Fight Island MMA Rankings

Neal pulls together aggregate rankings for May 30, 2023.

Notable events since last ranking post: UFC Fight Night: Pavlovich vs Blaydes, UFC on ESPN: Song vs Simón, UFC 288: Sterling vs Cejudo, UFC on ABC: Rozenstruik vs Almeida, UFC Fight Night Dern vs Hill, Bellator 294-296, Invicta FC 53: DeCoursey vs Dos Santos.

Once again, this post is an aggregate of the rankings that Carl, Eric, and I create (mostly) individually. 

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.

We’ve started to observe one more: a fighter must be clearly competing in a division.  When fighters declare an intention permanently to switch divisions or to retire, they get removed from the rankings.  We agreed that a fighter who has no intention of continuing in a division shouldn’t be ranked there, nor should a fighter who has yet to fight in a division.  This sometimes will require a judgment call, as obviously we’re not going to drop a champion who has declared an intention to defend two belts, at least at first.

There were some names dropped this time around for divisional hopping: Alex Pereira, Kelvin Gastelum, Deiveson Figueiredo, and Jessica Andrade.  Andrade was a tough case, as I’m a mark for her, but she doesn’t have a notable win in either of her divisions in some time.  Once she settles somewhere and gets a W, we’ll be happy to welcome her back.

On the inactivity front, Rose Namajunas has been removed.  It has been over a year since her last fight, and there isn’t even a rumour of her next booking.  Khamzat Chimaev has also been removed because of the ambiguity over his future.  It has been over a year since he made 170 lb, and he has no fight booked.

The division moves on.

Men’s Rankings

125 Lbs.

1. Brandon Moreno

2. Alexandre Pantoja

3. Brandon Royval

4. Kai Kara-France

5. Matheus Nicolau

6. Manel Kape

7. Amir Albazi

8. Alex Perez

9. Muhammad Mokaev

10. Jarred Brooks

11. David Dvorak

12. Bruno Gustavo da Silva

13. Joshua Pacio

14. Tim Elliott

15. Tyson Nam

135 Lbs.

1. Aljamain Sterling

2. Merab Dvalishvili

3. Cory Sandhagen

4. Marlon Vera

5. Sean O'Malley

6. Demetrious Johnson

7. Patchy Mix

8. Petr Yan

9. Dominick Cruz

10. Adriano Moraes

11. Rob Font

12. Yadong Song

13. Ricky Simon

14. Raufeon Stots

15. Jonathan Martinez

145 Lbs.

1. Alexander Volkanovski

2. Max Holloway

3. Yair Rodriguez

4. Arnold Allen

5. Ilia Topuria

6. Brian Ortega

7. Josh Emmett

8. Patricio Pitbull

9. Calvin Kattar

10. Fabricio Andrade

11. Movsar Evloev

12. Bryce Mitchell

13. John Lineker

14. Stephan Lomann

15. Nate Landwehr

155 Lbs.

1. Islam Makhachev

2. Charles Oliveira

3. Beneil Dariush

4. Dustin Poirier

5. Justin Gaethje

6. Rafael Fiziev

7. Usman Nurmagomedov

8. Mateusz Gamrot

9. Mateusz Gamrot

10. Michael Chandler

11. Arman Tsarukyan

12. Guram Kutateladze

13. Damir Ismagulov

14. Jailin Turner

15. Alexander Shabily

170 Lbs.

1. Leon Edwards

2. Belal Muhammad

3. Kamaru Usman

4. Yaroslav Amosov

5. Shavkat Rakhmonov

6. Gilbert Burns

7. Stephen Thompson

8. Geoff Neal

9. Jack Della Maddalena

10. Logan Storley

11. Christian Lee

12. Sean Brady

13. Vicente Luque

14. Neil Magny

15. Michael Page

185 Lbs.

1. Israel Adesanya

2. Robert Whittaker

3. Johnny Eblen

4. Jared Cannonier

5. Marvin Vettori

6. Paulo Costa

7. Dricus du Plessis

8. Roman Dolidze

9. Derek Brunson

10. Brendan Allen

11. Sean Strickland

12. Jack Hermansson

13. Fabian Edwards

14. Chris Curtis

15. Anthony Hernandez

205 Lbs.

1. Jiri Prochazka

2. Magomed Ankalaev

3. Jan Blachowicz

4. Jamahal Hill

5. Vadim Nemkov

6. Johnny Walker

7. Nikita Krylov

8. Corey Anderson

9. Khalil Rountree

10. Phil Davis

11. Azamat Murzakanov

12. Anthony Smith

13. Volkan Oezdemir

14. Ryan Spann

15. Reinier de Ridder

Heavyweight (265 Lbs.)

1. Sergei Pavlovich

2. Jon Jones

3. Ciryl Gane

4. Curtis Blaydes

5. Sergey Spivak

6. Tom Aspinall

7. Alexander Volkov

8. Ryan Bader

9. Marcin Tybura

10. Jailton Almeida

11. Anatoly Malykhin

12. Linton Vassell

13. Phil De Fries

14. Tai Tuivasa

15. Alexander Romanov

Women’s Rankings

Atomweight (105-108 Lbs. combined)

1. Seika Izawa

2. Si Woo Park

3. Ayaka Hamasaki

4. Rayanne dos Santos

5. Jillian DeCoursey

6. Kanna Asakura

7. Jessica Delboni

8. Mina Kurobe

9. Viviane Pereira

10. Saori Oshima

11. Jeong Eun Park

12. Satomi Takano

13. Miyuu Yamamoto

14. Hisae Watanabe

15. Ayaka Watanabe

115 Lbs.

1. Weili Zhang

2. Amanda Lemos

3. Xiaonan Yan

4. Carla Esparza

5. Angela Lee

6. Marina Rodriguez

7. Mackenzie Dern

8. Virna Jandiroba

9. Tabatha Ricci

10. Piera Rodriguez

11. Seo Hee Ham

12. Polyana Viana

13. Angela Hill

14. Luana Pinheiro

15. Stamp Fairtex

125 Lbs.

1. Alexa Grasso

2. Valentina Shevchenko

3. Erin Blanchfield

4. Taila Santos

5. Manon Fiorot

6. Katlyn Chookagian

7. Jennifer Maia

8. Xiong Jing Nan

9. Liz Carmouche

10. Lauren Murphy

11. Amanda Ribas

12. Viviane Araujo

13. Casey O'Neill

14. Maycee Barber

15. Juliana Velasquez

135 Lbs.

1. Amanda Nunes

2. Julianna Pena

3. Raquel Pennington

4. Irene Aldana

5. Holly Holm

6. Mayra Bueno Silva

7. Pannie Kianzad

8. Ketlen Viera

9. Karol Rosa

10. Sara McMann

11. Talita Bernardo

12. Ketlen Vieira

13. Taneisha Tennant

14. Yana Santos

15. Olga Rubin

145 Lbs.

1. Cat Zingano

2. Norma Dumont

3. Sinead Kavanaugh

4. Josiane Nunes

5. Leah McCourt

6. Cristiane Justino

7. Sara McMann

8. Julia Budd

9. Dayana Silva

10. Larissa Pacheco

11. Pam Sorenson

12. Olena Kolesnyk

13. Aspen Ladd

14. Chelsea Chandler

15. Amber Leibrock

Discussion & Comments

Major movements this time are Patchy Mix making a strong statement and Song Yadong asserting his ranking at Bantamweight, Mansour Barnaoui getting stifled at Lightweight, Belal Muhammad beating Gilbert Burns at welterweight, Sergei Pavlovich and Jailton Almeida at Heavyweight, and Yan Xiaonan and Mackenzie Dern at Strawweight.  Previously unranked Rayanne dos Santos also captured the Invicta FC Atomweight championship, causing a shakeup at 105-108 combined.

The biggest discussion behind the scenes was the question of how much movement should happen when that movement happens.  One of my fellow panelists feels (and he’s entitled to feel this way) that I knock fighters too far down for a loss.  For example, Curtis Blaydes went down to #7 for his loss to Pavlovich, and I entirely removed Anthony Smith from my list after his loss to Johnny Walker.  He’s of the contrary opinion that fighters should get consideration for past performances, allowing them to hold a bit more of a place on the ladder.

Conversely, there was also a discussion where I pushed a ranking higher than the rest: that Rayanne Dos Santos had earned a top spot at Atomweight with her decisive capture of the Invicta FC Atomweight Championship.  The dissenting opinion was that Dos Santos’s middling career record didn’t justify elite treatment.

So I’m a big movement ranker, especially in the middle and bottom of the list.  I feel that most wins age like milk, not like cheese, and that the ranking should best reflect here and now.  Once in a while (as in the case of Movsar Evloev at Featherweight, for example) I’ll have a fighter hold position when they get a win over an outmatched opponent.  It’s not Evloev’s fault that he had several opponent changes, but a workmanlike win over an opponent without a Wikipedia page doesn’t push him up the ladder, especially when we’re comparing him to names like Brian Ortega or Ilia Topuria.

Anthony Smith is probably the one who warrants the most discussion here: in short, I dropped him because he looked horrible against Walker, and he now has no wins since September 2021.  In that time he has been scrabbling against the bottom edge of the top ten, and losing decisively.  He didn’t look like he could plausibly ever be UFC champion.  But there was a time where he fought admirably to the top of the heap and came as close as anyone to taking Jon Jones’s title.  Should I give him consideration for those past performances?  Well right now he has wins over two fighters who are ranked in today’s list: Ryan Spann (14) and Volkan Oezdemir (13).  The Oezdemir win is from October 2018, so not a particularly relevant remark on either fighter’s current status or on the present lay of the division.

The division moves on, and in my assessment it has clearly moved on from Anthony Smith.  Today’s numbers show, though, that Eric and Carl disagree with me, as he still holds the #12 spot.

Feel free to weigh in below in the comments section.