UFC CEO Dana White was serious when he said he’d fix the rankings.
In recent weeks the UFC boss has been at odds with the panel of voters who control the UFC rankings. It started with the pound-for-pound list not having Jon Jones at the top of the list. The last straw came after UFC 307 where Khalil Rountree Jr, who lost to champion Alex Pereira despite a very valiant effort, stayed at his #8 ranking following the fight.
White told the media he’d be replacing them as voters for fighter rankings and even said he’d look at AI for a solution.
“We literally had meetings this week to work on it,” White told TNT Sports.
“I actually talked to Mark Zuckerberg, too, about AI. So I’m totally going to fix the rankings. We’re going to make a lot of strong moves here coming into ’25.”
White is searching near and far for answers and says he’ll have a something coming out soon.
“I will have some answers on that soon, but the ranking system drives me crazy. From the pound-for-pound to each division. There’s huge mistakes,” he said.
“First of all, Khalil Rountree, let’s start there. He fights the fight that he fought, if you look at Alex Pereira’s destroyed everybody that he’s faced. Going into the fourth round, Khalil was ahead on the scorecards and then he gets beat and he stays at No. 8. I’m not saying he should be in the top 3 or whatever, but he should definitely move up, for me. He might not be 2 or 3, but he’s definitely not 8.”
He didn’t stop there. Max Holloway, who challenges Ilia Topuria for the featherweight title at UFC 308 this weekend, is also ranked at lightweight. Following his knockout victory over Justin Gaethje at UFC 300 Holloway was ranked #13 at lightweight. It wasn’t until recently that Holloway, who took out the top 3 Gaethje, finally was bumped up to #5.
“Then you look at Max Holloway. It just changed this last Tuesday, but he knocked out (Gaethje). If you really think about it he beat Justin Gaethje twice that night,” White said.
“He beat him on the scorecards and he knocked him out with one second left. How is he ranked 13 or something? How is he ranked that low when he beat Gaethje?”
Changes are coming to the rankings and it’s to be seen if the grass will indeed be greener.
