The Punchsport Pagoda Irregular Rankings Special
After a long slumber, Jess and Carl have come to rank fighters.
Carl: I think it’s important to note, before anything, that rankings are bullshit and that’s what makes them fun. Company rankings are always going to be marketing machines meant more to say You Should Care About Michael Chandler than to give you any educated idea of what’s happening in a given division; media rankings are always going to be biased by whoever’s making them and how seriously they think people should take Costello van Steenis.
Rather than trying to mash our thoughts together into a sterile, anodyne list made of boring, objective consensus, we’re going to try to have fun with subjectivity. Jess and I have ranked every relevant, active weight class in MMA--sorry, Women’s Featherweight, it’s just not happening--and we’ll be putting those rankings side by side and talking about the differences in our thinking.
Jess: I suppose I should address my methodology before I get too far. I fully expect this process to change slightly as I hone my ranking abilities, but here’s how I got to the people in the places I did.
I first compiled a list of names, mostly from UFC’s rankings, plus Tapology, because I am prone to bouts of forgetting that oh, hey, Jailton Almeida does exist.
Then, I look at the previous five fights, and the last three years of fights. Then, review who on my list beat who else on my list and do my best to sort it out that way. Going forward, I will probably end up incorporating additional factors, like title wins and defenses, finishes, and “did this person get beat by someone real bad who isn’t even on my list?” because that should mark you down some points. But oops, I forgot!
Carl: So, because I am this kind of giant fucking nerd, I already had my own rankings sitting around waiting to be updated for the quarter. I have made certain choices with my time on this Earth.
Rankings are the one thing in life for which I am particularly conservative. With the amount of work it tends to take to get into the top fifteen, and the degree to which comparative analysis makes up my mixed martial worldview, I tend to wait for people to either accumulate too long a string of losses to be tenable as a ranked fighter, lose to people who were so far below them in the rankings that it invalidates their standing, or, most commonly, a mixture of both.
Carl: Heavyweight being bad is not new, Heavyweight has done been bad for most of its time on Earth, but we’re entering this extremely weird era of Heavyweight wherein the UFC is treating the division so poorly that it’s almost kind of interesting again. It’s awful, and it’s especially egregious to be doing shit like booking Curtis Blaydes against rookie marketing prospects over and over until you finally get a Josh Hokit in the top five or canning Jailton Almeida while employing a Tafa brother, but it’s weirdly beneficial for the rest of the world. Half because you get guys like Alexandr Romanov out there serving as a measuring stick for talent instead of being wasted in the UFC, half because it’s a lot fucking easier to campaign for an Oleg Popov or a Phil De Fries to be taken seriously as a top Heavyweight when the UFC is insisting Tallison Teixeira deserves to fight one of the three best men in the world.
Jess: We are deeply, uncomfortably in the squishy, squishy dregs of what is considered Top Tier heavyweights. Pretty soon, Phil De Fries is going to be defending the KSW title against a couch.
Also, I’m confident that both Brothers Tafa are only gonna be around long enough to give Gable Steveson a boosty-uppy to “divisional relevance’.
Carl: I wonder how far beating a Tafa gets you towards the rankings. Funnily enough, in the last few hours word’s come out that Valter Walker, whom the UFC currently ranks at #13, is in talks to fight Thomas Petersen, who is unranked, which makes that Teixeira/Pavlovich fight even funnier.
So, before anything else, I gotta ask: I know I’m already dipping my toes into the waters of subjectivity by still ranking Alexander Volkov above Ciryl Gane given my disagreement with MMA judges, but is having Gane above Tom Aspinall part of your personal vendetta against eyeballs?
Jess: I like eyeballs just fine! Sadly, Tom suffers from a two-pronged problem. Low activity and hasn’t beaten people I have regarded as highly. He’s 1-1 (1 NC) in the last three years, and that one win is Curtis Blaydes. If I consider Blaydes a quality win, it helps Tom more, but it also sadly elevates Josh Hokit. That bridge is mighty tough to cross.
My own issue against putting a thumb on the scale of “yeah, but we all know the other person really won the fight” is that I’m incapable of not just leaning my entire bodyweight on the scale and putting Iron Turtle top 3 at 185. I respect, you, Carl, for being able to maintain professionalism.
Also, I have to go by official results because I’ve honestly not watched so many of these fighters, I don’t have the ability to nudge things towards Cage Justice (My favorite Olek Taktarov movie, by the way).
Carl: My favorite Oleg Taktarov movie is, and will always be, the .wmv rip of YAMMA Pit Fighting I keep on a USB drive around my neck while I sleep.
The Aspinall situation is kind of a pickle. I think the combination of having not really lost and having blown through Volkov, Pavlovich and Blaydes in about five minutes keeps him there for me, but it is also possible that I simply dislike Ciryl Gane and the GameShark that he is using to get infinite title shots. It is Volkov’s turn with the controller and you need to stop being so dang selfish and go to wrestling practice.
The topic of activity brings up a point on your rankings that pained me not to share, and that’s Francis Ngannou. I do not know what to do with him. Lineally-speaking he’s still the top of the heap and I think he could easily be back on top, but he’s got one MMA fight in the last four and a half years, and it’s already going on two years old, and when he does finally break his drought at Rousey/Carano this weekend, even in a best-case scenario, he’s knocking out a Philipe Lins that hasn’t even competed at Heavyweight since 2020 when Tanner Boser knocked him out. Does it matter, or is his simply still being around enough?
Jess: For Big Fran, the pip of activity is good, but the relevant opponent metric is not impressed one whit by Phil Lins. At least a guy like De Fries has the modicum of title fights to bolster his nothing opponents (KSW catching all the strays from me today!)
Regarding Tom, though my horrendous numbers have him at 3, I have the utmost confidence in his ability to beat both our top 5s in short order, and do things that can only be classified as Crimes Against Humanity to the rest of the rankings.
Carl has a few fighters on his list that didn’t make my top 15 cutoff, but the only person he fully has that I did not consider is Jailton Almeida. Applying my rubrics, we have:
2-3 in his last 5 fights, 4-3 in his prior 3 years. Wins over Spivac (20th), Lewis (18th), Romanov (13th), losses to Bladyes (19th), Kuniev (17th), Volkov (2nd). No big wins, clipped by 3 other men on the list. I probably would have slotted him somewhere between 16 and 19.
Carl: I think, for me, the concept of how hard it is to get into the rankings--or at least used to be, before the Josh Hokit/Tyrell Fortune/Tallison Teixeira era--adds a little bit of drag to what it takes to get removed from them, and Almeida’s an interesting case. His best win is either Spivac, Lewis or Rozenstruik, which is middling even if I think Jairzinho is underrated, but his worst losses were Blaydes, who was a top ten lock until recently, Kuniev, whose only loss in a decade was Blaydes, and Volkov, who we both agree is top two and whom Almeida took to a really close split decision. He’s fallen, but I’d still keep him up there. Though what that means for his future as the top Heavyweight prospect of Akhmat or something, who knows.
I also think it’s a damn shame that we both agree Vadim Nemkov rules and we both struggle to get him any higher than the periphery of the top ten because, realistically, what the hell is he going to do for the next few years? I don’t want him stuck in the conglomerated glut of the UFC, but in the PFL his best Heavyweight hopes now come from joining the Pokemon weaknesses graph whereby Popov loses to Goltsov and Goltsov beats everyone but Ferreira and Ferreira loses to Bilostenniy and Bilostenniy beats everyone but Moldavsky and Moldavsky breaks Romanov’s groin so Romanov can lose to Popov. It’s a vicious cycle, Jess, and we are its prey.
Jess: Light Heavyweights, what the hell are we going to do with you. We make you a nice title fight, one guy throws it away out of overwhelming sense of Bushido pride, and the winner tears his knee to smithereens, requiring surgery and a year on the shelf. Was it folly to include Pereira on the rankings after he vacated the belt and moved up to heavyweight? Probably, but I figured I can’t rank a guy in a division he’s never competed in, so here he is at my number 2 spot.
Had I remembered Dovlet or ShoeFace, they probably would have ended up just inside the top 10. Good recent records, but no notable wins, and Dovlet has only lost to Anderson. Carlos Junior a little lower because the loss to EZ Polizzi should be a bigger demerit, though as I explained earlier, I kinda didn’t think of those repercussions initially. Whoops!
Carl, high five on a perfectly placed Corey Anderson!
Carl: Corey Anderson may have forsaken the art of Beastin, but we do not, and cannot, forget. We will Beast for him, 25/8, until there is no more Beastin to be done.
I think ranking Pereira makes sense, or at least as much sense as bothering to rank Light Heavyweight makes these days. The best guy at the class is gone, the UFC is waiting as long as possible to book Ankalaev, Paulo Costa is one win away from a UFC title shot and everyone who wins the belt is immediately struck down by Nike for their hubris and the PFL has a bunch of guys who barely fight to the point that Corey won the belt almost eight months ago and meanwhile Shoeface is fighting Luke Trainer in June. There is so little rhyme or reason to 205 that almost anything is defensible.
But I do need you to tell the people about your deep, abiding love for Bogmen and its role behind Bogdan Guskov, #4 Light Heavyweight In The World.
Jess: The Bogman is honestly a little high, now that I’m giving my list some more scrutiny. But, I think he deserves to be on it. He’s 4-1 (1 NC) in the last three years, with a win over Krylov and a loss to Oezdemir. Those are both middle of the road outcomes. Maybe not deserving of a spot inside the top 5, but definitely on the full 15.
Turning things around on Carl, I do want to know what is keeping Rakic and Walker in your rankings? They don’t have any wins that could be considered relevant, and they’ve mostly been blasted all to hell in their numerous losses.
Carl: I’ll cop to overrating Rakic. I am still stuck on the way he almost beat Jan, and almost beat Jiri, but he didn’t and I should stop giving him the credit for what could have been. Besides which I believe he’s moving to Heavyweight anyway, so one way or another, I must part with my Serbian brother’s 205-pound ranking.
Johnny Walker, I will defend. He benefits deeply from how bad Light Heavyweight is right now. I’ll agree that beating Zhang Mingyang is not a top ten-worthy thing, but on the other hand, you have our other persistently difficult buddy Dominick Reyes at #6, and he just won a tragically uneventful split decision with Walker that was the dictionary definition of a coinflip. But for the whims of a D’Amato, Walker could be your #6 Light Heavyweight right now without having done a single thing differently. So while I do not rate him very highly, I cannot bring myself to drop him entirely from the top fifteen. It’s not that he’s great, it’s that it’s Light Heavyweight.
Carl: Let me introduce the Middleweight division by saying: Fuck Middleweight.
I know we’ve been working on this long enough that your rankings were before Chimaev/Strickland happened, so let me say that I envy you for the time machine that lets you not have Sean Strickland at the top of your rankings. I already miss those days. Despite the likelihood that we will now get multiple title defenses in a year, a thing that was impossible so long as Chimaev held the gold, I would still trade it back in a nanosecond to not have to think about #1 Fighter Sean Strickland again. I am old and cold and the bears are closing in.
I like that Costello van Steenis is up there because I like typing Costello van Steenis. I think there’s a really good chance Eblen’s about to kick him back down the ladder in their rematch, but maybe he’ll surprise us again. I also have to ask you about Top Ten Rodrigocop.
Jess: Gregory Cop is on my list because he’s 6-1 in the past 3 years, with a win over CLD and a loss to Cannonier. Highly cromulent Middleweighting, in my world. It is kind of hilarious that, per Tapology’s UFC rankings, Greg Robot has beat the #24, the #24, and the #24 UFC middleweights over the last three fights.
Hunter Campbell told me that Gregory Rodriques keeps beating his #24 middleweights and I asked him how many #24 middleweights he has, and he said he just goes to the Contender Series and gets a new #24 middleweight afterwards, so I said it sounds like he’s just feeding Contender Series guys to Gregory Rodriques and then Mick Maynard started crying.
So I ask you, Friend Carl. Are Fabian Edwards’s wins over Dalton Rosta better than Roman Kopylov and Bruno Ferreira?
Carl: See, this is where the balance of wins and losses gets to me. I deeply adore Robocop’s world of bionic fistitry, but that knockout loss to Jared Cannonier looms. Ol’ Jerry Crystals has been getting the crap kicked out of him over and over across the last three years, so the sole exception being his knocking out Rodrigues complicates things, because I can’t even bring myself to rank Cannonier right now. Kopylov’s decent but his best win is Chris Curtis, and Ferreira’s best win is a Marvin Vettori who is also on a three-year losing streak, so I need Gregory to beat someone a bit higher before I can find the courage to love again.
But then, this is Middleweight, where the guy we both agree to be #3 hasn’t fought in almost a year for no apparent reason and, if rumors are true, his next bout will be Kamaru Usman. This is a division where Kamaru Usman could be 1-1 as a Middleweight and also the #2 contender to its title. Rhyme nor reason have purchase here, this is simply a Place where things Happen and we must hide in the storm cellar until they tell us who the new Anderson Silva is this time.
I think, to some extent, my desire for competition makes me overrate the PFL’s competitors simply because it’s the division they’re putting actual effort into, but I do think Johnny Eblen could beat most of the UFC’s 185-pound division, so the combination of Edwards going the distance with him and smashing Impa Kasanganay, who almost beat Eblen, still does a lot for me.
Jess: I was unaware of that Dricus/Kamaru matchup rumor. I would like to lay down, now.
At least we both seem to agree that Joe Pyfer is vaguely fraudulent. I’m just glad we’re out of the doldrums of the Bad Divisions and can move on to talking about actually good fighters.
Carl: Seriously, though, Welterweight is so fucking good. Going from Middleweight to Welterweight is like Andy Dufresne crawling out of the Shawshank sewers right now. Every single person in the top ten is great and with the unfortunate example of the slowly falling Jack Della Maddalena, you can make a solid argument for how any one of them could credibly be a top contender within, at most, one more fight. It’s so easy to get deservedly cynical about the state of mixed martial arts right now, so having one weight class with a rock-solid top ten is great.
Like, even the differences in our top tens are fine. It’s a little unfortunate that Ramazan Kuramagomedov is officially retired now after finally getting his moment in the sun, but he definitely deserved to be there. Thad Jean’s got a ton of top ten potential. Myktybek Orolbai’s an awesome prospect. And, most importantly, neither of us ranks Mike Malott, because we are good, holy people.
I was going to ask about Kamaru Usman not making your list, but given the aforementioned likelihood that he’s a Middleweight now, I don’t know that it matters. So, instead, I’ll open with: Isn’t it nice when this sport doesn’t suck, is Thad Jean about to embark on a lengthy reign of PFL terror, and will you ever forgive Yaroslav Amosov for getting killed by Jason Jackson?
Jess: I do wish I had made the list after UFC 328, because Amosov dismantled Joel Alvarez so thoroughly, I would be obligated to put him just outside the top 10.
But look at these men. Not a dud among them! Islam Makhachev needs to get booked, but otherwise, the division is solid! And hey, I get it, if we’re talking inactivity, Shavkat has only fought twice in the last three years. Another guy that hopefully gets back in the cage more regularly.
Usman and Leon Edwards were at the bottom of my complete list, missing out on the top fifteen due to their recent slate of losses and only wins coming against Buckley, who’s okay but not great, and the stinkably bad Colby Covington. Though I know the slightly more older past speaks a lot for both men, but I put in a shorter cut off for evaluations.
Carl: I do miss Shavkat, but more than missing him, I am terrified of what happens when Shavkat comes back after multiple reconstructive surgeries and multiple years of gathering dust and it turns out now his knees don’t bend and he can’t beat Uros Medic.
Whatever my feelings on Usman and Edwards, I am okay rating Colby Covington for nothing, ever again. I have had too much of him for one damn lifetime. I can’t even enjoy him theoretically getting beaten up anymore. We’ve already seen it. There is nothing left for him to offer. Get thee hence. (Editor’s note: What do you know! He did.)
I think there’s one overarching question: How the hell do you unravel the contendership space? It seems like we’re headed for Islam vs Garry later this year, so where do you think Prates and Morales end up? Is there anything left to be done with Della Maddalena now that he’s in freefall? Does Sean Brady deserve another crack at the top? Are we about to have to deal with Top Ten Gabriel Bonfim?
Jess: Surely UFC’s welterweight division won’t see another promising prospect get a title shot postponed due to injury and then injuries and when he returns he’s a shell of his former self, right? RIGHT?
I think the question of UFC’s 170 lb title picture has two answers. There’s the logical answer we would provide, and then there’s whatever bullshit Hunter Campbell does.
Assuming Islam and Ian Machado lock horns, let me dig into the other questions. If you’re content burning a contender, Prates vs Morales in Brazil could be a possible title eliminator.
If JDM truly is on the downward arc of his career, you either let him gatekeep, against a returning Shavkat or possibly Amosov, or you use his “former champion” status as the last foothold bump for someone on the cusp of title contention, though I guess that’s what the Prates fight was.
I think we both know that Sean Brady lost his opportunity at the top with the loss to Michael Moraes. He will have to go on a Jon Fitchian level of dominance to get another shot. He’ll probably just get booked in rock fights with young guys until he stumbles again and then get black holed out of the top 15 per UFC decree.
Bonfim was one of about a clump of seven guys who have a decent win rate over recent years, but haven’t beaten anyone of consequence, so they just missed a spot in my rankings. I guess we’ll see how decrepit Belal Muhammad is in a few weeks.
Carl: I think you are right about Sean Brady and it irritates me deeply. They’re going to try to get Mike Malott in the top ten, and it’s going to involve either Brady, Buckley, or Leon Edwards, and preemptively, everyone involved should feel bad.
But I’ll also say this: If Belal Muhammad cannot defeat a man who got knocked out by Nicolas Dalby, I am quitting mixed martial arts and the next time we meet we are going to be ranking competitive snorkeling.
Jess: Lightweights, my beloved!
I went really hard on the B-League guys for Lightweight, but I abide by the WEC rule, which states that the little guys are really good everywhere. That being said, I am fine with the argument that everyone from Pimblett on down could get dumpstered for an Alfie Davis or a Salahdine Parnasse, whom, I fully admit: I forgot about you, dawg, I’m sorry!
The next time we convene for rankings, Arman Tsarukyan will have: More or Less Real American Freestyle wrestling matches than UFC fights? As we have another strong candidate for “matchmaking is trying to motherfuck this guy.”
Honestly, my only quibble with your list is Dan Hooker, and running it through, it turns out my question is actually: how good do you rate 2026 Jalin Turner? Hooker’s got split decision wins over him and Gamrot, and I’m fine with Gamrot, though he just missed my top 15 cut-off.
Carl: The Salahdine Parnasse situation is weird anyhow. He’s clearly, obviously one of the best Lightweights on the planet, but he’s also in that Phil De Fries position where there just isn’t much competition above him unless he gives up his freedom to sign with a bigger company, most of whom appear to be persistently lowballing him. I get the sense we may have him as a #10-15 fixture for a long time.
Arman has become the locus of my anger with Lightweight. We should be talking about 155 in the same breathless terms of endearment we use for 170, the talent is incredible and the matches are fantastic, it’s just the matchmaking that’s killing everything. Gaethje’s getting the title shot, Ilia wants to go to 170, Arman is banished to the negative zone, Oliveira’s stuck twiddling his thumbs and Holloway is, in theory, fighting Conor fucking McGregor at fucking Welterweight. The only people getting any matchmaking love are Benoit Saint-Denis and Paddy Pimblett and both of those statements are depressing in their own ways.
I think Hooker, Turner and Gamrot form an incredibly complicated Megazord at the outer rim of the top ten. Turner, himself, is a very similar case to the Dominick Reyes/Johnny Walker discussion we were having a few divisions ago: But for the coinflip whims of the judges, Turner could have been riding a split decision streak into the top five, and instead he got sad and let Renato Moicano beat him with libertarian economics and retired for a lil’ bit. So Hooker beating him counts some for me, but it’s the Gamrot win that’s really keeping him afloat right now. I don’t hold getting trounced by Arman against him too bad, but the Benoit loss really sent him down the ladder. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to hold him back for a big tall giraffe battle with Quillan Salkilld the next time they’re in Australia.
Similarly, let me ask you: Are you really willing to wound me, personally, emotionally, by rating Paddy Pimblett? Do you want me to cry?
Jess: I did say I’m willing to dumpster Paddy. The clump of “good amount of recent wins but nobody actually good” strikes again. At least Alfie Davis beat Gadzhi Rabadanov! At least I’ll be able to drop Pimblett after he loses in July, either to Saint-Denis, or more likely, Max Holloway after Conor pulls out of that fight.
Man, Sallkild versus Hooker makes me think of Shawn Michaels vs Ric Flair, only with far more use of the c-word.
If I get one Fantasy Booking wish for Lightweight, its an Oliveira vs Tsarukyan rematch for five rounds. My guess is that’s going to be sitting in UFC’s back pocket, ready for Ilia to head up to 170 after Fascism Fest in June.
Carl: I feel so bad for Alfie for running into the Usman Nurmagomedov wall. Honestly, instead of reflecting on Parnasse getting stuck, maybe we should’ve spared a thought for Usman. We’re both in agreement that dude’s on the shortlist of the best in the world, but unless he leaves the PFL, what on Earth is there for him left to do? His future is Paul Hughes rematches until the PFL finally gets an Irish champion five years too late for anyone to care.
Oliveira/Tsarukyan 2 feels plausible but I think in their heart of hearts the UFC is hoping a window of opportunity opens up for the house to win again. If Topuria goes to 170, if Gaethje retires like he’s kept talking about after he gets murdered by a Spaniard in front of the White House, if Max is busy at 170 with Conor, if Paddy beats BSD, all they have to do is say Arman vs Oliveira is for the #1 contendership, but in the meantime, Paddy Pimblett vs Michael Chandler 2 for the vacant Lightweight title. Unrelated to anything, by the by, I don’t sleep much anymore.
Also: I really liked that you ranked Akbar Abdullaev and that made it intensely hilarious when ONE cut him like 24 hours after you sent me your rankings.
Jess: I think Usman Nurmagomedov is in a similar spot as mid-title run DJ. His upcoming challengers are going to be pushed too fast, go into the fight underprepared for his skill set, and when Usman wins, the victories will be dismissed because “who was that, anyway?”
As for Akbar, clearly Chatri hates me, personally and is simply A Hater. For Abdullaev and the amorphous collection of ONE, PFL, KSW, and Rizin guys, they’re all just going to flounder for a while, I fear. Well, maybe Akbar can wriggle his way onto the Absolute Championship Akhmat card in June, which just so happens to be headlined by Alexander Shlemenko. That’s a new, viable career path, right?
If only we could have solidarity in the international regional scene and just get all these guys mushed together into one division.
Carl: The Jake Paul NWA model of mixed martial arts. God help us all that that’s our best hope for the future. And godspeed to you, Ilkhom Nazimov, who had one shining moment and will probably never be relevant again.
Carl: There’s a lot of neat things going on in the Featherweight division right now, but none of them mean as much to me as Movsar Evloev getting a title shot. It’s been silly for years now that he’s had to wait, it has progressed to being entirely beyond parody, and if somehow the rumors about Jean Silva getting the next crack at Alexander Volkanovski wind up being true the entire division is obligated to find him and throw him into a moat. I do not care which moat. It can be Ganryujima or it can be a twelfth-century castle. Get it done already. Christ alive.
Over the course of this discussion Arnold Allen reminded everyone that he does, in fact, still belong in the top Featherweight conversation by beating up poor Melquizael Costa, but there’s an awful lot of potential movement still happening, what with Aljo beating Yousef and Steve Garcia about to fight Diego Lopes. Speaking of: I gotta ask you about #3 Steve Garcia. Sing to me of the many punches with which he has punched punchmen.
Jess: The thing I like about the Steve Machine is when he punches a featherweight, they stay having had been punched. As for why he’s so high on my list, let me note that of the 17 featherweights I reviewed, 11 did not have a win over another fighter on my list. I probably should have cleared my head and pulled some more names, but that’s a lesson learned for next time.
Volk and Evloev were the obvious 1 and 2, it’s just a matter of how strongly the losses to now-larger Topuria and always larger Makhachev count against Volkanovski. For me, a little, but only just. The remaining fighters with wins over other notable opponents were Khizriev, Silva, Lopes, and Garcia.
Lopes is in a weird spot. He’s 6-Volk over the last three years, which, hell, any featherweight should be so lucky. He does have a win over Jean Silva, so I understand the argument that he should be higher. It’s not his fault that anyone Alexander Volkanovski is having a bad time, he goes down the street to beat a few more shades of shit out of Diego.
Silva has a gaudy 7-1 record in the last 3 years with the aforementioned loss to Lopes and a win over Arnold Allen. Allen’s stock has definitely improved, as I had him outside my top 15 due to limited activity, and only having managed a win over Giga Chikadze, while losing to Evloev and Jean Silva, a double whammy. Again, not damning losses, but most everyone else at 145 has much glossier records.
Khizriev is 6-0 in the past 3 years, a benefit of PFL’s tournament system. His notable win is Gabriel Braga, who in turn, is notable for his 7-3 record dating back to May 2023.
We finally get to Steve Garcia, with his own 5-0 run and a shiny win over Melq Costa, who is 7-1 over 36 months. Of the fighters discussed, Silva and Lopes have strong cases to usurp Garcia’s spot, and I probably will deemphasize the importance of a big fancy record if there’s nothing in it to offer structure or support.
I’m intrigued at your inclusion of your quasi-nemesis, Pat Sabatini. Glad to see you can put aside your utter indifference of him to recognize his storied accomplishment: beating Tucker Lutz.
Carl: Man, that is a thoroughly comprehensive breakdown. Middleweight could never. I am a big Mean Machine fan and I’m very interested to see how Garcia/Lopes goes, but it’s funny that I still rate him low when his best win is the same best win as Arnold Allen, whom I rate considerably higher, it’s just when Allen beat Calvin Kattar he still looked like he could potentially be a divisional staple and by the time Garcia did it Kattar’s career was a BJ Pennian tragedy sans the horrifying delusions and my deep-seated Chris Benoit redux fears.
I think, the way I look at rankings, it takes both a number of losses and/or some auspiciously poor losses to really jettison you once you’ve earned a top spot. Allen’s path to the upper echelon of the division was middling in name but long on execution, and since getting there the only people he’s lost to are champions or top contenders and he didn’t look bad against anyone but Max Holloway, who does that to everyone. Hell, some people had Allen beating Movsar. Am I among them? No. Do I think they need to accept the love of wrestling into their hearts? Probably! But he still did well enough that it’s thinkable by humans.
Similarly: Volk gets the top spot until someone knocks him out of it. However much I love Movsar, Volk’s Volk. He earned it. Or, y’know, reinherited it after Ilia neatly disposed of his undead body.
I like Timur Khizriev a lot, but I dropped him from my rankings in my last update because the flip-side of the “6-0 in the past 3 years” thing is he’s barely fought in the last three years. I know when we started the PSP rankings we had a rule that fighters got dropped after a year of inactivity, and with the realities of matchmaking and injuries I think that’s a little too strict, but I do think a year and a half is reasonable, and Khizriev’s right about at 18 months since his last fight. I’ll welcome him back with open arms when he’s ready, but until then, we need to see other people.
I do not want to rate Pat Sabatini. I really don’t. It rankles me. It darkens my humours. But he’s on a solid run, his only loss in almost four years was Diego Lopes, and Jonathan Pearce->Joanderson Brito->Chepe Mariscal->William Gomis is a really good run over the periphery of the UFC’s Featherweight roost. It’s not going to get him into the top of the heap--I think he’s stuck until he shows he can hang with someone who’s actually on the list--but it’s worth scraping the bottom of the barrel. Fuck you, Pat. Welcome to the party.
Let me riposte with the Rizin representation on this list. Razhabali Shaydullaev is a bad motherfucker and I think he absolutely deserves his top ten hype. He’s already calling out Luiz Gustavo for the Lightweight title and I’d favor the hell out of him in that fight, and should he win I’m not sure there’s anything left for him to do in Japan. But: I have to ask if Top Ten Kyoma Akimoto exists for a reason other than how hard it is to finally, truly give up on Patchy Mix.
Jess: I will disavow Patchy Mix when I go into the fucking ground.
Carl: We have to give Patchy up. We gotta. We must protect our hearts. The Patchy days are lost.
Jess: I do feel awkward rating Rizin fighters because I have become incapable of either staying up late or getting up so early to actually watch Rizin live any more. I can maybe manage a little bit of NYE JMMA, but I know I can maybe make it to about 1:30 AM otherwise, and I don’t see the point in watching the first five prelim bouts, before the first of three intermissions kicks off. I’m so sorry, Rizin, I’m so sorry Nobuhiko Takada, and I’m sorry most of all to Lenne Hardt for failing you.
I would ask for a PFL vs Rizin crossover, similar to the Bellator X Rizin experiments of a few years ago, but knowing PFL, they would put it on a card in Qatar on a Tuesday morning and I still wouldn’t be able to watch.
But, hey, I’ve got AJ McKee and you’ve got Aaron Pico ranked to keep a flicker of the Bellator flame still burning. And both of those guys have too much of Bellator lore baked into them for me to evaluate either of them properly. I think my brain automatically wants to push Pico aside for his losses as a hyped prospect, while I subconsciously lift up McKee for the cool finishes he no longer pulls off.
Carl: Honestly, given how the PFL is struggling to get traction, I think crosspromotion would do them both good. What’s left to lose? Give me Shaydullaev and McKee. Let’s see if he can steamroll people who are a bit better at wrestling.
I gotta say, I resent ranking Pico almost as much as I resent Sabatini. I hate it any time such a conscious attempt at forced marketing works out. But he beat Pitbull, so what can you fucking do. I can’t wait for them to force Brian Ortega to put off his 155 move for yet another year so Pico can get one more win over a broken husk. Bellator never die, but as it did in life, Bellator never improve, either.
Jess: Oh, bantamweight. Why can’t all the other divisions be more like you? Clearly delineated top contenders, a champion who isn’t beating the drum for a weight class jump. God damn refreshing.
And then there’s Sean O’Malley and Danny Sabatello to ruin my day.
I would probably be down to watch Yan, Merab, and Umar have fights against all of each other for another year or two.
Carl: I have found myself in the incredibly unpleasant position of having to defend Danny Sabatello. I am a Danny Sabatello hater, I wish I was not ranking him, I enjoy it when bad things happen to him, but watching Rizin CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara publicly single him out as at risk of getting stripped of the title and fired if he doesn’t start finishing people is wild because, for one, hey, Dana White, I didn’t see you there, for two, what did you think was going to happen when you hired him, and for three, Danny is 1 for 4 on finishes in Rizin, whereas Hiromasa Ougikubo--whomst I love dearly--is 0 for 17, and for some reason, his record is fine. Please, I beg of you, do not make me come to Danny Sabatello’s rescue. Life is too short.
Bantamweight is fantastic but it’s also in a bit of a weird spot. A Yan/Merab rubber match is practically obligatory, Umar is right there waiting patiently for his shot, and on the off-chance he wins the belt, he, too, would be an instant pick for a Merab title shot again, and meanwhile O’Malley/Zahabi might as well have Title Eliminator stamped on it.
I also cannot help but feel Bantamweight bears one of the clearest testaments to the different world of rankings within and without the UFC. Some people may have had easier paths than others, but everyone on the UFC side of the Bantamweight list has multiple victories over credible competitors to get where they are now. You and I both have Mitchell McKee in the top ten, and he arguably deserves it for knocking off Sergio Pettis, but one fight before that he was battling Pedro Nobre, who is most famous for being The Neckbrace Guy from the UFC thirteen years ago. What do you do with the dueling modes of ascension in the MMA world, and how can they coalesce to help us force Payton Talbott out of the rankings forever?
Jess: Yeah, it’s tough threading the needle with non-UFC fighters and UFC fighters on the same rankings (I’m not going to use the term UFC level fighter since it’s pretty apparent that it no longer holds the same gravitas as it once did. These are just people at the same job wearing different paper hats.) Best we can do is hold each fighter equally in our hearts and evaluate their own skills and techniques, devoid of the trappings of promotion or unpleasant personalities.
That being said, the day I can drop Sabatello from my rankings can’t come soon enough!
I do feel like I’m giving bantamweight short shrift here. We agree with the top 3, overall we share 10 out of 15, and of the five you have different from me, two just missed the cut, in Pettis and Figueiredo. I think bantamweight is in pretty good shape, both in and out of UFC. Just let Stots go to Rizin and beat up Sabatello again.
Carl: For how good Bantamweight is from a talent perspective, I cannot help feeling as though short shrift is part of its current condition. It’s one of those divisions where you’ve got the top three, who are clearly running laps on everyone else, and then you’ve got a couple breakout fighters like Zahabi or O’Malley who could threaten the top if the stars align and/or UFC management sends a tax-free gift to the judges, and that’s kind of it.
In the UFC, as great as Cory Sandhagen (speaking of which: #13? how dare you) and Mario Bautista are, they’re both boxed out of the top of the heap already. Deiveson Figueiredo and Song Yadong are fantastic, but they’ve had multiple cracks at contention and failed. And as far as the rest of the world, Mitch McKee already knocked off the PFL’s top dog, there’s no one above him to beat, and Danny Sabatello’s already wrestled his way through almost all the relevant Bantamweights in Rizin and they’re already sick of him, and unlike other divisions, there isn’t a bunch of top international competition to draw from. KSW’s Bantamweight champion Vitalii Yakymenko only has two fights in the company. Even OKTAGON’s 135 champ is our old pal Igor Severino, the guy who got DQed for fucking biting Andre Lima in the UFC a couple years ago.
Skill-wise Bantamweight’s some of the best stuff in the world, but in terms of mobility, everyone’s kind of screwed right now.
Jess: Well, they’re all little, so it’s hard to climb.
Carl: I feel like we barely even have to talk about Flyweight. You don’t really need to DO anything with Flyweight. You can simply sit back and let Flyweight exist and it’ll be great, all of the time, forever. Joshua Van? He’s great. Alexandre Pantoja? He was great and he’ll hopefully still be great when his arm is functional again. Tatsuro Taira did as great as you possibly can for getting the shit kicked out of you. Manel Kape would be great if he could just stop with the eyepokes and the slurs all the goddamn time.
My eyes zeroed in on exactly one thing between our lists: Charles Johnson. I love Charles Johnson’s fighting, anyone who has read my event breakdowns knows I am physically incapable of shutting the fuck up about him, and I want so desperately to put him up in the clouds where I want him to be, given that he knocked out Van and Lone’er Kavanagh. But I just can’t get over Alex Perez completely destroying him this year. How did you get over it, and can you teach me your ways?
Jess: Johnson has a win over our consensus number one fighter in the division. Granted, that fight is coming up on its two year anniversary, so maybe the weight I attribute to it isn’t as relevant any more. I also wanted to give InnerG a little boost and nod for dispatching Lone’er Kavanagh, who I bristle at for reasons I can’t quite explain. So I gave Charles the 3 spot based on strength of victories.
But as you said, overall, flyweight is outstanding! We are a match for thirteen fighters, and one of your guys, Steve Erceg, was my last man out. His overall record is good, I just found it hard to put a number by his name because three top fighters have him as a marquee win. Two people making a name off you is ok, but three? Good day, sir!
Also, I admit to putting my thumb on the scale with ranking Amir Albazi. It boosted Horiguchi’s standing and that’s all I care about at the end of the day.
I know this is contradictory because I have other ONE fighters ranked, but I sort of discounted Pacio out of hand. He had that weird trilogy with Jarred Brookins that featured Pacio winning by DQ after getting hit with an illegal brainbuster. Then, in ONE Championship tradition, he goes up in weight to fight the next division’s champ and gets blasted. Great, good job, everyone. Hope we all liked that one MMA fight, there won’t be another for 28 months.
Carl: You know, just now, thinking about the Passion of Pacio has put the Flyweight situation and maybe the whole of the sport into perspective for me.
Flyweight, as a division, got fully harvested by the UFC. They built it by Frankensteining together the bones of the WEC, Tachi Palace and Shooto, and they rode those bones for years, and when they got worn out the UFC did the unprecedented thing of siphoning goddamn near every single Flyweight champion in the world for The Ultimate Fighter, and then over the last five years they peeled off Kape and Horiguchi and Kai Asakura from Rizin. Half the reason the Flyweight division is so great is it’s the only division where the UFC has lived up to its promise to be the gathering place for the best fighters in the world. Damn near everyone is already here, and the only people who aren’t are guys like Ougikubo, who had a shot at the UFC and didn’t make it, or Pacio, who struggles with guys like Brooks who, themselves, struggled in the UFC.
Which is also why it’s so easy for them to do total bullshit like cutting Muhammad Mokaev. The fields are fallow. This isn’t a Heavyweight situation where they need every hand they can get, they can afford to let people go precisely because they did their job so well already. It is instead Mokaev who doesn’t have anywhere to go. ONE is a graveyard for MMA, Rizin is already full up on foreign wrestlers to the point of xenophobia, the PFL doesn’t even bother with Men’s Flyweight. It’s a dustbowl of opportunity. Even Ougikubo is just there so Rizin can keep throwing Shinryu Takahashi at him over and over until the young marketable guy finally wins.
Jess, did I just talk myself into being sad about Flyweight? I don’t like this. What do I do?
Jess: Only thing we can do, Carl: Rewatch Van vs Taira and smile wanly.
Jess: Oh boy, is it time for the desolate potter’s field known as Women’s Bantamweight?
Kayla Harrison. Possibly Amanda Nunes, depending on how bored she is at home with her wife and children. A collection of other women.
I feel sad now, too.
Carl, what is Macy Chiasson doing on your rankings? Her two most recent wins (which are two years old by now) came against Marya Bueno Silva and Pannie Kianzad, who are on a combined 8 fight losing streak. I know I just said women’s 135 is a desolate potter’s field, but there wasn’t anyone else to put on the list? I almost didn’t consider Cavalcanti, Montague, and Pennington, because their only notable wins were also Marya Bueno Silva.
I think the division is just irrevocably broken.
Carl: Unfortunately, Macy Chiasson is on my rankings precisely because the division is irrevocably broken. Planet’s dyin’, Cloud. Once you get past the top five there are no good choices left because there’s nothing left to do. Like, you have Jennifer Maia at #4, and I would love to still rank her, but she’s fucking around in kickboxing now because she can’t get a fight. She’s Invicta’s goddamn champion and they haven’t booked her since December of 2024, probably because as of this week, Invicta, itself, hasn’t promoted an event for an entire year, is three months late to its promised relaunch, and there is no sun yet in sight.
For a similar case in point: You’ve got Lucie Pudilova up there, and she hasn’t beaten anyone with a winning record in two years, and before that she was splitting a two-fight series with Cecille Bolander, who is now 4-2, and Pudilova lost. And I say all of that, but if you then asked me if Pudilova still deserves to be recognized in the top fifteen, I don’t know that I could put up a passionate case against it, because that’s how bad things are right now. When Macy beat Mayra she was still just one fight removed from battling for the world championship, and now, two years later, Mayra is unemployed and Macy’s on a three-fight skid, and I don’t know if that’s disqualifying anymore.
And it’s not like there’s a great green hill out there where talent is waiting to be discovered. I think Lucia Szabova is promising, but I need to see her fight more than one woman with a solid record before I get excited.
What do you think the future holds for Women’s 135? Is Joselyne Edwards going to get a title shot after Kayla and Amanda have their double-retirement fight? Are any of these prospects going anywhere? What happens when a dream dies?
Jess: Man, I don’t know. Can’t put my faith and energy into Bia Mesquita, she’s already 35. Edwards is on a five fight win streak and she’s only just now getting out of fighting the #19 or #16 UFC women’s bantamweight.
Nobody was allowed anything other than a lateral move, because if UFC let someone get momentum and kept winning higher stakes fights, there might be some push for anyone not named Amanda Nunes to get the next title fight.
Come, scream with me in the woods until the ghosts take us, Carl. There is nothing else for us here on the mortal plane of women’s bantamweight.
Carl: It’s appropriate that Women’s Flyweight is the division we have the most agreement on. The top five feel like they’re practically set in stone. However sick large swaths of the internet may be of Valentina Shevchenko she is an absolute institution of the sport, and it’s essentially undeniable that Manon Fiorot is stuck perpetually at #2, and from there it’s just a question of how you root out the Silva/Ditcheva/Blanchfield tier of competition.
Which is not to shit on Taila Santos, who is still great, or Alexa Grasso, whom I forgive for the interminability of her title exchange with Val thanks to her managing to finish Maycee Barber three times in five seconds, or even a Rose Namajunas who, bless her, is still trying and never not at least competitive. But it really is The Top Five and Everyone Else. And, unfortunately, Dakota Ditcheva is both an absolute phenomenon of the sport and stuck already at the top of the PFL with no one above her to fight.
I think, in my head, I inverted Barber and Grasso on your list as a clerical thing, but that may have been presumptuous. Can you shed light, and moreover, can you tell me if I should believe in Wang Cong, because I sure can’t get that Gabriella Fernandes fight out of my head and I think Tracy Cortez might do bad things to her as long as she remembers to stop gluing on her fake fucking eyelashes before she gets into a cagefight.
Jess: Honestly, further inspection might have led me to flipping Barber and Grasso. Grasso has the win over Barber, and while Alexa has two losses recently, they are to my numbers 1 and 4, which ain’t too shabby. Barber’s notable win came against Karine Silva, who didn’t make my top 15.
We both know there’s only one fight for Dakota Ditcheva, but I don’t want to say it because the outcome is going to make me upset, and that’s a clash with Liz Carmouche.
As with any fight or fighter, there’s a simple mental exercise you can perform. Imagine the fighter’s skills as grains of rice. A few grains for good punching power, some more for solid technique and footwork. Take those grains of rice, and place them on one side of a scale. Weigh those techniques against the fighter doing the dumbest fucking thing you can think of, like chosing to ignore an obvious grappling advantage to stand and throw haymakers instead. For that side, hurl a brick at the scale.
So, will Cong Wang beat Tracy Cortez? Will Tracy Cortez hamper herself with cosmetics again? Throw the bricks to the sky and let the fates decide.
Carl: Carmouche/Ditcheva does seem truly inevitable, and although it would be really bad for the prospects of Women’s Flyweight as a division, when the time comes, I will hurl my bricks for Liz and hope she can fuck up everyone’s marketing plans one last time, and may any non-UFC hopes for the division be buried with her eventual retirement.
Jess: Strawweight! I do not believe in the champion. I will never believe in the champion, you cannot make me. Mackenzie Dern is not real. All hail Zhang Weili, the queen without a crown.
I request leniency for not ranking Angela Hill. She was close to making it, she has two wins over other noted fighters, but she’s also got 3 losses to noted fighters. I’m sorry Angie. I’m a weak worm.
Jingnan Xiong is understandably off your list, as ONE froze her out for the last decade, but my brain went “yeah, but she still probably beats most of the women here”. Potential folly, but so be it!
My bottom five were narrowly switched out for basically the five you have. I went with more, yet less impressive wins over fewer, but notable wins plus extra losses. Again: weak worm.
Carl: I will always have a place for Angela Hill in my heart, but realistically, she exists in the same place she has always existed, and that is the forgotten reaches of the outer rankings, and that is where it is easy to forget people. Which is funny, given that I did, unfortunately, remove Jingnan for inactivity and now she has her chance to hop the fence into the top fifteen by beating Angie. I hope she does. But I also hope she can make 115 without killing herself.
Mackenzie Dern as champion is a thing that would simply be funny if they hadn’t spent so, so many years trying so, so very hard to make it a reality. To be honest, I’m almost glad that she did it, not for her achievements as a fighter, but because after watching marketing repeatedly fail to get her there I cannot help feeling some sort of happiness for them. Congratulations, guys, you finally caught the Road Runner. Now find her a title defense she won’t lose.
I think my real question in terms of disparities between our rankings is: Do you hate Amanda Lemos?
Jess: Lemos was hard to place. She beat my top 4 and 5, but she also has losses to 1, 2, 3, and 7. Despite all against top 10 opponents, four defeats is hard to square. Would I take her straight up over Amorim or Alencar? Possibly, but my Tapology record shows that’s nothing to go by.
I think more telling is that I don’t find Loopy Goodinez’s win over Jessica Andrade that compelling any more. I’m sorry, Ms Piledriver, I once had great love for you in my heart, even if you pile drove one of my other favorite fighters on her skull.
Carl: If anything, as much as I also appreciate Loopy, we must hold it against her as a failure of ethics that she failed to stop the Mackenzie Dern future. Hers was our last line of defense and now we are doomed, and if the price is your ranking, she must pay it.
Carl: So, confession: When you sent me your rankings I hadn’t finished Atomweight yet, and I saw that you had only listed ten competitors and thought ‘well, that’ll be awkward, I wonder how we’ll fit ours together,’ and then I tried to do them and jesus christ, Atomweight is dying.
It was always in a precarious position, what with Rizin and Invicta as its only stewards, and now Invicta is so far gone that Elisandra Ferreira is a month away from her Strawweight debut in the PFL, and Seika Izawa is on indefinite hiatus to go have kids, and a half-dozen women fell off my list for either inactivity or weight class changes since the last time I looked at it. RENA has one win over an active Atomweight with a winning record in the last five years, and we both still have her on the top ten, because what else can you possibly do?
I feel terrible for Natasha Kuziutina, who seems cool as hell and who made a big splashy debut on the same event Seika announced her departure, which makes me wonder if Rizin will even bother while she’s gone.
Jess: Can you tell I forgot Seika Izawa vacated to go make babies in the closet with Principal Skinner?
Carl, I miss Hamderlei. I miss her so much. A victim of circumstance across time and space. UFC doesn’t have 105, so she gets beat up by giant strawweights. Forced to fight Ayaka Hamasaki 30 times in DEEP and Jewels and DEEP Jewels and SmackGirl. Signs with ONE which also doesn’t have atomweight so she fights more large strawweights, stuck in ONE while Izawa reaches ascendancy in Rizin, can’t go fight her.
Why does Dana White get several billions of money to do dumb things like Powered Slap while Shannon Knapp gets none money and can’t put on Invictas for until the next Leap Year?
I just want to see fighters that I have a 50-50 shot of being taller than competing regularly. Is that so much to ask?
Carl: I, too, miss Ham, and I hope whatever vault ONE has all their mixed martial artists locked in has airholes and a wheel in it so they can keep themselves entertained during their time in perdition.
I love Invicta, and I will always love Invicta, and I will follow Invicta until one of us is dead in the ground, but when they looked at the company that owned TNA Wrestling and went ‘this is a fine organization to sell ourselves to’ they made a concerted decision to beat me to it, and it sure does seem like we’re there. We can’t pay for Invicta events because we’re too busy putting our money into Carlos Silva’s collection of branded baseball caps. Sorry, ladies.
The UFC could have had Atomweight. They could have had a division where Michelle Waterson-Gomez was a champion like they always wanted. Instead it is going the way of Women’s Featherweight, and this time, it isn’t even Dana White’s fault.
Jess: high pitched screaming from the woods for 9 hours