There’s plenty of movement at 185lb following the UFC’s return to Saudi Arabia this past weekend.
Saturday night’s UFC fight night card in Riyadh featured two high stakes middleweight contests at the top of the bill. As a result, there has been some significant changes to the top 15 rankings in the division ahead of the middleweight title fight at UFC 312 this coming weekend.
The co-main event of the evening saw Shara ‘Bullet’ Magomedov suffer the first loss of his career against Michael ‘Venom’ Page. Magomedov was convincingly beaten over three rounds with him going on to claim that he came into the fight heavily compromised.
He now seemingly has some work to do in order to recapture the hype that surrounded him heading into the contest and that is reflected in the new middleweight rankings.
Shara Magomedov makes way for Bo Nickal in new middleweight rankings
As a result of his loss to Michael ‘Venom’ Page, Shara Magomedov has dropped out of the top 15 rankings after his four-fight win streak came to an end. Jack Hermansson, who hasn’t fought since his win over Joe Pyfer one year ago, has also made way for two new names in Bo Nickal and Roman Kopylov.
Kopylov, who has entered at #14, recently stopped Chris Curtis in controversial fashion at the first UFC card of 2025 to earn his sixth win inside the Octagon.
Where one undefeated contender has fallen down the pecking order, another has taken his place with the 7-0 Nickal taking the #15 spot following his win over Paul Craig at UFC 309 in November.
The very top of the division has also seen a major shift with the former two-time champion Israel Adesanya dropping down two places whilst Nassourdine Imavov, who finished ‘The Last Stylebender’ in the main event, climbs three spots to become the #2-ranked contender at 185-pounds.
New options for both Shara Magomedov and Bo Nickal
The rankings update shows what could be next for Shara Magomedov and Bo Nickal following their recent performances inside the Octagon. For ‘Bullet’, it seems like the best option is to take a slight step back for now after having his momentum brought back down to earth by an elite striker in ‘MVP’.
Whilst Nickal’s performance against Paul Craig didn’t earn him a lot of plaudits, he’s made it clear that he wants to target the 10-15 section of the rankings next which would make a lot of sense for him.
The undefeated wrestling specialist has even spoken about the prospect of facing Magomedov in the past though he described the matchup as “not a tough fight”, expressing doubts that the UFC would put it together.