Fight Island MMA rankings
Neal pulls together aggregate rankings for March 19, 2023
Notable events since last ranking post: UFC 286, Bellator 292, UFC Fight Night Yan vs. Dvalishvili
This is Fight Island’s first aggregate ranking post.
We (so far Eric, Carl, and I) each create our own list, and I aggregate and edit them. Today’s accompanying discussion will be about that aggregation process and some of the interesting things that happen along the way.
Reminder of our eligibility criteria:
a. Fighter has made weight in the division in the last 12 months.
b. If fighter has a fight booked when those 12 months elapse they will not be removed from eligibility.
c. Fighters will be classified by actual weight on the scale, division names and other promotional eligibility criteria notwithstanding.
One notable departure from the list this time is Francis Ngannou, who has become inactive, albeit due to no fault of his own. We look forward to his return.
Men’s Rankings
125 Lbs.
Brandon Moreno
Alexandre Pantoja
Kai Kara-France
Matheus Nicolau
Brandon Royval
Manel Kape
Amir Albazi
Alex Perez
Muhammad Mokaev
Bruno Gustavo da Silva
Jarred Brooks
David Dvorak
Joshua Pacio
Tim Elliott
Tyson Nam
135 lbs.
Aljamain Sterling
Merab Dvalishvili
Marlon Vera
Cory Sandhagen
Sean O'Malley
Demetrious Johnson
Petr Yan
Dominick Cruz
Adriano Moraes
Raufeon Stotts
Patchy Mix
Ricky Simon
Rob Font
Jonathan Martinez
Mario Bautista
145 lbs.
Alexander Volkanovski
Max Holloway
Yair Rodriguez
Arnold Allen
Ilia Topuria
Brian Ortega
Josh Emmett
Patricio Pitbull
Calvin Kattar
Fabricio Andrade
Movsar Evloev
Bryce Mitchell
John Lineker
Giga Chikadze
Chan-sung Jung
155 lbs.
Islam Makhachev
Charles Oliveira
Beneil Dariush
Dustin Poirier
Justin Gaethje
Rafael Fiziev
Usman Nurmagomedov
Mateusz Gamrot
Michael Chandler
Arman Tsarukyan
Damir Ismagulov
Guram Kutateladze
Jailin Turner
Alexander Shabliy
Mansour Barnaoui
170 lbs.
Leon Edwards
Gilbert Burns
Kamaru Usman
Belal Muhammad
Yaroslav Amosov
Shavkat Rakhmonov
Stephen Thompson
Geoff Neal
Jack Della Maddalena
Khamzat Chimaev
Christian Lee
Sean Brady
Logan Storely
Neil Magny
Vicente Luque
185 lbs.
Alex Pereira
Israel Adesanya
Robert Whittaker
Johnny Eblen
Jared Cannonier
Marvin Vettori
Roman Dolidze
Dricus du Plessis
Paulo Costa
Derek Brunson
Sean Strickland
Jack Hermansson
Brendan Allen
Gegard Mousasi
Chris Curtis
205 lbs.
Jiri Prochazka
Magomed Ankalaev
Jan Blachowicz
Jamahal Hill
Vadim Nemkov
Nikita Krylov
Aleksandar Rakic
Johnny Walker
Corey Anderson
Anthony Smith
Phil Davis
Ryan Spann
Khalil Rountree
Volkan Oezdemir
Paul Craig
Heavyweight
Curtis Blaydes
Jon Jones
Sergei Pavlovich
Ciryl Gane
Tom Aspinall
Sergey Spivak
Marcin Tybura
Ryan Bader
Alexander Volkov
Jailton Almeida
Anatoly Malykhin
Linton Vassell
Phil De Fries
Tai Tuivasa
Alexander Romanov
Women’s Rankings
105-108 lbs. (Combined)
Seika Izawa
Jillian DeCoursey
Si-woo Park
Ayaka Hamasaki
Jessica Delboni
Kanna Asakura
Mina Kurobe
Saori Oshima
Jeong-eun Park
Satomi Takano
Miyuu Yamamoto
Hisae Watanabe
Ayaka Watanabe
Anastasia Nikolakakos
Rayanne dos Santos
115 lbs.
Weili Zhang
Amanda Lemos
Carla Esparza
Rose Namajunas
Marina Rodriguez
Xiaonan Yan
Angela Lee
Mackenzie Dern
Jessica Andrade
Virna Jandiroba
Piera Rodriguez
Tabatha Ricci
Angela Hill
Stamp Fairtex
Tecia Torres
125 lbs.
Alexa Grasso
Valentina Shevchenko
Erin Blanchfield
Taila Santos
Manon Fiorot
Katlyn Chookagian
Jennifer Maia
Xiong Jing Nan
Jessica Andrade
Amanda Ribas
Liz Carmouche
Lauren Murphy
Viviane Araujo
Casey O'Neill
Juliana Velasquez
135 lbs.
Amanda Nunes
Julianna Pena
Raquel Pennington
Irene Aldana
Holly Holm
Ketlen Vieira
Mayra Bueno Silva
Pannie Kianzad
Ketlen Viera
Karol Rosa
Sara McMann
Talita Bernardo
Taneisha Tennant
Olga Rubin
Julija Stoliarenko
145 lbs.
Cristiane Justino
Cat Zingano
Norma Dumont
Arlene Blencowe
Sinead Kavanaugh
Josiane Nunes
Leah McCourt
Julia Budd
Dayana Silva
Pam Sorenson
Aspen Ladd
Chelsea Chandler
Ramona Pascual
Janay Harding
Karolina Sobek
The discussion today is about how all of this works.
It’s pretty simple, actually – everyone submits their list, first place fighters get 15 points, second place get 14, etc… and I use a google sheet to determine each fighter’s total score. It’s that simple.
Of course because we don’t agree in all of our rankings, this means that ties are possible. In fact this came up in an important way for this iteration of the series which caused us to revise these tiebreaker criteria:
First tiebreaker: Win over opponent in most recent fight. If either fighter’s most recent fight was against the fighter who they’re tied with, the tie goes to the winning fighter.
Second tiebreaker: Wins over ranked competition in weight class. I take a quick check through the entire careers and look for wins over fighters in the class in question, fought in the class in question. The tie goes to the fighter whose career has more wins over fighters who are ranked in the present list. This is the “quality of competition” tiebreaker, and it strongly favours recent performances.
Third tiebreaker: Longer win streak. This one is simple: the tie goes to the fighter with the longer win streak, regardless of division or promotion.
Fourth tiebreaker: Date of third-most-recent fight. This one rewards activity. The final tiebreaker goes to the fighter who has done three fights in the shorter time.
The first tiebreaker is the newest one in our system. It’s so new that our discussion around it occurred the day of writing: due to a niche situation following how one list sees middleweight worldwide, Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira ended up tied on their aggregate scores. Our next tiebreaker favours the champ, who gets the opportunity to face nothing but ranked fighters. This put Adesanya as #1, which seems absurd given the result of their bout. Note that this one only triggers in the event of a recent fight – once they’ve both faced other opposition, it no longer applies, and the hope is then there won’t be a tie anymore, and if there is that the other tiebreakers will be satisfactory.