Type “how are UFC pound-for-pound rankings determined” into Google right now and the honest answer is a little different than it would have been a few months ago. For thirteen years, a panel of media members voted on who deserved the mythical pound-for-pound crown, the list meant to settle who is the best fighter alive regardless of weight class. That system does not exist anymore. UFC scrapped it in late June, and understanding why means looking at how the old rankings worked, what replaced them, and who fighters and fans still consider the best in the sport even without an official list to point to.
What Pound-for-Pound Actually Means
Divisional rankings are straightforward. Each of the UFC’s weight classes gets a numbered list of contenders, with the champion sitting on top. Pound-for-pound tries something much harder: comparing a 125-pound flyweight to a 265-pound heavyweight and deciding who is genuinely better at fighting, independent of size. There is no clean formula for that. It has always been closer to an opinion poll dressed up as a ranking, which is exactly why it worked for as long as it did and exactly why it became the first thing UFC cut when it started chasing objectivity.
Who Used to Decide the Rankings
UFC introduced official rankings in February 2013, run by a panel of accredited media members who voted weekly on both the divisional top 15s and the cross-division pound-for-pound board. A quirk of the old system stood out: reigning champions did not appear on their own division’s numbered list, since they sat above it by default, but they were still eligible to be voted on for pound-for-pound. That is how a heavyweight titleholder and a flyweight titleholder could end up compared directly on the same sheet of paper, voted on by the same room of reporters.
Why the Panel Got Replaced
On June 22, 2026, UFC partnered with Meta to launch an Elo-style mathematical model that now generates the divisional rankings using opponent quality, activity, and decay for long layoffs or dated wins. Dana White has said for years that he found the old media-panel process frustrating and believed there was a better way to sort contenders than a subjective weekly vote. UFC’s own announcement frames the change as a push toward measurable, repeatable numbers instead of a room full of writers arguing about eye tests. For the mechanics of how that scoring actually works, we broke it down in a piece on UFC’s new Meta Rankings algorithm.
Why Pound-for-Pound Specifically Got Cut
Here is the part that trips people up. The new algorithm was not built to handle pound-for-pound at all. A formula that weighs opponent quality within a single weight class does not translate cleanly across divisions, so cross-weight comparisons were dropped entirely rather than forced into a model that was not designed for them. As of today, that gap has lasted 32 days with no announced timeline for a pound-for-pound version of the Meta system to arrive.
Is There Still a Number One Pound-for-Pound Fighter?
Unofficially, yes. With no league-sanctioned list to check, independent MMA outlets have kept compiling their own pound-for-pound boards, and most of them currently put Islam Makhachev at the top. He strengthened that case on November 15, 2025, when he beat Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 322 to add the welterweight title to his lightweight belt, a two-division run that most observers treat as the clearest pound-for-pound case in the sport right now, 251 days and counting. Names like Alexander Volkanovski, Ilia Topuria, and Petr Yan still come up whenever the conversation turns to who else belongs near the top, even without a numbered slot to prove it. Holding a belt alone does not guarantee a seat at that table, either. Carlos Ulberg, the light heavyweight champion, rarely gets mentioned in the same breath despite wearing gold.
Could Pound-for-Pound Rankings Come Back?
UFC has not ruled it out, and the language around the rollout suggests the company sees a cross-division model as a later phase rather than an abandoned idea. It is also worth noting that the divisional side of the Meta system has not launched without controversy of its own, with several well-known names sliding down the new algorithmic lists over inactivity or resume quirks a media panel might have judged differently. That history suggests any future pound-for-pound formula will get picked apart the moment it appears.
For now, the sport’s actual answer to “who is number one pound-for-pound” depends on which outlet you ask, since the UFC itself has stepped away from answering that question at all. Most rooms still land on the same name, at least until someone beats him.
