The fans were heard, and Bellator is set to debut their initial fighter rankings in the coming month. Bellator officials announced the news Thursday.
A panel of 15 media members including Cageside Press’ own Joe McDonagh will vote on a top 10 for each division and a P4P for both the men and women.
🚨 Breaking News! 🚨 #Bellator will now have a ranking system, determined by a 15-person voting panel, comprised exclusively of members of the MMA media.
Before the official rankings are in, what order do you see the bantamweight division listed as? pic.twitter.com/SjTM3gyoru— BellatorMMA (@BellatorMMA) February 18, 2021
The 15 media members include in the inaugural Bellator MMA rankings panel are:
John Hyon Ko- SCMP MMA, Nolan King- MMA Junkie, Joe McDonagh- Cageside Press, Shakiel Mahjouri- Fightful MMA, Brian Campbell- CBS Sports, Rodrigo Del Campo- Claro Sports, Jeff Cain- MMA Weekly, George Garcia- MMA Junkie, John Morgan – MMA Junkie, Amy Kaplan- Fansided MMA, Igor Lazarin- TASS Russia, Ken Pishna- MMA Weekly, Rob DeMello- KHON Hawaii and Jason Floyd- MMA Report.
The rankings will be independent of Bellator, and each member will have 48 hours after each Bellator event to update their personal rankings for each division. To accompany Bellator’s return to action this upcoming April, initial rankings will soon be released.
Voters were informed of the following:
Men’s Divisions include: Heavyweight, Light Heavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Lightweight, Featherweight, Bantamweight, P4P.
Women’s Divisions include: Featherweight, Flyweight, P4P.
A fighter must have competed under the Bellator banner to be ranked. A fighter is eligible to be ranked for up to 15 months without competing. A fighter is able to be ranked in multiple divisions (i.e Ryan Bader).
Votes will be handled by 3rd party (Combat Registry) independent of Bellator MMA. Bellator staff/athletes will not participate in voting.
Further information was released in a press release Thursday, with more details on the Bellator rankings.
