Fight Island MMA Rankings
Neal pulls together aggregate rankings for April 17, 2023
Notable events since last ranking post: UFC on ESPN: Vera vs Sandhagen, UFC 287, UFC on ESPN: Holloway vs Allen.
This is an aggregate rankings post. The theory is that Carl, Eric and I all create our own lists, and I quantify and average them out.
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.
Men’s Rankings
125 Lbs.
Brandon Moreno
Alexandre Pantoja
Brandon Royval
Kai Kara-France
Matheus Nicolau
Manel Kape
Deiveson Figueiredo
Amir Albazi
Alex Perez
Muhammad Mokaev
Jarred Brooks
David Dvorak
Bruno Gustavo da Silva
Joshua Pacio
Tim Elliott
135 Lbs.
Aljamain Sterling
Merab Dvalishvili
Cory Sandhagen
Marlon Vera
Sean O'Malley
Demetrious Johnson
Petr Yan
Rob Font
Raufeon Stots
Dominick Cruz
Patchy Mix
Adriano Moraes
Ricky Simon
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
Stephen Loman
Nate Landwehr
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
Mansour Barnaoui
Tang Kai
170 Lbs.
Leon Edwards
Gilbert Burns
Belal Muhammad
Kamaru Usman
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.
Israel Adesanya
Robert Whittaker
Johnny Eblen
Jared Cannonier
Dricus du Plessis
Roman Dolidze
Alex Pereira
Paulo Costa
Derek Brunson
Sean Strickland
Brendan Allen
Jack Hermansson
Kelvin Gastelum
Gegard Mousasi
Chris Curtis
205 Lbs.
Jiri Prochazka
Magomed Ankalaev
Jan Blachowicz
Jamahal Hill
Vadim Nemkov
Nikita Krylov
Anthony Smith
Aleksandar Rakic
Johnny Walker
Phil Davis
Khalil Rountree
Volkan Oezdemir
Ryan Spann
Paul Craig
Reinier de Ridder
Heavyweight (265 Lbs.)
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
Jarzinho Rozenstruik
Tai Tuivasa
Women’s Rankings
105-108 Lbs. (Combined)
Seika Izawa
Jillian DeCoursey
Si Woo Park
Ayaka Hamasaki
Jessica Delboni
Kanna Asakura
Mina Kurobe
Saori Oshima
Viviane Pereira
Satomi Takano
Jeong Eun Park
Miyuu Yamamoto
Ayaka Watanabe
Hisae Watanabe
Anastasia Nikolakakos
115 Lbs.
Weili Zhang
Amanda Lemos
Carla Esparza
Rose Namajunas
Marina Rodriguez
Xiaonan Yan
Angela Lee
Mackenzie Dern
Jessica Andrade
Virna Jandiroba
Piera Rodriguez
Seo Hee Ham
Polyana Viana
Tabatha Ricci
Loma Lookboonmee
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
Juliana Velasquez
Casey O'Neill
135 Lbs.
Amanda Nunes
Julianna Pena
Raquel Pennington
Irene Aldana
Holly Holm
Mayra Bueno Silva
Ketlen Viera
Karol Rosa
Sara McMann
Talita Bernardo
Taneisha Tennant
Yana Santos
Ketlen Vieira
Olga Rubin
Julija Stoliarenko
145 Lbs.
Cat Zingano
Norma Dumont
Arlene Blencowe
Sinead Kavanaugh
Josiane Nunes
Leah McCourt
Cristiane Justino
Julia Budd
Larissa Pacheco
Pam Sorenson
Olena Kolesnyk
Aspen Ladd
Chelsea Chandler
Ramona Pascual
Amber Leibrock
Not a lot to discuss in this month’s rankings - the biggest divisional shakeup was Israel Adesanya taking back the top of men’s middleweight. Rob Font’s impressive TKO of Adrian Yanez brought him back into the middle of the bantamweight rankings, and Brandon Royval reclaimed his spot as a top contender and… well that’s it. Lots of fighters defended their rankings, Max Holloway and Gilbert Burns most notably.
The most disruptive factor was Deiveson Figueiredo’s announcement that, no, he’s staying at 125 after all, which prompts the question of when we consider a fighter “in” a division? When do we rank them? One member of our panel basically decided that he isn’t having any of this nonsense, and that he isn’t going to reinsert Deiveson until he fights again, which is fair. For all we know next week he’ll book a fight against Petr Yan and all of the rearrangement and reinserting him back at #2 was a waste of keystrokes.
He’s not the only fighter who presents problems of that flavour, though. Is Jessica Andrade a flyweight or a strawweight? Both? Where do I rank her? Shane Burgos claims to have moved to lightweight permanently, but now that he lost to Olivier Aubin Mercier he may be rethinking that decision, but who knows with PFL’s “season” format.
Maybe this gives a moment to reflect on what rankings actually are. One way to look at it is as a suggestion of who is most likely, given the current landscape, to be the next champion. A fighter at 11 is unlikely to be the next champ, but if she wins impressively once, she might find herself in a position to get a Michael Bisping late replacement moment.
And if a fighter can’t get his shit together to decide where he’s going to fight, he is less likely to be that champ, even if in a fight he might actually beat 13 of the 14 other fighters on that list.
April and early May aren’t giving us a whole lot to work with in UFC cards, but a few notable fights are happening in Bellator, with Liz Carmouche, Kyoji Horiguchi, and Mansour Barnaoui active, and importantly, the Raufeon Stots vs Patchy Mix Grand Prix final, which on my own card gives the winner a cerdible claim to being an elite Bantamweight.
Of course the most important fight is that our consensus #1 Heavyweight, Curtis Blaydes is active against consensus #3 Sergei Pavlovich. A question I’ve been asked is “Why isn’t Jones #1? He’s the champion, right?” and my response, for my own read on the division, is that Jones has one win at heavyweight, coming against an opponent who was coming off of a win against the #15 fighter, with a loss before that, and whose best win is now ranked #9.
If Pavlovich beats Blaydes, I will probably rank him above Jones, for those reasons. And if the Stipe Miocic fight happens, and Jones runs through him too, that still won’t clinch him the #1 spot - Stipe was great, but a win over a 40 year old fighter, unranked for inactivity, coming off of a KO loss, isn’t worth much. Consider that Stipe’s opponents are mostly retired: his last win over a fighter who hasn’t officially set down the gloves is his decision over Francis Ngannou in 2018, that loss was violently avenged, and he too is on the inactive list.
Hell, maybe even Jones’s #2 is generous.