Notable Info
- We may be releasing a few more sets than usual in the near future as we are attempting to put the pieces together to post the women’s divisional rankings. Please bare with us if there are some technical difficulties.
UFN 22 Review
To kick off Season 12 of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series, Ultimate Fighting Championship returned to Texas with another installment of UFC Fight Night. The four-fight televised card was headlined by middleweight contenders Nate Marquardt and Rousimar Palhares trying to climb the rankings to a title shot, and backed up by a trio of lightweight bouts.
Cole Miller vs. Ross Pearson (155 lbs)
Round 1: The fighters circle and exchange. Big reach advantage for Miller and he is finding Pearson’s face with the jab. They trade leg kicks. Pearson connecting with punches but Miller ducks under for a takedown. Pearson defends, he eventually gets dragged to the ground but pops back up. Miller attempts to jump guard but Pearson holds him up against the cage, refusing to go the the ground. Miller lets go and it’s back to trading; Pearson starting to find his range and out-land Miller on strikes. Round 10-9 Miller
Round 2: Pearson resumes his striking attack, landing solid body shots. Miller shoots; Pearson sprawls and Miller ends up on the bottom. Pearson stands up and motions Cole to do the same. Miller jabs, then hurts Pearson with a right cross. Pearson stumbles backwards and Miller runs at him with a flying knee, then floors his stumbling opponent with a hook. Miller quickly takes Pearson’s back and locks in a rear naked choke, forcing a tapout from Ross.
Aftermath: Former ‘Ultimate Fighter: US vs UK’ winner Ross Pearson is handed his first loss inside the Octagon, while Cole Miller improves his UFC record to 6-2 (with hist last four wins coming by submission). Miller next bout should be against Charles Oliveira, and Ross Pearson’s against Efrain Escudero.
Fight Grade: 4/5
Featured Upcoming Bouts (Outside of UFC)
| Saturday, March 14th 2026: Pancrase - 361 | |||
 [#4 SW] Yuta Miyazawa | [#9 SW] Kanji Funada | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 11/09/2025 [Pancrase] Last Opponent: [#32 SW] Tateo Iino Last 5: W W L W W | Last Fight Date: 4/27/2025 [Pancrase] Last Opponent: [#51 SW] Takafumi Ato Last 5: W W W W W | ||
| Friday, March 6th 2026: RIZIN 52 | |||
| [#5 W105] Saori Oshima | [#11 W105] Keito Oyama | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 11/02/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [#1 W105] Seika Izawa Last 5: W L L W L | Last Fight Date: 11/02/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [NR] Bo Mi Lee Last 5: L W W W W | ||
| Sunday, March 8th 2026: Deep Osaka Impact 2026 1st Round | |||
| [#7 W105] Moeri Suda | [#10 W105] Namiko Kawabata | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 9/15/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#5 W105] Saori Oshima Last 5: W W W W L | Last Fight Date: 5/25/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#36 W105] Honoka Shigeta Last 5: L L L W W | ||
Featured Fighters
| [NR] |  Daniel Cormier | [NR] | Henry Cejudo | |
| [#1 LW] |  Ilia Topuria | [NR] |  Conor McGregor | |
| [#1 WW] |  Islam Makhachev | [NR] | B.J. Penn | |
| [#20 BW] |  Farid Basharat | [#26 W135] |  Klaudia Sygula | |
| [#33 BW] |  Jean Matsumoto | [NR] | Brock Lesnar |
Women’s Divisional Rankings Update
We are in the process of expanding our women’s rankings into division-based rankings. To start, they will likely be top 10 lists encompassing six divisions (or so) plus a division dominance list. We’re still pinning down the fine details, but in the meantime, you may notice some odd rating fluctuations and page changes.
MMA Rankings Updated: 09/10/2010 (Special Ray Mercer Release)
Notable Info
- In (what I’m sure will be) a celebratory release, Ray Mercer has fallen out of the rankings due to inactivity. We decided to make a special early ranking release for this occasion.
Bellator Season III Semifinals : How they stack up
Women’s (115 lbs) Tournament
[#3] Megumi Fujii vs. [#14]Lisa Ward
[#19]Jessica Aguilar vs. [#13] Zoila Frausto
Heavyweight Tournament
[#31] Neil Grove vs. [#36] Alexey Oleinik
[#21] Damian Grabowski vs. [#44] Cole Konrad
Bantamweight Tournament
[#35] Jose Vega vs. [#25] Ed West
[#10] Zach Makovsky vs. [#60] Ulysses Gomez
Five long-time ranked fighters who need to step it up.
The following list consists of non-top 10 male fighters who have been ranked, have won at least 5 fights, and have went undefeated for the past two years, but have not moved their rank position more than 25 positions.
1. Nick Penner (Current Rank: #77 vs. 9/1/08 Rank: #72 | [5-0-0 2yr])
Talk about a stasis. In this span, his rating went DOWN. Penner has fought two debuting fighters and a 0-1 fighter. In his last two, he’s taken a small jump in quality, but it’s time to move away from Canada and take an increase in competition.
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2. Delson Heleno (Current Rank: #43 vs. 9/1/08 Rank: #60 | [6-0-0 2yr])
Heleno has made a career out of bouncing around the minor circuits on a global scale. His losses are pretty respectable, but he has no very good wins. Maybe he’s simply peaked as a fighter.
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3. Brent Weedman (Current Rank: #39 vs. 9/1/08 Rank: #57 | [7-0-0 2yr])
On a positive note, he’s gotten noticed and moved onto Bellator from the southeastern US circuit. Time will tell if he can rise up the rankings.
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4. Hector Lombard (Current Rank: #24 vs. 9/1/08 Rank: #45 | [10-0-0 2yr])
The most prolific thrasher of mid-level competition in professional mixed martial arts. Shlemenko will be his highest ranked competition (at the time of the bout) since his loss to Akihiro Gono in June 2006. In fact, Shlemenko is ranked higher than Lombard thanks to the Bellator Middleweight tournament. It should be interesting, because Lombard’s two losses, and draw, were to the only three higher ranked fighters (at the time of the bout) that Lombard has faced outside of his pro debut against a 1-0 fighter.
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5. Joe Doerksen (Current Rank: #25 vs. 9/1/08 Rank: #58 | [6-0-0 2yr])
After nearly 60 professional fights, I think we know what we’re getting with Doerksen.
All-Time Rankings Updated: 09/01/2010
If you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, you can do see here: All-Time Career Rankings
UFC 118: How they stack up
UFC Lightweight Championship
[#1] Frankie Edgar vs. [#2] BJ Penn
Heavyweight
[#6 LHW] Randy Couture vs. [DEBUT] James Toney
Middleweight
[#8] Demian Maia vs. [#74] Mario Miranda
Lightweight
[#5] Kenny Florian vs. [#8] Gray Maynard
Welterweight
[#30] Nate Diaz vs. [#35] Marcus Davis
Lightweight
[#71] Joe Lauzon vs. [#114] Gabe Ruediger
Lightweight
[#63] Nik Lentz vs. [#82] Andre Winner
Middleweight
[#37] Dan Miller vs. [#48] John Salter
Welterweight
[#121] Nick Osipczak vs. [#174] Greg Soto
Welterweight
[#15] Mike Pierce vs. [#200] Amilcar Alves
UFC 117 Review
On the heels of two highly successfull Pay-Per-View events in UFC 115 and 116, UFC delivered another stacked card for 117. A middleweight title bout between the champion Anderson Silva and challenger Chael Sonnen was backed up by two potential contender matchups: Junior dos Santos taking on Roy Nelson for a crack at the heavyweight title, and a rematch between top welterweights Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves.
Junior dos Santos vs. Roy Nelson (HW)
Round 1: Nelson takes the center of the Octagon, holding his hands high. Nelson’s advances while covering up; Dos Santos lands a body shot and Nelson shoots in for a takedown. Dos Santos sprawls and they clinch agains the cage. Dos Santos breaks up the clinch, landing a knee as they separate. Dos Santos rocks Nelson with an uppercut. Nelson goes down to his knees and looks for a single-leg takedown. Junior backs off then blasts Nelson with another uppercut. Nelson falls down but survives and keeps trying for takedowns. Dos Santos patiently landing punches. Nelson recovers and starts throwing back, landing several hooks and overhand rights towards the end of the round. Round 10-9 dos Santos
Round 2: Dos Santos leads with a jumping knee to the body. Nelson responds with an overhand punch that lands, then rushes in for a takedown but dos Santos blocks it. Dos Santos keeps firing off shots; Nelson covering up and swinging back. Nelson lands several punches that open up a cut underneath Junior’s eye. Both fighters slowing down. Dos Santos tries a half-hearted takedown attempt of his own but does not succeed. Nelson keeps alternating strikes with double-leg and single-leg shots but Junior’s takedown defence is flawless. Much closer than first round but dos Santos still outstriking Nelson by a large margin. Round 10-9 dos Santos
Round 3: The fighters go right back to trading, though neither has much snap to their punches in the final round. Nelson’s defense blocks most of Junior’s punches but an occasional uppercut and body shots come through. Dos Santos lands a slapping front kick to the head. Nelson finds his target with a few big punches but Santos appears unfazed. Dos Santos shoots for a takedown and scores; Nelson right back up. Nelson is hanging in there, he looks very tired but is still looking for a knockout punch. The time runs out and the fighters embrace. Good fight and a clear-cut victory for dos Santos. Round 10-9 dos Santos
Junior dos Santos wins a unanimous decision with the scores of 30-27, 30-27, 30-26
Aftermath: Both fighters looked good in an enterntaining fight. Dos Santos showed great takedown defense and solid as usual striking, improving his UFC record to 6-0 and earning a title shot in process. He will now face the winner of the upcoming title bout between Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez.
Roy Nelson’s striking and takedowns both fell short of the mark, but he demonstrated that his chin – and his heart – match the size of his belly. He may never be in the title picture but at the very least will make a great gatekeeper. His next fight should be against Mike Russow, or a rematch with his former IFL rival Ben Rothwell.
Ranking Impact: Junior dos Santos remains #5 HW. Roy Nelson remains #26 HW.
Fight Grade: 4/5