strikers by trade and preference, 26-year-old Aljamain Sterling does his best work on the mat. A former wrestler at SUNY-Cortland, the New Yorker combines his wrestling with an aggressive, technical brand of grappling that focuses on transitions and scrambles.

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This approach is on the cutting edge of MMA tactics and strategy. Traditional grappling focuses on a methodical sequence: takedown, establishing top position, passing the guard to side control, achieving mount, and either finishing from there with a submission or transitioning to the back and then finishing with a choke.

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In MMA right now, by contrast, the emphasis lies on working takedowns, landing a few punches or elbows, and then letting the opponent move underneath, which creates an opportunity to get to the back or lock in a choke when he or she tries to scramble back up. Even the most technically sound attempt to stand up produces brief moments of vulnerability, and it’s these openings that Sterling and his compatriots exploit in transitions.

MMA’s movement between phases — striking, wrestling, and grappling — allows fighters to skip the in-between steps that a methodical grappling game requires and go straight for the submission finish. There’s no need to spend minutes looking to pass the guard when a scramble produces that same opportunity to get to a dominant position or lock in a choke in an instant.

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This emphasis creates a faster-paced and more dangerous kind of game, and that’s where Sterling shines.

On the feet, Sterling throws a steady diet of kicks — side, round, and spinning — to keep his opponent at long range. Like Garbrandt, opening up that distance between him and his opponent gives Sterling the space he needs to force his opponent to make a mistake by wildly attacking. Sterling can either change levels and counter with a takedown as his opponent comes in, or he can use his edge in speed and explosiveness to cover that distance himself with a shot takedown.

Once he’s attached to his opponent, Sterling’s game opens up beautifully. He chains together single- and double-leg takedowns along with trips and throws until he gets his opponent down, establishes himself on top, and then drops powerful punches and elbows. These strikes can finish the opponent on their own, as he did to Hugo Viana in July 2014, or more likely, they’ll force the opponent to move to avoid being finished.

When Sterling forces his opponent to scramble to avoid the ground strikes, he pounces. He has two basic sequences when this happens: He either moves directly to the back, or grabs hold of the front headlock. That position is a node from which Sterling has a variety of options. He can transition directly to a choke, as he did in his last fight against Johnny Eduardo; he can spin around to the back; or he can open up yet another takedown and repeat the process.

This is what makes Sterling so dangerous. He only needs to get his opponent down once, and from there he can finish in a variety of ways.

Sterling’s emphasis on transitions is one way to play on the cutting edge of MMA. Garbrandt’s combination of slick counters and crushing power is another. Almeida’s pressure and emphasis on the pocket is a third way.

Regardless of the specifics of the approach, it’s hard to overstate how special this three-headed Cerberus of young bantamweight talent is. Any would be strong contender to be a future champion in another weight class, and the 135-pound division has all three.

Exciting matchups beckon, both on Sunday’s Fight Night card and in the future.

Patrick Wyman is both a mixed martial arts scout and PhD. student. He hosts the Heavy Hands Podcast and contributes analysis to The Post.