UFC 285 was a homecoming of sorts. It had been 11 years since Jon Jones first began flirting with the idea of moving up to heavyweight, and more than three years since we’d seen him in the UFC’s Octagon at all, which made last weekend’s card one of the most anticipated events of the last few years. So what did the bulked-up Jones do on Saturday night when faced with a hyper-athletic, super-gifted striker like Ciryl Gane?
Fittingly, he put the feisty Frenchman in a guillotine. It was cold, calculated, and declarative of the return of an MMA superstar. In fact, it was so effortless that it was damn-near anticlimactic, given all the narratives about Gane’s speed and smarts heading in. Jones didn’t show any ring rust whatsoever. He wasn’t any slower in his thicker, carb-loaded frame. He didn’t seem disinterested in the slightest, and he certainly wasn’t bored. He just looked terrifyingly suited to picking up where he left off all those years ago by treating one of the best heavyweights on the planet as nothing more than a minor nuisance to be dealt with.
The total run time for Jones’s new adventure as a heavyweight: an astonishing 124 seconds.
And just like that, Jones is the UFC’s heavyweight champion. The king is back. With his triumphant return also comes his inevitable return to the pound-for-pound rankings. Let’s face it: While Jones was inactive, it gave all the other good to great champions a chance to momentarily rule the P4P rankings. Now that he’s back, the field will be looking up at him.
And that wasn’t the only major movement in The Ringer’s P4P rankings this week. On the women’s side, the great Valentina Shevchenko was dethroned in the co–main event at UFC 285. It was one of the greatest upsets in UFC history, and it means there was some major shuffling in the rankings.
The panel of Chuck Mindenhall, Ariel Helwani, Petesy Carroll, and producer Troy Farkas—known as 3PAC on The Ringer MMA Show—have ranked both the men’s and women’s P4P best, no. 1 through 10.
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. That is why you will not see Henry Cejudo listed among the P4P best, and it’s also the reason erstwhile UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou is excluded.
Though most of the best fighters are in the UFC, these rankings are not UFC exclusive. We take into consideration all the major promotions, from Bellator to ONE Championship to the Professional Fighters League.
Without further ado, the Ringer MMA P4P Rankings for the first half of March.
Men’s Pound-for-Pound Rankings
1. Jon Jones
UFC Heavyweight Champion
Last month: not ranked
Heading into fight night, a thousand questions followed Jones—questions about him being older (35), bigger (nearly 250 pounds), slower, and more polarizing than ever and about his past PED use, his chronic partying, his arrests, and his overall desire to keep fighting—all of which made the imagination run wild. Still, nobody could’ve predicted he would tap Gane out in two freaking minutes. Gane, who went five rounds with Ngannou just last year, had never been finished in any fashion before he crossed Jones. What’s next for Jones? An International Fight Week clash with Stipe Miocic in July makes the most sense. That fight would be massive. (And though Dana White says Ngannou will never fight in the UFC again, a Jones-Ngannou title fight would be as big as it gets).
2A. Alexander Volkanovski
UFC Featherweight Champion
Last month: no. 1A
Volkanovski is a victim of the circumstances here. In his own foray to move up a weight class and capture a second title at UFC 284, the featherweight king held the top spot in the P4P rankings even though he dropped a close decision against lightweight champ Islam Makhachev. Volkanovski has been nothing short of incredible since debuting in the UFC almost seven years ago. He’s never lost as a featherweight. The problem is that Jones debuted in the UFC in 2008, so his run of dominance stretches all the way back to when Volk was playing rugby for the Warilla Gorillas in Australia’s South Coast. Jones’s run predates all of Volkanovski’s careers, and it’s wild to think that, even though Makhachev couldn’t knock Volk down a peg in the rankings, Jones can.
2B. Islam Makhachev
UFC Lightweight Champion
Last month: no. 1B
Because of the barrage of big-time UFC events, Makhachev’s achievements are being buried a little bit. Winner of 12 straight bouts in arguably the UFC’s strongest division, and a fighter who dealt Volkanovski his first defeat in the UFC in his first title defense, Makhachev should be the most talked-about fighter in the mixed techniques. Instead, it’s a quiet burn as we wait to find out who might be next to face the Dagestani mini-tank. Right now, Dustin Poirier would like to be that guy, but the winner of the Beneil Dariush and Charles Oliveira fight might have the inside track (especially if it’s Dariush). Whoever wins the Makhachev sweepstakes, it’s a grim task they’re signing up for.
4. Leon Edwards
UFC Welterweight Champion
Last month: no. 3
As if March hadn’t already shaken up the rankings like a bottle of champagne in a pennant-winning clubhouse, next up on the UFC’s docket is Edwards’s first title defense as the UFC’s welterweight champion, against his old nemesis Kamaru Usman. It’s still slightly surreal that Edwards knocked Usman out at the 11th hour of the last fight after getting his ass handed to him for the first 20-plus minutes. Can lightning strike again out in London, where the trilogy will take place in front of thousands of throaty partisans there to lift their hero Edwards on their shoulders? If it does, Edwards might replace Rocky as fighting’s most inspirational underdog.
5. Kamaru Usman
Former UFC Welterweight Champion
Last month: no. 4
Usman has been quiet throughout his training. Almost too quiet. Unnervingly quiet. It makes us believe that he is taking the loss of his title—and therefore a coveted place in history, as he came one short of tying Anderson Silva’s record of 16 straight wins in the UFC—very seriously indeed. How has he wrapped his mind around that vicious knockout that must be playing on a loop in his head since the smelling salts fetched him back to consciousness in August? How will he handle the pressure to respond? Is Edwards in his head? These are the tantalizing subplots heading into the next chapter of one of the UFC’s great rivalries. It all goes down March 18 at the O2 in London.
6. Aljamain Sterling
UFC Bantamweight Champion
Last month: no. 5
Things aren’t getting easier for Aljo, as we now know that his next title defense will come against none other than Henry Cejudo—the Olympic gold medal–winning wrestler who “retired” as a two-division UFC champion back in 2020. For whatever reason, people continue to sleep on Sterling’s run, even though he’s won eight straight fights with a couple of title defenses. Last time out, was he fighting a compromised TJ Dillashaw, whose shoulder spent more time out of its socket than in during training? OK, maybe. But beating Petr Yan was no easy thing, and neither was the onslaught he put on Cory Sandhagen. It’ll be fashionable to pick against Sterling in his fight with the King of Cringe, too, but do so at your own peril.
7. Alex Pereira
UFC Middleweight Champion
Last month: no. 6
We’ve called him the Brazilian Cinderella because he upset Israel Adesanya to win the middleweight title back in November, but midnight doesn’t mean a damn thing to a cat with no conscience. Everything has happened so fast for Pereira that fans are still in the process of discovery with him—there’s still a ton of mystique, and nobody knows just how good he is. But there’s one thing we know for sure: He has Izzy’s number. He has beaten Adesanya three times, from the kickboxing ring to the cage, and each time feels more like a fairy tale than the last. Will he do it a fourth time on April 8 at UFC 287 out in Miami? Let’s just say Izzy may spend some time on a therapist’s couch trying to get the image of Pereira out of his head.
8. Charles Oliveira
Former UFC Lightweight Champion
Last month: no. 8
In the last P4P rankings, we said that Oliveira was like the count of Monte Cristo with bleached-blond hair, and that remains true a month later. He wants another crack at Makhachev, who took his lightweight title at UFC 280. First, he has the unenviable task of fighting Beneil Dariush, who has quietly, methodically, and perhaps somewhat alarmingly won eight straight in the division. Dariush is an absolute menace with an unsexy, energy-sucking style. He’s where fancy wheel kicks and beautiful combos go to die. When he beat the golden prospect Mateusz Gamrot in October, it just seemed like he was hell-bent on plowing through anybody the UFC puts in his way. Now in steps Oliveira, who has made it clear he’s a masochist. He wants to fight Dariush and Makhachev back-to-back, which might seem like torture to anybody else.
9. Israel Adesanya
Former UFC Middleweight Champion
Last month: no. 7
Izzy wanted to treat Pereira like just another opponent back in November, and for 20-plus minutes at UFC 281, he did. But something keeps happening to Adesanya just when it looks like he has Pereira beaten. Dark clouds roll over. Foreboding music kicks in. Moods change. It’s inexplicable, but somehow he keeps snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This fourth overall fight (second in MMA) with Pereira is more like an exorcism for the man who calls himself the “Last Stylebender,” and let’s face it. If he loses again, Pereira will own a piece of this man’s soul.
10. Brandon Moreno
UFC Flyweight Champion
Last month: no. 9
When Moreno recaptured the flyweight title by doing away with Deiveson Figueiredo once and for all, he became Mexico’s only UFC champion. It turns out he opened the floodgates. Since Moreno got showered with beer down in Rio de Janeiro for breaking through, Yair Rodriguez won the interim flyweight title and Alexa Grasso upset the women’s GOAT Valentina Shevchenko to give Mexico three titles. This man isn’t just a smiling “Assassin Baby,” as he calls himself—he’s the leader of a movement. If the UFC doesn’t hold a big event down in Mexico to celebrate its champions this year, it would be what Luke Thomas calls “promotional malpractice.”
Falling out: Jiri Prochazka (last month: no. 10)
Voting Results
Women’s Pound-for-Pound Rankings
1. Amanda Nunes
UFC Bantamweight and Featherweight Champion
Last month: no. 2
Guess the trilogy fight with Shevchenko is kablooey, which is a shame because all the female GOAT talk over the past few years has centered around the names Nunes and Shevchenko. If there’s a silver lining for Nunes, it’s that she sits alone atop the world of women’s MMA, and she’s about as close to an undisputed P4P queen as they come. Nunes already has a pair of victories over Shevchenko in her back pocket. She is the only woman to stop Cris Cyborg. And she avenged that shocking loss to Julianna Peña her last time out. Looks like Mexico’s Irene Aldana might be next, and if that fight happens soon—and Aldana upsets the great Lioness—Mexico could have four UFC champions.
2. Zhang Weili
UFC Strawweight Champion
Last month: no. 3
As we’re in the age of divisional polygamy with tenured champions, Weili was also coveting a piece of Shevchenko for that flyweight title. With that belt now belonging to Alexa Grasso, those plans will be sidelined, and it’s back to searching the strawweight cupboards for the next challenger for the 115-pound champ. Right now, the list is a little uninspired. She already beat the no. 1 contender, Carla Esparza, to win back the title, and a rematch simply won’t happen. Rose Namajunas (who has beaten her twice in the past) is in no hurry to be back, and the one-time strawweight contender Tatiana Suarez just won a big bout as a flyweight in her return. Who the hell is out there for Weili? No, seriously. We’d like to know.
3A. Alexa Grasso
UFC Flyweight Champion
Last month: not ranked
MMA pundits didn’t give Grasso a snowball’s chance in hell to beat Shevchenko. Vegas had her as a plus-550 underdog, and money was still rolling in on Shevchenko (at minus-950). One member of the media was so confident in an inevitable Shevchenko landslide that he vowed to get a tattoo of a handgun on his thigh if Grasso pulled off the upset. Now he’ll have to bite “the Bullet” because Grasso did the unthinkable. When an upset of this magnitude happens, it ruins as much as it helps open up. On the one hand, all the women flyweights that Shevchenko smoked can now hope to fight for a title again one day. On the other, the “super-fights” with Nunes and Weili don’t hold much appeal for the time being. In the meantime, Grasso breaks into the P4P rankings. She’ll likely be asked to back it up by beating Shevchenko again.
3B. Valentina Shevchenko
Former UFC Flyweight Champion
Last month: no. 1
In her previous fight against Taila Santos, it felt as though Shevchenko was flying a little close to the sun. Though Shevchenko escaped with a victory, Santos had nearly nine minutes of control time on the ground and threatened Shevchenko with submission attempts. Red flag? Nah! The Grasso fight at UFC 285 was meant to be her bounce-back bout. Grasso wasn’t particularly regarded as a wrestling threat, and what she did well—striking—Shevchenko did better. So what was Grasso’s path to victory against a blond Bond villain who was the consensus pound-for-pound best going in? Turns out it was to capitalize on a dizzying sequence that was almost too shocking to comprehend in real time. In the fourth round, Shevchenko tried a spinning attack, and it backfired. Colossally. Grasso snatched her back, got her to the ground, and then took her neck. When Grasso finally released her choke, Shevchenko’s face was the color of a third-degree sunburn, and the belt had been stolen from her waist.
5. Cris Cyborg
Bellator Featherweight Champion; Former UFC Featherweight Champion
Last month: no. 4
It seems like Cyborg has shown up on every P4P women’s ranking list since 1976. It’s not easy to stay on top in MMA. In fact, it’s nearly impossible. Yet Cyborg has been at or near the top since Chris Paul was a rookie. She is looking for a summer return to defend the title, hopefully against former UFC contender Cat Zingano (the same Cat Zingano who once beat Amanda Nunes), which is perhaps the biggest name she could fight other than PFL star Kayla Harrison or boxing sensation Katie Taylor. Cyborg likes to be associated with all these hypothetical fights, but only one thing is certain: At 37 years old, the women’s MMA pioneer doesn’t have a lot of time left to make these big fights.
6A. Carla Esparza
Former UFC Strawweight Champion
Last month: no. 6
Nobody calls out Carla Esparza. The truth is, though she’s a two-time champion with a fun nickname (“Cookie Monster”), she doesn’t exactly move the needle. Worse, her fighting style is often to overwhelm opponents with her strength, slowly sapping them of the desire to fight and putting spectators into a drowsy, existential state as she wins. Harsh? Maybe, but Esparza isn’t a fight anybody wants. At least, not usually. After Amanda Ribas’s victory over Viviane Araujo at UFC 285, Ribas threw out Esparza’s name as a possible next opponent, and that is either extremely bold or extremely self-sabotaging, depending on your point of view. One thing is certain: The UFC isn’t rushing to get Esparza back into contention.
6B. Rose Namajunas
Former UFC Strawweight Champion
Last month: no. 5
Namajunas lost her strawweight title to Esparza 10 months ago and—as expected—stepped away for some much-needed perspective and introspection. The good news is that since she’s been out, Esparza lost the title to Weili, the current champion, whom Namajunas has already beaten twice. There’s a possibility that the UFC matchmakers will look to expedite a third fight there, but if the idea is to create bigger inroads in China, they might want to keep Namajunas as far away from Weili as possible. The fighter who is calling Namajunas out right now is Tatiana Suarez, who is undefeated and last appeared as a flyweight. Though Suarez seems like a bad matchup for Namajunas (and everybody else), so did Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk, and Namajunas has gone 4-0 against those names.
8. Julianna Peña
Former UFC Bantamweight Champion
Last month: no. 8
Peña’s reign as the bantamweight champion lasted seven and a half months. During that time, she showed up everywhere. She was at live UFC events. Parties. Premieres. Red carpet affairs. Anyplace where there were cameras that might catch the glint of her belt as the lights hit it just so. It was one hell of a victory lap. Of course, all that went away when Nunes smashed her in the rematch at UFC 277, and now that the series is tied 1-1, you’d better believe Peña is counting the days for the rubber match. Life was a lot better with the belt. Now it’s Peña’s sole mission to prove the first fight wasn’t a fluke.
9. Erin Blanchfield
UFC Flyweight Contender
Last month: not ranked
Blanchfield’s first big test was supposed to come against Santos back in February, but Santos dropped out and was replaced by Jéssica Andrade—one of the scariest fighters on the women’s side of the ledger. The 23-year-old Blanchfield didn’t bat an eye. She drubbed Andrade the same as she has all five of the opponents she’s faced in the UFC, and she was earmarked as the one who could knock Shevchenko off her perch. As the potential Grasso-Shevchenko rematch plays out, Blanchfield will likely be fed another opponent before she gets her shot. But make no mistake: Whoever the UFC feeds her will be steak slid under the door. Blanchfield is the future of the division and looks poised to take over.
10. Manon Fiorot
UFC Flyweight Contender
Last month: no. 9
With her knee surgery behind her and a return to action drawing near, the question of where Fiorot fits in the women’s flyweight title picture is a complicated one. If Shevchenko had taken care of Grasso at UFC 285, Fiorot would have been in the pole position to get the next shot, as she currently sits as the no. 1 contender in the division. After Grasso did the unthinkable, Fiorot once again rolls behind the eight ball as a rematch is inevitably booked. Best-case scenario is that Shevchenko isn’t ready for a rematch—or something unforeseen happens to get Fiorot back into the picture—but the outlook is blurry. If Fiorot has to take on Santos for a title eliminator, that will at least keep her busy. If she has to fight Blanchfield before she gets her title chance? Well, see, now that’s just cruel.
Falling out: Jéssica Andrade (last month: no. 7), Larissa Pacheco (last month: no. 10A), and Taila Santos (no. 10B)
Voting Results
Chuck Mindenhall writes about combat sports without bias, and sometimes about his Denver teams with extreme bias. He cohosts The Ringer MMA Show on Spotify.