Ultimate Fighting Championship packed up the octagon and lighting rigs in the KeyBank Arena on Saturday night after a controversial “UFC 210” wrapped things up. Daniel Cormier essentially retired Anthony “Rumble” Johnson in the main event after submitting him in the second round, calling for a major shakeup in the light heavyweight rankings.
Perhaps the most controversial move of in the rankings took place in the middleweight division where Chris Weidman suffered a loss at the hands of Gegard Mousasi. Whether or not New York State Athletic Commission are allowed to look at replays or if the knee was, in fact, legal or not makes no difference to the rankings committee as they knocked Weidman down a notch for his loss.
The latest UFC rankings have been released, and “UFC 210” was such a talent rich card that featured a number of fights where athletes were either looking to topple an opponent they were tied with in the rankings or make their ranking debut altogether. Here is how the rankings work, as explained by UFC.COM:
“Rankings were generated by a voting panel made up of media members. The media members were asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters in the UFC by weight-class and pound-for-pound. A fighter is only eligible to be voted on if they are in active status in the UFC. A fighter can appear in more than one weight division at a time. The champion and interim champion are considered to be in the top positions of their respective divisions and therefore are not eligible for voting by weight-class. However, the champions can be voted on for the pound-for-pound rankings.”
Pound for Pound: Dominick Cruz hopped over Tyron Woodley, knocking the welterweight champion down to ninth place.
Welterweight: Kamaru Usman’s victory as “UFC 210” put him inside the top ten at tenth, knocking Tarec Saffiedine down a spot to number-eleven.
Middleweight: Weidman’s loss to Mousasi knocked him down just one spot to fifth. Mousasi is now ranked fourth.
Light Heavyweight: Alexander Gustafsson moves into the top contenders spot now that Johnson is out of the picture, retiring after his fight with Cormier at “UFC 210”. As a result of Johnson’s removal, everybody moved up a spot in the rankings allowing Jared Cannonier to make his rankings debut at fifteenth.
