Every month, Combat Press will provide MMA rankings for each weight class from heavyweight to strawweight, as well as the pound-for-pound rankings (including all genders).
Note: the numbers in parentheses represent the fighter’s ranking from the previous month.
- Francis Ngannou (1)
- Ciryl Gane (2)
- Stipe Miocic (3)
- Tai Tuivasa (4)
- Curtis Blaydes (5)
- Tom Aspinall (6)
- Alexander Volkov (7)
- Ryan Bader (8)
- Sergei Pavlovich (9)
- Jairzinho Rozenstruik (10)
There were no fighters in action during the month, so the rankings remain unchanged.
- Jiří Procházka (1)
- Glover Teixeira (2)
- Jan Błachowicz (3)
- Corey Anderson (4)
- Vadim Nemkov (5)
- Magomed Ankalaev (6)
- Aleksandar Rakić (7)
- Jamahal Hill (-)
- Dominick Reyes (9)
- Anthony Smith (10)
Dropped from the rankings: Thiago Santos (8)
Just three fights removed from his first career loss, Jamahal Hill has entered our light-heavyweight rankings. Following a pair of first-round finishes, Hill earned a top-10 opponent in Thiago Santos. In the pair’s UFC Fight Night headliner, Hill scored a fourth-round TKO via ground-and-pound. Santos tumbles outside of the top 10 with the loss, while Hill enters at eighth.
- Israel Adesanya (1)
- Robert Whittaker (2)
- Marvin Vettori (3)
- Jared Cannonier (4)
- Alex Pereira (5)
- Paulo Costa (6)
- Derek Brunson (7)
- Sean Strickland (8)
- Johnny Eblen (9)
- Jack Hermansson (10)
Our No. 6 middleweight, Paulo Costa, notched his 14th career victory at UFC 278, but it wasn’t enough to allow the Brazilian to climb in the rankings. Costa sent the unranked Luke Rockhold into retirement by scoring a decision nod in a competitive fight.
- Leon Edwards (5)
- Kamaru Usman (1)
- Colby Covington (2)
- Khamzat Chimaev (3)
- Gilbert Burns (4)
- Belal Muhammad (6)
- Yaroslav Amosov (-)
- Stephen Thompson (8)
- Sean Brady (9)
- Shavkat Rakhmonov (10)
Dropped from the rankings: Vicente Luque (7)
The welterweight division was home to the biggest shakeup of the month. In the UFC 278 headliner, Leon Edwards turned the lights out on Kamaru Usman in a shocking finish. Edwards, who took home the UFC belt with the win, claims the top spot in the rankings. Usman slips to second with the loss. Meanwhile, Vicente Luque succumbed to strikes against Geoff Neal in their clash at UFC Fight Night: Santos vs. Hill. Luque drops out of the top 10 in defeat, but Neal doesn’t take his place. Instead, the overlooked Yaroslav Amosov catapults into the rankings at seventh.
- Charles Oliveira (1)
- Dustin Poirier (2)
- Justin Gaethje (3)
- Islam Makhachev (4)
- Michael Chandler (5)
- Beneil Dariush (6)
- Rafael Fiziev (7)
- Mateusz Gamrot (8)
- Conor McGregor (9)
- Rafael dos Anjos (10)
There were no fighters in action during the month, so the rankings remain unchanged.
- Alex Volkanovski (1)
- Max Holloway (2)
- Patricio “Pitbull” Freire (3)
- Yair Rodriguez (4)
- Brian Ortega (5)
- A.J. McKee (6)
- Josh Emmett (7)
- Calvin Kattar (8)
- Chan Sung Jung (9)
- Giga Chikadze (10)
There were no fighters in action during the month, so the rankings remain unchanged.
- Aljamain Sterling (1)
- Petr Yan (2)
- T.J. Dillashaw (3)
- Cory Sandhagen (4)
- Demetrious Johnson (7)
- Merab Dvalishvili (-)
- Adriano Moraes (5)
- Marlon Vera (9)
- José Aldo (6)
- Sergio Pettis (10)
Dropped from the rankings: Dominick Cruz (8)
While the bantamweight contests in August didn’t have quite the earth-shattering impact of the UFC welterweight title bout at UFC 278, they did signal a changing of the guard at 135 pounds. Former UFC kingpins Dominick Cruz and José Aldo both suffered losses in their separate fights. Cruz fell victim to the surging Marlon Vera in their UFC Fight Night headliner. Vera finished the former champ via a head kick in round four. Aldo looked like a shell of his former self in a decision loss to Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 278. The panel rewards Dvalishvili with a leap into the sixth spot in the rankings, while Vera climbs up to eighth. Meanwhile, Cruz departs the poll entirely and Aldo tumbles to the No. 9 spot. Outside of the UFC, Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson returned to the win column in a ONE Championship title bout against Adriano Moraes. Mighty Mouse climbs to fifth, while Moraes slides to seventh.
- Deiveson Figueiredo (1)
- Brandon Moreno (2)
- Kai Kara-France (3)
- Alexandre Pantoja (4)
- Askar Askarov (5)
- Brandon Royval (6)
- Alex Perez (7)
- Matheus Nicolau (8)
- Rogério Bontorin (9)
- Jarred Brooks (10)
There were no fighters in action during the month, so the rankings remain unchanged.
- Keito Yamakita (1)
- Daichi Kitakata (2)
- Gexi Sanlang (3)
- Ryo Hatta (4)
- Ryosuke Noda (5)
- Toshiya Takashima (6)
- Yuta Miyazawa (7)
- Junji Ito (8)
- Jo Arai (9)
- Tatsuki Ozaki (10)
There were no fighters in action during the month, so the rankings remain unchanged.
- Alexander Volkanovski (2)
- Valentina Shevchenko (3)
- Charles Oliveira (4)
- Francis Ngannou (5)
- Patricio “Pitbull” Freire (6)
- Deiveson Figueiredo (7)
- Kamaru Usman (1)
- Dustin Poirier (9)
- Israel Adesanya (8)
- Amanda Nunes (-)
Dropped from the rankings: Brandon Moreno (10)
Yes, Kamaru Usman lost to Leon Edwards. But some members of our panel didn’t view this as a reason for him to take a nosedive in the pound-for-pound rankings. Instead, he only drops to sixth. The domino effect of his move is the return of Amanda Nunes to the top 10, while Brandon Moreno comes up just shy of the rankings. The aforementioned Edwards now has to prove that his win wasn’t a fluke.
Editor’s Note: Fighters are eligible to be ranked if they have competed in the last 18 months. Any fighter that chooses to switch weight classes will be ranked in their previous weight class until they have competed twice in their new division. Fighters who announce their retirement will remain ranked for a period of six months following their final bout.