In the past few months, if you asked any MMA diehard what their favorite fight was coming up, the answer was nearly universally the same: Max Holloway vs. Ilia Topuria. Why? Because it was guaranteed to be one of the most technically-sound stylistic brawls between elite fighters the UFC could put together.

We all saw what happened. Holloway gave the featherweight champ Topuria a run for his money, but it was the power of Spain that made the difference. “El Matador” scored a third-round knockout that will be on every year-end highlight reel come late December, solidifying him not only as tyrant in the featherweight ranks, but also as a top-five pound-for-pound fighter going forward.

In Uncrowned's inaugural MMA pound-for-pound rankings, Topuria debuts at No. 3 on the men’s side of the ledger, while his UFC 308 cardmate Khamzat Chimaev — who dominated Robert Whittaker in the most impressive showing of his career — also cracks the top 10.

Our seven-person panel of Ben Fowlkes, Chuck Mindenhall, Conner Burks, Drake Riggs, Eric Jackman, Petesy Carroll and Shaheen Al-Shatti have ranked both the men’s and women’s pound-for-pound best, one through 10, using a weighted points system to determine the final rankings (being voted No. 1 equals 10 points, No. 2 equals nine points, down to No. 10 equaling one point).

Our only criterion for these monthly rankings is that a fighter has competed within at least a calendar year of the publication date, or has at least had a fight booked within that window. If a fighter hasn’t competed in a year and books a fight after that time, he or she is once again eligible to be voted back in. Fighters who retire are no longer eligible for the rankings.

Though most of the best fighters are currently in the UFC, these rankings are not UFC exclusive. We take into consideration all the major promotions, from the Bellator/PFL conglomerate to ONE Championship.

Now, onto the first installment of the MMA P4P rankings!

MEN'S

1. Islam Makhachev — UFC lightweight champion

The 14-fight win streak in one of the UFC’s most stacked divisions speaks for itself, but it’s the dominant, unnerving cold with which he goes about wrecking people that has Makhachev atop the field. The wins over Charles Oliveira, Alexander Volkanovski and Dustin Poirier were all eye-openers, yet the rematch with Arman Tsarukyan might be his toughest test to date.

2. Alex Pereira — UFC light heavyweight champion

Want to know what a hero looks like? Alex Pereira. Not only did "Poatan" save UFC 300 by stepping in to face off with his old nemesis Jiri Prochazka, he followed that up by filling in for the injured Conor McGregor at UFC 303, then took a gig in Salt Lake City against Khalil Rountree Jr. without a second's thought. Fighter of the year? The only guy who can compete with him on that front is…

3. Ilia Topuria — UFC featherweight champion

The debate that’s raging this week is about Topuria’s strength of schedule. Namely, was knocking out Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway the best back-to-back wins a fighter ever had to open their title run? Recency bias is usually a factor in these types of conversations, but there’s a strong case to be made. Volkanovski had never lost as a featherweight and Holloway had never been knocked out. Topuria accomplished both, and twirled around a long-stem rose right afterward like it was nothing.

4. Merab Dvalishvili – UFC bantamweight champion

Dvalishvili used social media to his advantage in the lead-up to his title fight with Sean O’Malley, making videos with heartwarming messages to his foe that gave the event a certain levity. What’s not as light and funny? How maniacal this dude is. How relentless and merciless. After beating on O’Malley for a round, he kissed his head. Sadistic. Totally out of bounds. Eleven wins in a row, baby. Hard not to love him.

5. Jon Jones — UFC heavyweight champion

Heading into his first heavyweight title defense, we might call him Jon “The Elephant in the Room” Jones. The long-anticipated long dragged-out fight with Stipe Miocic is a big appointment, because people need to be reminded why Dana White is so steadfast in his assertion that Jones is the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. Meanwhile, interim titleholder Tom Aspinall feels like a sentence awaiting him should Jones prevail in New York.

6. Tom Aspinall — UFC interim heavyweight champion

Look, Aspinall’s only loss in the Cage of Eight Walls came against a faulty ligament, when his knee gave out in the first 15 seconds against Curtis Blaydes. Otherwise? No mortal man has beaten him in the UFC. Aspinall avenged that Blaydes loss this summer in what was his first interim heavyweight title defense, four words that should never go together. Now all he wants is a chance to fight Jones. Just one chance is all he’s asking. Just one.

7. Francis Ngannou — PFL super fights heavyweight champion

A couple of years removed from his last MMA fight, Ngannou returned from what was a most lucrative boxing excursion looking like a wrestler with cinder blocks for hands in his title fight with Renan Ferreira. He crushed that poor dude. What’s next? It's anyone’s guess, but right now the world’s baddest man is on the everybody’s mind again, including White, who is extremely bothered by Francis’s very existence.

8. Belal Muhammad — UFC welterweight champion

Muhammad has a certain kind of domination, and to fall in love with his style is to fall in love with a human frontloader. He just kind of pushes bodies into a pile and saps their will to live through each minute of a fight, creating a sense of existential vertigo that has everyone — fighters, the crowd, commentators, probably Hasbulla — wondering what lies behind the cosmos, asking themselves with each takedown, why are we here? He’s quite an experience.

9. Dricus du Plessis — UFC middleweight champion

There was a time not that long ago when people saw Du Plessis as a kind of 205-pound toddler running downhill throwing punches at the likes of Brad Tavares and Derek Brunson, unsteady and out of control. Then he started sobering those thoughts up with wins over Robert Whittaker, Sean Strickland and most recently, his rival, Israel Adesanya. The good news? South Africa has a legit champion. The bad? Well…

10. Khamzat Chimaev — UFC middleweight contender

There wasn’t a golden glow around Khamzat entering his fight with Robert Whittaker at UFC 308, which had some people concerned. “He gases,” some said, pointing out the later rounds in the Kamaru Usman fight. “He’s been exposed,” others said, pointing out the specific successes Gilbert Burns had against him. Turns out, we were being duped. The monster known as “Borz” shot in on Whittaker early, took him down, battered him, then broke his jaw with a creature-like squeeze that dislodged a row of teeth. That aura that was missing? Yeah, it’s beaming again.

(Others receiving votes: Alexandre Pantoja, Max Holloway, Alexander Volkanovski.)

WOMEN'S

1. Valentina Shevchenko — UFC flyweight champion

If Shevchenko proved anything in the final fight of her trilogy against Alexa Grasso, it was that the gangster known as “Bullet” is alive and well. It was total domination at the Sphere in Las Vegas. We’re talking vintage Valentina. Just a marauding, wrestling, suffocating, pressuring menace who had Grasso spinning around like she was caught in a tempest for 25 minutes. What’s next? It has to be Manon Fiorot, right? (Seriously, we’re asking.)

2. Zhang Weili — UFC strawweight champion

One of the quieter conquests at UFC 300 was Zhang Weili’s five-round dismantling of her Chinese counterpart Yan Xiaonan. That makes four wins in a row, including two title defenses, since she lost back-to-back fights against Rose Namajunas. There is a little bit of Georges St-Pierre’s mojo to Zhang's second wind. You get the sense that those losses taught her to never get complacent again.

3. Cris Cyborg — PFL super fights featherweight champion/Bellator featherweight champion

It was fashionable to pick against the 39-year-old Cyborg in her fight against Larissa Pacheco, because …well, she’s 39. And she was fighting somebody her own size. Who happens to be much younger. And Pacheco beat Kayla Harrison midway through her surging 10-fight win streak. There were bad omens to be found, if you were looking. Yet Cyborg withstood some early damage to prevail like the Thanos of the women’s ranks. Her post-fight speech should’ve been three words before a mic drop: Y’all must’ve forgot.

4. Kayla Harrison — UFC bantamweight challenger

She didn’t rag-doll Ketlen Vieira like she did Holly Holm, but there were some positives to take home for those who see Harrison as inevitable to become the women’s UFC bantamweight champ. She got bloodied up a bit, which was novel. Her perseverance came into play, which is good. And she had to work the entire 15 minutes to get it done, which might be looked at as “practice” for her title fight with Julianna Pena.

5. Alexa Grasso — UFC flyweight contender

When Grasso came out for the second round for her UFC 306 fight with Shevchenko, you could see the frustration on her face. The whole thing was rendered futile when she realized she couldn’t keep the fight on the feet. It was a tough loss in what was staged to be a legacy-defining fight on a night when the UFC was celebrating Mexican Independence Day. But all is not lost. At 31 years old, there’s plenty of fight left in Guadalajara’s finest.

6. Julianna Peña — UFC bantamweight champion

It wasn’t a barnburner, that title fight she had with Raquel Pennington, but it was a testament to Peña’s doggedness. If Pennington was the picture of perseverance as a champion in MMA, then Peña assumes the mantle. After so many injuries and setbacks and sudden retirements to her most hated enemies, Peña now gets to show off her “waist jewels” (to borrow a term from Petesy Carroll). Amanda Nunes looks like she’s coming back, but Peña will need to clear the hurdle of Kayla Harrison in order to get to her. In other words, have yourself a day while you can, Julianna!

7. Manon Fiorot — UFC flyweight contender

It went relatively unsung, but that was some serious OG ish that Fiorot pulled back in March. She went into Erin Blanchfield's backyard of New Jersey and not only went toe-to-toe with a young, hungry, undefeated contender who’d dominated everyone put in front of her, she turned the tables. Fiorot shut down Blanchfield thoroughly. Now with a perfect 7-0 UFC record, all that is left for her is a shot at Shevchenko’s title, right? (Seriously, we’re asking.)

8. Larissa Pacheco — PFL featherweight contender

The bright side for Pacheco? She lost a couple of times to Harrison before shocking the world against her in the third fight. She didn’t beat Cyborg, but she made Cyborg feel her power early and often. It’s unlikely Cyborg wants to play it back (in fact, it’s guaranteed), but if they did, you get the sense that the 30-year-old Pacheco would be dialed in. In the meantime, Pacheco can feast on the Marina Mokhnatkina’s and the Olena Kolesnyk’s of the world.

9. Tatiana Suarez — UFC flyweight contender

Suarez is closing in on Zabit Magomedsharipov in becoming the greatest “what if” in MMA history. The problem is her health, which has betrayed her at every turn throughout her career, including recently when she was forced to withdraw from her scheduled fight with Virna Jandiroba. At 33 years old, the clock does tick louder in her ear each year as a contender. Since her debut in 2014, she is 10-0 as a professional fighter, meaning she has averaged just one win a year.

10. Seika Izawa — RIZIN super atomweight champion, Jewels strawweight and atomweight champion

They call her the “Supernova,” and that’s what the 26-year-old phenom has been in Japan — a kind of celestial event that boggles people’s minds. Since beating Miki Motono to win the interim strawweight title in 2021, Izawa has been a beast, blasting through RIZIN and Jewels’ best like they were offerings from the gods. If you haven’t seen her fight, do yourself a favor. Not for nothing, some people on this panel strongly believe she belongs far higher up in the women’s pound-for-pound list.

(Others receiving votes: Raquel Pennington, Si Woo Park, Erin Blanchfield, Talia Santos, Virna Jandriroba, Rose Namajunas.)

Here’s how the Uncrowned team voted:

SHAHEEN AL-SHATTI

MEN

1. Alex Pereira

2. Ilia Topuria

3. Islam Makhachev

4. Belal Muhammad

5. Francis Ngannou

6. Alexandre Pantoja

7. Merab Dvalishvili

8. Tom Aspinall

9. Dricus du Plessis

10. Alexander Volkanovski

WOMEN

1. Valentina Shevchenko

2. Zhang Weili

3. Alexa Grasso

4. Kayla Harrison

5. Cris Cyborg

6. Manon Fiorot

7. Larissa Pacheco

8. Seika Izawa

9. Tatiana Suarez

10. Julianna Pena

CONNER BURKS

MEN

1. Islam Makhachev

2. Ilia Topuria

3. Alex Pereira

4. Jon Jones

5. Merab Dvalishvili

6. Tom Aspinall

7. Khamzat Chimaev

8. Dricus Du Plessis

9. Alexandre Pantoja

10. Belal Muhammad

WOMEN

1. Zhang Weili

2. Valentina Shevchenko

3. Cris Cyborg

4. Julianna Pena

5. Kayla Harrison

6. Alexa Grasso

7. Manon Fiorot

8. Larissa Pacheco

9. Tatiana Suarez

10. Erin Blanchfield

PETESY CARROLL

MEN

1. Alex Pereira

2. Islam Makhachev

3. Ilia Topuria

4. Tom Aspinall

5. Francis Ngannou

6. Jon Jones

7. Merab Dvalishvili

8. Dricus Du Plessis

9. Belal Muhammad

10. Khamzat Chimaev

WOMEN

1. Weili Zhang

2. Valentina Shevchenko

3. Cris Cyborg

4. Kayla Harrison

5. Alexa Grasso

6. Julianna Pena

7. Raquel Pennington

8. Manon Fiorot

9. Larissa Pacheco

10. Tatiana Suarez

BEN FOWLKES

MEN

1. Alex Pereira

2. Jon Jones

3. Ilia Topuria

4. Islam Makhachev

5. Merab Dvalishvili

6. Francis Ngannou

7. Alexandre Pantoja

8. Alex Volkanovski

9. Dricus Du Plessis

10. Tom Aspinall

WOMEN

1. Weili Zhang

2. Valentina Shevchenko

3. Cris Cyborg

4. Kayla Harrison

5. Alexa Grasso

6. Raquel Pennington

7. Julianna Pena

8. Manon Fiorot

9. Larissa Pacheco

10. Tatiana Suarez

ERIC JACKMAN

MEN

1. Islam Makhachev

2. Ilia Topuria

3. Alex Pereira

4. Khamzat Chimaev

5. Jon Jones

6. Dricus du Plessis

7. Merab Dvalishvili

8. Belal Muhammad

9. Tom Aspinall

10. Alexandre Pantoja

WOMEN

1. Valentina Shevchenko

2. Cris Cyborg

3. Zhang Weili

4. Kayla Harrison

5. Larissa Pacheco

6. Julianna Peña

7. Tatiana Suarez

8. Manon Fiorot

9. Alexa Grasso

10. Virna Jandiroba

CHUCK MINDENHALL

MEN

1. Alex Pereira

2. Islam Makhachev

3. Ilia Topuria

4. Francis Ngannou

5. Tom Aspinall

6. Jon Jones

7. Khamzat Chimaev

8. Merab Dvalishvili

9. Dricus Du Plessis

10. Belal Muhammad

WOMEN

1. Valentina Shevchenko

2. Zhang Weili

3. Cris Cyborg

4. Kayla Harrison

5. Manon Fiorot

6. Tatiana Suarez

7. Julianna Pena

8. Erin Blanchfield

9. Larissa Pacheco

10. Rose Namajunas

DRAKE RIGGS

MEN

1. Islam Makhachev

2. Ilia Topuria

3. Merab Dvalishvili

4. Belal Muhammad

5. Max Holloway

6. Alex Pereira

7. Tom Aspinall

8. Dricus Du Plessis

9. Alexandre Pantoja

10. Francis Ngannou

WOMEN

1. Seika Izawa

2. Valentina Shevchenko

3. Zhang Weili

4. Cris Cyborg

5. Alexa Grasso

6. Si Woo Park

7. Larissa Pacheco

8. Kayla Harrison

9. Taila Santos

10. Virna Jandiroba