MMA Pound-for-Pound Rankings: Islam Makhachev reigns supreme as unanimous No. 1 fighter

Welcome to the latest update to the MMA Fighting pound-for-pound rankings, where every month our esteemed panel sort through the noise to answer one question: Who are the best overall male and female MMA fighters in the world?

Major fight cards don’t come much stranger than UFC 294, but despite the event featuring enough weirdness to pack a whole calendar year—and keep in mind, 2023 has already been a strange one—our panel found there was no controversy when it came to giving the winner of the main event his due.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Before Saturday, here was the list of fighters who have been MMA Fighting’s unanimous choice for No. 1 Men’s Pound-for-Pound fighter since the inception of these rankings in July 2021:

• Kamaru Usman

That was it.

Now we can add Islam Makhachev as all eight members of our fine panel have deemed him the top male fighter in the world. The man he just beat a second time slides in at No. 2, while Jon Jones holds on to the No. 3 spot ahead of his heavyweight championship clash with Stipe Miocic at UFC 295.

Makhachev has topped our list before, but there was plenty of disagreement over that ranking as his run to the top of the lightweight division coincided with dominant championship reigns from Volkanovski and Israel Adesanya. When Volkanovski fell just short in a head-to-head clash with Makhachev at UFC 284, the gap between them narrowed even further, to the point that Volkanovski was actually able to overtake Makhachev with a dominant title defense against Yair Rodriguez.

Now, Makhachev has kicked down the door by kicking Volkanovski in the head and providing us all with a firm answer as to who is the better fighter. We can nitpick the achievement by pointing out that Volkanovski is a featherweight who took the fight on less than two weeks’ notice and that’s fair, but at some point a battle of Pound-for-Pound greats has to have stakes for both fighters and not just the one taking the bigger risk. To the victor goes the spoils, as they say.

Since we mentioned Usman, we have to talk about his stunning fall all the way to the edge of the top 10. Like Volkanovski, he stepped in on short-notice to fight a larger fighter at UFC 294 and like Volkanovski, there are consequences to defeat.

Khamzat Chimaev won a hard-fought decision over Usman that may have earned him a middleweight title shot, but wasn’t enough to slot him ahead of Usman in our rankings (Chimaev’s inactivity hasn’t helped his case). However, Usman still took a hit, falling two spots from the No. 8 position.

What’s next for Usman is anyone’s guess and is likely dependent on how the contender pictures shake out at 185 and 170 in the coming months. Either way, it’s going to be a long climb back to his former greatness.

Recent results for ranked fighters (previous ranking shown): No. 2 Islam Makhachev def. No. 1 Alexander Volkanovski, No. 18 (tied) Khamzat Chimaev def. No. 8 (tied) Kamaru Usman

Upcoming bouts featuring ranked fighters: No. 3 Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic (UFC 295, Nov. 11), No. 11 Alex Pereira vs. No. 13 Jiri Prochazka (UFC 295, Nov. 11)

Fighters also receiving votes (number of ballot appearances shown): Vadim Nemkov (4), Johnny Eblen (3), Patchy Mix (2), Brandon Moreno (2), Patricio Pitbull (2), Jamahal Hill (2), Robert Whittaker (2), Yaroslav Amosov (1), Magomed Ankalaev (1), Jan Blachowicz (1), Merab Dvalishvili (1), A.J. McKee (1), Belal Muhammad (1), Usman Nurmagomedov (1)

Lastly, a refresher on some ground rules:

• The eight-person voting panel consists of MMA Fighting staffers Shaun Al-Shatti, Alexander K. Lee, Guilherme Cruz, Mike Heck, E. Casey Leydon, Steven Marrocco, Damon Martin and Jed Meshew.
• Updates to the rankings will be completed following every UFC pay-per-view. Fighters will be removed from the rankings if they do not compete within 18 months of their most recent bout.
• Should a fighter announce their retirement, our panel will decide whether that fighter should immediately be removed from the rankings or maintain their position until further notice (let’s put it this way: we’d have taken Khabib Nurmagomedov out of our rankings a lot quicker than the UFC did).

As a reminder, the notion of pound-for-pound supremacy is always going to inherently be subjective. When you’re debating whether someone like Kamaru Usman should be ranked above someone like Max Holloway, there is no true right answer. In other words: It’s not serious business, folks.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Make your voice heard in the comments below.