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.
Boxing Stats – Reach Matters
Its been a while since I’ve posted about boxing, but just recently, I did an analysis based on reach measurements. I researched all the way back to the beginnings of boxing, to determine whether or not the boxer with the longer reach won much more often.
I discovered that a boxer with any reach advantage at all won 57.1% of the time (excluding draws). At two inches or more, this went up to 58.4%. It progressively increased all the way up to 64.6% at 8 inches or more. At 10 inches or more, the number actually dropped, but I attribute this to the small subset, and because some “freak” match-ups may contaminate the results.
Some say its not the size that matters, but these results suggest more than a negligible difference. They suggest size DOES matter. You might’ve suspected such results with regards to height, but did you expect it with regards to reach alone?
Featured Upcoming Bouts (Outside of UFC)
| Monday, September 15th 2025: Deep - 127 Impact | |||
 [#3 W105] Moeri Suda | [#14 W105] Saori Oshima | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 7/27/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [NR] Noeru Narita Last 5: L W W W W | Last Fight Date: 5/05/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#7 W105] Ye Ji Lee Last 5: L W W L L | ||
| Saturday, September 20th 2025: Jungle Fight 140 Fight of the Million: Womens Flyweight Grand Prix Semifinals | |||
 [#19 W125] Layze Cerqueira | [#30 W125] Queila Braga | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 7/12/2025 [Jungle Fight] Last Opponent: [#78 W125] Fernanda Barbosa Last 5: W W W W W | Last Fight Date: 7/12/2025 [Jungle Fight] Last Opponent: [NR] Thaiany lopes Last 5: L W W W W | ||
| Monday, September 15th 2025: Deep - 127 Impact | |||
| [#28 SW] Sora Sugiyama | [#34 SW] Nobuyoshi Nakatsukasa | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 4/13/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#44 SW] Rikito Tago Last 5: - - - - W | Last Fight Date: 3/30/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [#2 SW] Haruo Ochi Last 5: W W L W L | ||
Featured Fighters
| [NR] |  Raja Jackson | [NR] | Matt Brown | |
| [NR] | Chris Lytle | [#4 LW] | Charles Oliveira | |
| [#1 LW] |  Islam Makhachev | [#2 LW] |  Ilia Topuria | |
| [#1 MW] |  Khamzat Chimaev | [#1 LHW] | Magomed Ankalaev | |
| [NR] |  Paul Daley |
Fighters without a division. You can help!
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.
Lightweights and above now Top 50s
Lightweight and above have been expanded to Top 50.
UFC 80: How they stack up
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.
Minor Rating Code Change
– 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.
Ranking Expansion for 1/14/08
– Heavyweight through Lightweight rankings have been expanded to Top 40s.
– Bantamweight, Featherweight, and Women rankings have been expanded to Top 25s.
Fighter records now displayed on ranking pages!
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.
FAQ page now available.
An early version of the FAQ page is now available with answers to commonly asked questions, along with contact information for the site operators. Please visit the page by clicking here, or by clicking the “FAQ” link in the right frame.
More Rankings Expansion
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.
More Expansion!
Lightweight and above have been expanded from Top 25 to Top 30.
Rankings Policy Change – No Contests & Activity
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.
Rankings Expansion
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!
New Rankings for the New Year
Happy New Year everyone!
We just published a major ranks updates for all weight divisions. We believe this is the most accurate and realistic rank to date. Some notable changes were made:
- More accurate bout database
- The addition of Flyweight (under 126 lbs) division Top-10
- Improved ranking software
- Fighters who were not active in 2007 dropped from ranks for inactivity. Most notably, Mark Hunt, Josh Barnett, and Takanori Gomi are no longer ranked.
Updated Rankings:
Chuck Liddell Reaches New Heights
With his win over Wanderlei Silva at UFC 79, Chuck Liddell became the first fighter to reach 16 wins in the UFC.
Liddell is also tied with Tito Ortiz for the most UFC bouts (20 a piece).