UFC rankings: New top contender at bantamweight, former champ tumbles
The number-one ranked fighter at 135 just happens to be a teammate of the champ.
Coming off a big PPV, UFC Vegas 71 didn’t take place at the APEX but was actually in front of some fans at The Theater At Virgin Hotels in the Vegas area. The people in attendance were treated to a fairly good event, just not one that had major rankings implications outside of one division.
In the headliner, Merab Dvalishvili picked a shutout on former champion Petr Yan, and the rankings panel has rewarded him with the top contender position at 135 pounds. However, it appears that he does not want to fight current champ and teammate Aljamain Sterling, so it could be interesting to see how that plays out.
Here’s a look at the changes this week.
Men’s P4P - No changes.
Heavyweight - Stipe Miocic is no longer tied as the number one contender, and drops to two below Ciryl Gane. Tom Aspinall is up one to five, bumping Tai Tuivasa to six. Another solid performance by Alexander Volkov gets him up one to seven. Serghei Spivac is down to eight. Blagoy Ivanov and Alexandr Romanov flip-flop 14 and 15.
Light Heavyweight - Ryan Spann drops two to ten after his loss to Nikita Krylov (who stated put at six). Volkan Oezdemir and Paul Craig are up one each to eight and nine. Dustin Jacoby drops from a tie for 13 down to 14.
Middleweight - No changes.
Welterweight - No changes.
Lightweight - No changes.
Featherweight - No changes.
Bantamweight - Merab’s numero uno, dropping Sean O’Malley to two. Marlon Vera gets to highest spot yet at three, while Yan drops two spots to four. Ricky Simon rises one to nine, leaving Pedro Munhoz hanging on at ten. Jonathan Martinez enters the rankings at 15.
Flyweight - Bruno Silva enters at 15.
Women’s P4P - No changes.
Women’s Bantamweight - No changes.
Women’s Flyweight - No changes,
Women’s Strawweight - No changes.
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