MMA pound-for-pound rankings: Does Ilia Topuria have a case for No. 1?
If you had any doubts about Ilia Topuria heading into UFC 308, you won’t anymore — he’s near the top in our inaugural MMA P4P rankings.
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
Alex Pereira
Ilia Topuria
Islam Makhachev
Belal Muhammad
Francis Ngannou
Alexandre Pantoja
Merab Dvalishvili
Tom Aspinall
Dricus du Plessis
Alexander Volkanovski
WOMEN
Valentina Shevchenko
Zhang Weili
Alexa Grasso
Kayla Harrison
Cris Cyborg
Manon Fiorot
Larissa Pacheco
Seika Izawa
Tatiana Suarez
Julianna Pena
CONNER BURKS
MEN
Islam Makhachev
Ilia Topuria
Alex Pereira
Jon Jones
Merab Dvalishvili
Tom Aspinall
Khamzat Chimaev
Dricus Du Plessis
Alexandre Pantoja
Belal Muhammad
WOMEN
Zhang Weili
Valentina Shevchenko
Cris Cyborg
Julianna Pena
Kayla Harrison
Alexa Grasso
Manon Fiorot
Larissa Pacheco
Tatiana Suarez
Erin Blanchfield
PETESY CARROLL
MEN
Alex Pereira
Islam Makhachev
Ilia Topuria
Tom Aspinall
Francis Ngannou
Jon Jones
Merab Dvalishvili
Dricus Du Plessis
Belal Muhammad
Khamzat Chimaev
WOMEN
Weili Zhang
Valentina Shevchenko
Cris Cyborg
Kayla Harrison
Alexa Grasso
Julianna Pena
Raquel Pennington
Manon Fiorot
Larissa Pacheco
Tatiana Suarez
BEN FOWLKES
MEN
Alex Pereira
Jon Jones
Ilia Topuria
Islam Makhachev
Merab Dvalishvili
Francis Ngannou
Alexandre Pantoja
Alex Volkanovski
Dricus Du Plessis
Tom Aspinall
WOMEN
Weili Zhang
Valentina Shevchenko
Cris Cyborg
Kayla Harrison
Alexa Grasso
Raquel Pennington
Julianna Pena
Manon Fiorot
Larissa Pacheco
Tatiana Suarez
ERIC JACKMAN
MEN
Islam Makhachev
Ilia Topuria
Alex Pereira
Khamzat Chimaev
Jon Jones
Dricus du Plessis
Merab Dvalishvili
Belal Muhammad
Tom Aspinall
Alexandre Pantoja
WOMEN
Valentina Shevchenko
Cris Cyborg
Zhang Weili
Kayla Harrison
Larissa Pacheco
Julianna Peña
Tatiana Suarez
Manon Fiorot
Alexa Grasso
Virna Jandiroba
CHUCK MINDENHALL
MEN
Alex Pereira
Islam Makhachev
Ilia Topuria
Francis Ngannou
Tom Aspinall
Jon Jones
Khamzat Chimaev
Merab Dvalishvili
Dricus Du Plessis
Belal Muhammad
WOMEN
Valentina Shevchenko
Zhang Weili
Cris Cyborg
Kayla Harrison
Manon Fiorot
Tatiana Suarez
Julianna Pena
Erin Blanchfield
Larissa Pacheco
Rose Namajunas
DRAKE RIGGS
MEN
Islam Makhachev
Ilia Topuria
Merab Dvalishvili
Belal Muhammad
Max Holloway
Alex Pereira
Tom Aspinall
Dricus Du Plessis
Alexandre Pantoja
Francis Ngannou
WOMEN
Seika Izawa
Valentina Shevchenko
Zhang Weili
Cris Cyborg
Alexa Grasso
Si Woo Park
Larissa Pacheco
Kayla Harrison
Taila Santos
Virna Jandiroba