In the cutthroat arena of professional darts, where fortunes flip faster than a misplaced dart and legacies are forged in the flicker of a treble 20, the PDC Order of Merit stands as the ultimate barometer of dominance. It’s a two-year money chase that dictates seeds, showdowns, and dreams of Alexandra Palace glory, rewarding the relentless over the reckless. As October 2025 casts its lengthening shadows, three-time world champion Michael van Gerwen—long the sport’s unassailable colossus—suddenly finds himself glancing over his shoulder. The pursuer? None other than Stephen “The Bullet” Bunting, the St Helens sharpshooter whose blistering resurgence has turned whispers into roars. Yet, as dissected on a recent darts podcast, the gap remains a chasm: Bunting still has about £70,000 to claw back if he’s to eclipse the Dutch maestro before the World Championship cutoff in November. For van Gerwen, ranked third on the Order of Merit with a hefty £815,500 war chest, the pressure is palpable—a rare vulnerability for a man who’s pocketed over £10 million in career earnings and held world No. 1 for eight golden years.
Van Gerwen’s 2025 has been a paradox: moments of vintage menace amid a fog of frustration. The year dawned with semifinal heartbreak at the World Championship, where a 6-2 demolition by teenage titan Luke Littler exposed cracks in his armor. The Premier League, that gladiatorial weekly grind, delivered early exits and a playoff miss for just the second time in 13 seasons—capped by a 6-2 quarterfinal capitulation to Nathan Aspinall on Night 16. The UK Open’s fourth-round shock to Mensur Suljović stung, as did a World Matchplay final loss to world No. 1 Luke Humphries, 18-15, despite scorching averages that hinted at the old fire. Majors offered flickers: a nine-dart stunner against Ryan Searle en route to the European Championship title, his first since 2022. But the Pro Tour, that brutal floor circuit of 34 Players Championships and 14 European Tour events, has been a graveyard. Eight first-round flameouts in 12 attempts, defeats to journeymen like Dominik Gruellich and Matthew Dennant, have eroded his lead. A shock withdrawal from Players Championship 30 on October 3—his third skip this year amid foot and shoulder woes—left him scrambling for Minehead qualification, now perched precariously at 90th on the Players Championship Order of Merit, £6,500 shy of safety. Off the oche, personal storms brew: a May separation from partner Daphne Govers, mother of his two young children, has fueled talk of mental fatigue echoing his throat issues at Worlds.
Enter Bunting, the 40-year-old everyman’s hero whose titanium-tough trajectory has redefined late bloomer. Once a BDO prodigy who crossed to the PDC in 2014 amid fanfare, Bunting endured a decade of near-misses—semifinals at Worlds in 2021 and 2025, but no majors until his fairy-tale 2024 Masters triumph over van Gerwen himself, 11-7 in Milton Keynes. “I promised that I wouldn’t cry if I won, but it means a lot to me because I’ve been in the PDC for a lot of years now,” Bunting beamed then, dabbing tears as crowds chanted his walk-on anthem. “Winning trophies was the main aim obviously after moving over from the BDO. But when you come here you are playing the best of the best. These boys will push you all the way. Michael van Gerwen is a multiple world champion and a fantastic dart player.” That victory flipped their rivalry—van Gerwen had owned the first 16 clashes, but Bunting’s claimed three of the last four, including an 11-7 World Masters rematch last month.
Bunting’s 2025 explosion is historic. He’s the third man ever—joining only van Gerwen (2016, 2017, 2019) and Littler (2024)—to snag two Players Championships (PC18, PC25), two European Tours (International Darts Open, Swiss Darts Trophy), and two World Series events (Bahrain and Nordic Darts Masters) in a single year. The Swiss triumph, an 8-3 rout of Luke Woodhouse, capped a weekend where he toppled Humphries in a last-leg decider, his 92 maximums over 200 legs second only to Littler’s barrage. For the first time, Bunting’s rolling average eclipses van Gerwen’s—98.37 to the Dutchman’s 96.37—per the PDC Form Guide, with a 41% treble 20 hit rate that turns legs into launches. He’s vaulted to world No. 4, £70,000 adrift of van Gerwen’s third spot, but his momentum is molten: a Premier League nightly win in Berlin (£10,000 bonus), quarters in Rotterdam besting van Gerwen and Littler, and a World Series of Darts Finals lead over Humphries and Gerwyn Price. “The Bullet” thrives on the oche’s edge, his 36.4% checkout rate a work in progress, but his power scoring—two 180s in that Humphries epic—swings matches where others falter.
The math is merciless. The Order of Merit freezes for Worlds seeding on November 24, post-German Darts Championship. Bunting needs £70,000-plus to leapfrog—achievable with a deep run in the World Grand Prix (starting October 6, £120,000 to the winner) or the remaining Pro Tour hauls. “Michael van Gerwen may feel Stephen Bunting breathing down his neck in the world rankings,” podcast host Damian Vlottes mused on Darts Draait Door, joined by van Gerwen’s confidant Vincent van der Voort. “But ‘The Bullet’ still has around £70,000 to make up if he’s to catch the Dutchman ahead of the World Championship.” Van der Voort, ever the optimist, countered: “Let’s hope Michael can show the form of the AFAS (World Series Finals) a few more times this year.” There, van Gerwen dismantled Littler 11-7 for his first major in two years, an £80,000 salve that silenced skeptics and boasted 108-plus averages. Yet Bunting’s consistency—fewer blackouts, more bulldozing—poses the real threat. In a sport ballooning under Littler’s bubble, where money rankings favor the elite, Bunting’s surge demands reckoning. “Darts is living in a Littler-inspired bubble at the moment, and it will eventually burst,” Vlottes warned. “The PDC now has an important decision to make regarding the rankings. If they remain money-based, it will be seen as proof that the governing body only cares about a small group of elite players at the top.”
As the World Grand Prix looms in Leicester—double-in, double-out purgatory where van Gerwen opens against Dirk van Duijvenbode—the stakes skyrocket. Bunting, seeded fourth, eyes a path through Cameron Menzies or Ross Smith. A title there catapults him closer; for van Gerwen, it’s redemption or ruin. At 36, Mighty Mike’s legacy looms eternal—159 PDC titles, six World Grand Prix crowns—but Bunting, at 40, embodies the hunter’s hunger. The £70,000? It’s not insurmountable; it’s ignition. In darts’ grand ledger, where every checkout cashes a claim, The Bullet’s loaded—and van Gerwen’s in the crosshairs. The Worlds draw awaits, and with it, a potential quarterfinal inferno. Pressure? It’s the price of the pinnacle, and this autumn, it’s van Gerwen’s to pay.
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