The UFC pound-for-pound rankings are a demonstration of who’s the best active fighter despite weight class. Yesterday, the UFC released their new rankings and I have a few issues with their list. Currently, the list reads as:
Personally, I don’t think it’s fair to have Jon Jones, a man who hasn’t fought since UFC 247 in February 2020 as the number one fighter in the company. Yes, we all know how good he is, but how can the best fighter in the UFC right now be someone who hasn’t fought in over a year, especially when you have men like Kamaru Usman, who have fought three times since Jones last fought.
I’d also consider putting Adesanya over Volkanovski. Volk has only defended his title once compared to Adesanya defending his belt twice. Also, Adesanya has technically fought for the Middleweight championship four times. The interim title match with Gastelum, winning the undisputed belt against Whittaker and defending the belt against Costa and Romero. Volk has only faced Max Holloway for the Featherweight title, winning the title then defending it. I think the loss to Jan Blachowicz is the reason Izzy is below Alex, but I still feel like Izzy deserves the ranking as that fight wasn’t at his weight class and even then, I believe he’s done more to be ahead of his Oceanic compatriot.
I also believe that Jan Blachowicz should be placed a bit higher as well. He’s gone on an incredible run since 2018/19 and his win against Adesanya should bring him in/around the top 5.
Further down the list, I’d consider placing Deiveson Figueiredo higher on the list. I think he’s proved that he’ll be dominant in the Flyweight division, defending his title at back to back PPV’s against Alex Perez and then Brandon Moreno is something we had never seen before and I think he deserves to be higher than 10th on the list.
Also, although the way their fight ended was controversial, I’d have Aljamain Sterling ahead of Petr Yan, simply because he is the champion right now. I know Yan was slightly up on the scorecards by the time of the disqualification, but I’d still have the champion ahead of Yan because the fight could’ve gone either way.
Finally, I don’t think Conor McGregor should be in the top 15. I don’t think he’s done enough to be in the top 15 as of now. The win against Cerrone was good but it was against a fighter who was clearly on the way out and wasn’t at the elite level anymore. I think you could consider putting in Glover Teixeira or Derrick Lewis in there, both fighters have beaten high calibre competition in their respective divisions.
So now that’s all said and done, what would my top 15 male pound-for-pound rankings look like?
- Kamaru Usman
- Israel Adesanya
- Alexander Volkanovski
- Jon Jones
- Jan Blachowicz
- Francis Ngannou
- Deiveson Figueiredo
- Dustin Poirier
- Stipe Miocic
- Robert Whittaker
- Max Holloway
- Aljamain Sterling
- Justin Gaethje
- Petr Yan
- Glover Teixeira
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