MMA pound-for-pound rankings: McGregor cracks Top 5, Holm in at 10

Kevin IoleCombat columnist
(Paul Rosales/Yahoo Sports)
(Paul Rosales/Yahoo Sports)

Below are my 10 choices for the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artist (including women) in the world. To understand this, it helps to understand what pound-for-pound means. To me, and the way I’ll be voting, it’s who would win a fight if everyone weighed the same and all of their skills and physical attributes were proportional. For example, if I’m considering a flyweight who is a murderous puncher in his or her division, I will assume he or she would be a murderous puncher in every division, punching proportionally as hard at heavyweight as he/she did at flyweight.

I will value activity and quality of opposition over inactivity and lighter opposition. That said, I won’t arbitrarily remove a fighter from my Top 10 if there is a logical and rational reason why they haven’t fought. But I will not vote for someone who has been inactive for a lengthy period for no apparent reason. Fighters who are under doping suspensions will not be included.

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Men’s MMA pound-for-pound rankings (Jan. 21)

  1. Khabib Nurmagomedov, UFC lightweight champion, 28-0. Previous ranking: 1

  2. Jon Jones, UFC light heavyweight champion, 25-1. PR: 2

  3. Stipe Miocic, UFC heavyweight champion, 19-3. PR: 3

  4. Daniel Cormier, UFC heavyweight contender, 22-2. PR: 4

  5. Conor McGregor, UFC lightweight contender, 22-4. Previously unranked

  6. Henry Cejudo, UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion, 15-2. PR: 5

  7. Israel Adesanya, UFC middleweight champion, 18-0, PR: 6

  8. Kamaru Usman, UFC welterweight champion, 16-1. PR: 7

  9. Tony Ferguson, UFC lightweight contender, 25-3. PR: 8

  10. Alexander Volkanovski, UFC featherweight champion, 21-1. PR: 9

Women’s MMA pound-for-pound rankings (Jan. 21)

  1. Amanda Nunes, UFC bantamweight/featherweight champion, 19-4. PR: 1

  2. Valentina Shevchenko, UFC flyweight champion, 18-3. PR: 2

  3. Cris Cyborg, Bellator featherweight contender, 20-2. PR: 3

  4. Zhang Weili, UFC strawweight champion, 20-1. PR: 4

  5. Joanna Jedrzejczyk, UFC strawweight contender, 16-3. PR: 5

  6. Jessica Andrade, UFC strawweight contender, 20-6. PR: 6

  7. Tatiana Suarez, UFC strawweight contender, 8-0. PR: 8

  8. Julianna Peña, UFC bantamweight contender, 9-3. PR: 10

  9. Germaine de Randamie, UFC bantamweight contender, 9-4. PR: 10

  10. Holly Holm, UFC bantamweight contender, 13-5. Previously unranked

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