UFC 80 had the most notable effect on the ranking of the following fighters:

• BJ Penn moves from #6 to #3 in the Lightweight division after his victory over Joe Stevenson.  Stevenson drops from #10 to #16.
• Fabricio Werdum moves from #9 to #4 with his victory over Gabriel Gonzaga.  Gonzaga drops from #4 to #7.

Check out the complete, updated rankings!  We now rank the Top 50 in Lightweight and above; Top 25 in Bantamweight, Featherweight, and Women’s Openweight; and Top 10 in Flyweight.

Latest Rankings:

Heavyweight (206+ lbs)

Light Heavyweight (188-205 lbs)

Middleweight (176-187 lbs)

Welterweight (162-175 lbs)

Lightweight (146-161 lbs)

Featherweight (136-145 lbs)

Bantamweight (126-135 lbs)

Flyweight (under 126 lbs)

Women (Open Weight)

The first official release of the rankings have been released today. In future releases, the ranking pages will contain a movement tracker, displaying a fighter’s movement between the previous release and the present one. As for frequency of updates… we are still giving this some thought.

There is now a ranking page that will list the highest-ranked fighters without a division assignment.  If you would like to help us tackle this list and determine divisions for these fighters, we invite you to please help us out!!  If your investigation turns up anything, please e-mail jcs at fightmatrix.com with your findings, and information source, with this source preferably being weigh-in and/or organization profile information.

Lightweight and above have been expanded to Top 50.

UFC Lightweight Championship
[#6] BJ Penn vs. [#10] Joe Stevenson

Heavyweights
[#4] Gabriel Gonzaga vs. [#9] Fabricio Werdum

Welterweights
[#18] Marcus Davis vs. [#30] Jess Liaudin

Light Heavyweights
[#13] Jason Lambert vs. [#44] Wilson Gouveia

Middleweights
[#54] Kendall Grove vs. [#89] Jorge Rivera

Heavyweights
[#100] Antoni Hardonk vs. [*] Colin Robinson

Welterweights
[#115] Paul Kelly vs. [#150] Paul Taylor

Light Heavyweights
[#33] James Lee vs. [#65] Alessio Sakara

Lightweights
[#32] Sam Stout vs. [#49] Per Eklund

Ranking Note: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

– Due to some overly aggressive initial placements for recently debuting fighters, pre-bout calculation bonuses for quality performances in debuts have been reduced by 25-50% depending on the specific scenario.

In other words, debuting fighters who break onto the scene with a quality performance, are not given as much of a bonus as they were before. This will have small changes throughout the divisions.

– Heavyweight through Lightweight rankings have been expanded to Top 40s.

– Bantamweight, Featherweight, and Women rankings have been expanded to Top 25s.

Ranked fighters’ records are now displayed in the ranking pages. If you see a record that you think is incorrect, please e-mail jcs at fightmatrix.com.

Featherweight, Bantamweight, and Women (ALL), have been expanded from Top 15s to Top 20s.

We are taking the ranking expansion one step at a time, to verify that fighters entering the lists have the correct nationality and divisional settings. If you think a fighter is placed in the incorrect division, find a nationality error, or think a fighter should be ranked, but can’t find them, please write a comment in response to this post.

Lightweight and above have been expanded from Top 25 to Top 30.

Since the early development of the rating system, bouts labeled as “no contests” have been completely ignored.  This could cause some fighters to be wrongly classified as inactive.  As it stands, after 360 days of inactivity, a fighter’s rating will begin a gradual decline due to inactivity penalties. Furthermore, fighters inactive for a full calendar year (365 days), are not displayed on the rankings.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that completely ignoring no contests is fundamentally wrong. The purpose of the inactivity penalty is to reflect the assumption that the fighter is not practicing their craft on a competitive level. Even though these bouts did not have an official outcome, the fighters were still training, and did compete in a professional bout.

Due to this recent mental development, no contests are now considered bouts, albeit bouts without outcomes. This will affect the “last bout date” of a fighter, which may stave off inactivity penalties, and allow a fighter to be ranked as long as they had some official bout in the past 365 days. This will not affect the application of quality performance penalties, as no contests cannot be considered quality performances under any circumstances.

The only immediate effect on the rankings is that this change allows Takanori Gomi to be reinstated in the rankings as the #1 Lightweight, as he is no longer considered inactive.

We have expanded all of our rankings: 

Lightweight, and above, have been expanded to Top 25. 

Bantam, Feather, and Women rankings have been expanded to Top 15. 

Look for more expansion in the future!