Wednesday’s UFC Fight Night 35 was light on relevance but it still led to a few changes in the UFC Fighter rankings. But what led to some more movement is the new system. The UFC expanded the rankings to top 15 lists at the start of 2014, and it appears that some panelists are still trying to work out the kinks in their lists.
You can check out the full rankings here, and use the dropdown menu to see the individual picks of the four BE contributors (myself, T.P. Grant, Fraser Coffeen, and Stephie Daniels).
I’ll just go through this division-by-division since that seems to be a clearer method of pointing everything out.
Pound-for-Pound – Urijah Faber and Gilbert Melendez both moved up one spot respectively to 13 and 14, bumping the inactive Dominick Cruz to the 15 spot.
Heavyweight – Josh Barnett and Antonio Silva once again flip-flopped the five and six spots, with Barnett edging ahead this time. Alistair Overeem also dropped from a tie for 8th with Stipe Miocic down to the nine spot.
Light Heavyweight – No changes.
Middleweight – Two winners at UFC Fight Night 35 made their debuts on the list, with Brad Tavares at 13 and Yoel Romero at 14. Luke Rockhold stayed in the six spot despite his big win.
Welterweight – Rick Story moved up one spot to 13, passing Josh Koscheck.
Lightweight – Diego Sanchez moved up one spot to 14, bumping Rustam Khabilov to 15.
Featherweight – No changes.
Bantamweight – The busiest division by far. T.J. Dillashaw passed Brad Pickett for the five spot; Takeya Mizugaki passed Mike Easton for the seven spot; Dominick Cruz made his re-debut on the list at number 12; and Bryan Caraway and Ivan Menjivar dropped one spot to 13 and 14 respectively.
Women’s bantamweight – Sara McMann moved into a tie with Alexis Davis for third.
Flyweight – Dustin Ortiz moved up two spots to 13 despite his close loss, dropping Darrell Montague and Darren Uyenoyama down to 14 and 15.
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