Rankings Review: Masvidal Drops Two Spots, Plus More Movement from Fighters who Did Not Fight Last Weekend
May 14, 2021
Editorial Commentary by Peter Parsons
Sometimes we see movement in the rankings between fighters who did not fight in the previous week. This begs the question, what changed from the previous week? Could it be a result of new voting panellists? Well, we don’t get to see the UFC ranking voting panellists anymore. Or is it because the current voters changed their minds? Or is it because the fighter who is moving up in the rankings has a high-profile fight coming up?
Editorial Commentary by Peter Parsons
Like two weeks ago, this week there was once again a lot of movement in the bottom half of the heavyweight rankings. Unlike two weeks ago, where the movement was a result of four heavyweight fights on the
Lewis vs. Blaydes card, this week’s movement was a result of the UFC releasing long-time ranked heavyweights Alistair Overeem and Junior Dos Santos.
With two heavyweights out of the UFC, we didn’t just see two heavyweights enter the rankings at 14 and 15. Instead we saw two fighters enter the heavyweight rankings at 13 and 15 with other fighters moving up or down.
Editorial Commentary by Peter Parsons
Yes, you read the first part of the headline right, Khamzat Chimaev moved up in this week’s welterweight rankings. This is the only rankings change that I disagree with in this week’s column. Typically, I write largely about the rankings changes that I disagree with. Two out of the three changes that I highlight this week, I actually agree with, to a certain extent.
Khamzat Chimaev moves up to No. 14 in the rankings?
It was recently announced that Khamzat Chimaev is out of his fight in March with Leon Edwards because of COVID-19 related issues. Fresh off this news, Chimaev moved up one spot to No. 14 in the UFC welterweight rankings ahead of Robbie Lawler.
Editorial Commentary by Peter Parsons
There are times when it makes sense for Fighter A to be ranked ahead of Fighter B even though Fighter A lost to Fighter B. However, this rarely makes sense when the fight in question happened quite recently. When this week’s UFC rankings were released, two examples of this situation stood out to me. In both cases, the movement happened without any of the four fighters having had a recent fight.
Kevin Lee ranked ahead of Al Iaquinta?
In the UFC lightweight division, Al Iaquinta dropped two spots this week to No. 12, beneath the No. 11 ranked Kevin Lee, a fighter whom he has defeated twice.