July/August 2023 MMA Rankings

Summer rants from Neal and Carl

We skipped all the way from June to July because of the balmy call of summer winds and/or the disruptive press of wildfire smoke and/or someone got lazy. It was either the writer who hasn’t posted since the June rankings or the collaborator who has posted nearly every week since then - nobody will ever know for sure. There wasn’t a ton of movement in the rankings in July on its own, anyway, so this later post has a bit more to discuss than the earlier one would have. There have been quite a few notable events since last post, now, most recently O’Malley vs Sterling.

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.

d. A fighter must be clearly competing in a division and will be removed when declaring intention to switch or retire. 

Notable inactivity drops include Brian Ortega and Colby Covington. By far Sean O’Malley’s KO of Aljamain Sterling is the biggest disruption to the rankings, followed by Alexandre Pantoja’s capture of the flyweight crown, and Mayra Bueno Silva’s blessed ninja choke of Holly Holm.

Also, we are aware of MBS’s … uh that is Mayra Silva’s failed drug test looming over this. Nobody knows what the hell is going to happen with that, and considering it is for her ADHD meds, we’re just leaving things as they are for now.

The other major behind the scenes discussion was Carl and I had a brief chat about what the rankings are supposed to represent, and we discovered a philosophical difference between us.

I view the rankings like a race, such as a foot race or a car race. From my point of view, the rankings are the current standings and the relative positions. On my own sheets, fighters rise and fall rapidly with a very strong recency bias. For me the highest ranked fighters are the ones who are consistently making progress against the higher ranked competition. If a fighter gets conked with a red shell, well, fighter has to get back to the top. I have no problem ranking a fighter who I feel is better beneath a fighter who I feel is worse, if that fighter who is worse has had better results relative to the division in recent fights. If the better fighter is indeed the better fighter, they’ll reassert that position before long.

Carl views things in terms of individual positioning a lot more than I do. He makes his decisions as much on competitive outcomes and fighter history as he does on his evaluations of the fighters. He is much more hesitant to drop a long-dominant champ or contender in the rankings based on a loss or two, and he’s often happier to weigh a fighter’s skillset as part of the equation.

Where this came up is when discussing what to do with Sean O’Malley and Merab Dvalishvilli. I was tempted to place Merab at #1, but we both ultimately gave the spot to O’Malley. I extremely value strength of schedule and consistency, and I’m a big fan of long winning streaks (at least when they include real competition) as an indicator. O’Malley’s recent outcomes are mixed. In the end I actually applied our tiebreaker criteria, which gave O’Malley a very slight edge.

Anyway, to the rankings.

Men’s Rankings

125 Lbs.

1. Alexandre Pantoja

2. Brandon Moreno

3. Brandon Royval

4. Amir Albazi

5. Matheus Nicolau

6. Kai Kara-France

7. Manel Kape

8. Jarred Brooks

9. Steve Erceg

10. Muhammad Mokaev

11. Bruno Gustavo da Silva

12. Joshua Pacio

13. Bruno Gustavo da Silva

14. David Dvorak

15. Allesandro Costa

135 Lbs.

1. Sean O'Malley

2. Merab Dvalishvili

3. Aljamain Sterling

4. Cory Sandhagen

5. Marlon Vera

6. Peter Yan

7. Patchy Mix

8. Demetrious Johnson

9. Sergio Pettis

10. Rob Font

11. Song Yadong

12. Dominick Cruz

13. Ricky Simon

14. Raufeon Stots

15. Adriano Moraes

145 Lbs.

1. Alexander Volkanovski

2. Max Holloway

3. Arnold Allen

4. Ilia Topuria

5. Yair Rodriguez

6. Patricio Pitbull

7. Fabricio Andrade

8. Movsar Evloev

9. Josh Emmett

10. Calvin Kattar

11. John Lineker

12. Bryce Mitchell

13. Dan Ige

14. Stephen Loman

15. Nate Landwehr

155 Lbs.

1. Islam Makhachev

2. Charles Oliveira

3. Justin Gaethje

4. Dustin Poirier

5. Usman Nurmagomedov

6. Rafael Fiziev

7. Arman Tsarukyan

8. Beneil Dariush

9. Mateusz Gamrot

10. Michael Chandler

11. Grant Dawson

12. Brent Primus

13. Elves Brener

14. Alexandr Shabily

15. Olivier Aubin Mercier

170 Lbs.

1. Leon Edwards

2. Belal Muhammad

3. Kamaru Usman

4. Yaroslav Amosov

5. Shavkat Rakhmonov

6. Gilbert Burns

7. Stephen Thompson

8. Logan Storley

9. Christian Lee

10. Geoff Neal

11. Ian Machado Garry

12. Jack Della Maddalena

13. Vicente Luque

14. Sean Brady

15. Neil Magny

185 Lbs.

1. Israel Adesanya

2. Dricus du Plessis

3. Robert Whittaker

4. Johnny Eblen

5. Jared Cannonier

6. Marvin Vettori

7. Paulo Costa

8. Roman Dolidze

9. Sean Strickland

10. Brendan Allen

11. Derek Brunson

12. Jack Hermansson

13. Fabian Edwards

14. Anthony Hernandez

15. Kelvin Gastelum

205 Lbs.

1. Magomed Ankalaev

2. Jamahal Hill

3. Alex Pereira

4. Jan Blachowicz

5. Vadim Nemkov

6. Johnny Walker

7. Corey Anderson

8. Nikita Krylov

9. Volkan Oezdemir

10. Phil Davis

11. Ryan Spann

12. Khalil Rountree Jr.

13. Azamat Murzakanov

14. Anthony Smith

15. Reinier de Ridder

265 Lbs. (Heavyweight)

1. Sergei Pavlovich

2. Jon Jones

3. Ciryl Gane

4. Tom Aspinall

5. Curtis Blaydes

6. Alexander Volkov

7. Sergey Spivak

8. Ryan Bader

9. Linton Vassell

10. Jailton Almeida

11. Phil de Fries

12. Marcin Tybura

13. Tai Tuivasa

14. Alexander Romanov

15. Jarzinho Rozenstruik

Women’s Rankings

105 + 108 Lbs. combined (Atomweight)

1. Seika Izawa

2. Rayanne dos Santos

3. Si Woo Park

4. Ayaka Hamasaki

5. Jillian DeCoursey

6. Kanna Asakura

7. Saori Oshima

8. Ayaka Watanabe

9. Satomi Takano

10. Mina Kurobe

11. Monique Adriane

12. Anastasia Nikolakakos

13. Elisandra Ferreira

14. Marisa Messer-Belenchia

15. Claire Lopez

115 Lbs.

1. Weili Zhang

2. Xiaonan Yan

3. Amanda Lemos

4. Carla Esparza

5. Virna Jandiroba

6. Mackenzie Dern

7. Marina Rodriguez

8. Tatiana Suarez

9. Jessica Andrade

10. Seo Hee Ham

11. Luana Pinheiro

12. Tabatha Ricci

13. Stamp Fairtex

14. Angela Hill

15. Piera Rodriguez

125 Lbs.

1. Alexa Grasso

2. Valentina Shevchenko

3. Erin Blanchfield

4. Manon Fiorot

5. Katlyn Chookagian

6. Jennifer Maia

7. Xiong Jing Nan

8. Liz Carmouche

9. Maycee Barber

10. Taila Santos

11. Lauren Murphy

12. Amanda Ribas

13. Viviane Araujo

14. Karine Silva

15. Juliana Velasquez

135 Lbs.

1. Raquel Pennington

2. Mayra Bueno Silva

3. Irene Aldana

4. Ketlen Viera

5. Holly Holm

6. Pannie Kianzad

7. Talita Bernardo

8. Taneisha Tennant

9. Olga Rubin

10. Yana Santos

11. Joselyn Edwards

12. Macy Chiasson

13. Karol Rosa

14. Julija Stoliarenko

15. Joselyne Edwards

145 Lbs.

1. Cat Zingano

2. Norma Dumont

3. Sara McMann

4. Arlene Blencowe

5. Larissa Pacheco

6. Josiane Nunes

7. Olena Kolesnyk

8. Sinead Kavanaugh

9. Julia Budd

10. Leah McCourt

11. Ekaterina Shakalova

12. Aspen Ladd

13. Chelsea Chandler

14. Marina Mokhnatkina

15. Sara Collins