UFC 224 wasn’t exactly the the best PPV ever on paper, but it definitely delivered in the cage. It did not, however, mean a whole lot in the rankings. A few new fighters are ranked, and one that was a fixture of the top five at heavyweight is back on the list (albeit much lower than that, for now at least).
One development was that Mackenzie Dern entered the strawweight rankings at 15. Yes, that Mackenzie Dern, the one that came in closer to the flyweight limit than the strawweight one. That’s odd, and it made one fighter pretty angry. You can see that (and all the other changes) below.
P4P - No changes.
Heavyweight - Mark Hunt dropped from a tie for six to take seventh over all on his own. Justin Willis is up one to 14. Junior dos Santos, who was removed from the rankings during his USADA issues, re-entered the list at 15 after being reinstated.
Light Heavyweight - No changes.
Middleweight - This is the division with the biggest shakeup, due to the UFC 224 co-main event. Ronaldo Souza plunged three places in the rankings after his split decision loss to Kelvin Gastelum. This moved Luke Rockhold, Chris Weidman, and Gastelum all up one to two, three, and four respectively. Lyoto Machida’s knockout win over Vitor Belfort moved him up three spots to nine. The removal of Belfort led a few others to move up. Antonio Carlos Junior, Thiago Santos, and Paulo Costa are up to 12-14 respectively. And Elias Theodorou entered the rankings at 15.
Welterweight - No changes.
Lightweight - No changes.
Featherweight - The removal of Yair Rodriguez shook up the bottom third of the division a bit. Mirsad Bektic is up one to 11. Zabit Magomedsharipov is up one to 12. Myles Jury is up two to 13. And Calvin Kattar entered the rankings for the first time at 15.
Bantamweight - No changes.
Flyweight - No changes.
Women’s Bantamweight - Raquel Pennington’s one-sided title loss led her to trade places with Ketlen Vieira, with Pennington now at four and Vieira now at two.
Women’s Flyweight - Roxanne Modafferi dropped for a tie for five to take over six on her own.
