“Meta has the greatest minds in tech, and they are going to take fan engagement to the next level. The next few years will be an absolute game changer for fans of this sport.” Dana White seemed pretty confident when he talked about the $100M deal with Mark Zuckerberg. The UFC CEO thought of bringing in artificial intelligence to resolve all the issues of the P4P list. Of course, it was a time when the UFC head honcho kept backing Jon Jones as the #1 P4P fighter. 

White fiercely criticized the media committee responsible for the pound-for-pound rankings. The Meta boss supported White’s statements about their multi-million-dollar collaboration. “I love this sport and I’m excited to collaborate with the UFC to give fans fresh experiences,” he stated. However, the new pound-for-pound rankings sparked a buzz throughout the entire fighting community, creating a sense of anticipation. What’s the current status of the new list?

With the ‘Machine Choke’ still impressing the fighting community, Merab Dvalishvili surpassed Jones and Ilia Topuria and got to the #2 pound-for-pound rankings, following his UFC 316 win. Even though he now has a 13-fight win streak backing him up, he couldn’t become the number one pound-for-pound fighter. But ‘The Machine’ stirred up a lot more than what met the eye. 

Meanwhile, Jones and Topuria both fell one step down to the 3rd and 4th spots, respectively. After beating Belal Muhammad, Jack Della Maddalena rose to the 8th position. Alex Pereira, now without his light heavyweight belt, fell to the 9th pedestal. On the other hand, Charles Oliveira rose to the 14th spot, and Arman Tsarukyan became the new entry into the list at the 15th position. 

Soon after the list witnessed these changes, the world of mixed martial arts broke the barriers with their harsh scrutiny. And when the list found its way to Reddit, through Championship Rounds, the fighting community took over the comments section to lash back at the new P4P list. Let’s see what the fans had to say, shall we? 

Fight fans disagree with the P4P rankings as they scoff at Dana White’s deal with Meta

Most of the fans didn’t like the way the new rankings looked. One of the fans commented, “This list is so bad that I don’t even know where to start ….. So I won’t!” Some of the fans claimed that the rankings didn’t really follow a set of criteria. According to them, it was apparently a bunch of random names put together. One fan wrote, “This ranking is nonsense. It has no objective criteria.” Another fan lashed back and wrote, “Who creates these stupid ‘official’ lists?”

Some of the fans were in complete disagreement with Alexandre Pantoja’s spot at #10. They pointed out that the flyweight champion had already defended his belt thrice, which should actually put him above Della Maddalena and Magomed Ankalaev. A fan weighed in on this and wrote, “Lol it’s crazy how Jack and Ankalaev are ahead of Pantoja when he’s defended his title 3 times and they haven’t defended it once. Love Jack but that’s some bulls—.” Another fan scoffed, “Does pantoja have to vaporize KKF with laser beam eyes to be respected in these rankings man what a joke.”

One of the fans compared the lightweight rankings with the P4P list. He pointed out that ‘Do Bronx’ ranked below ‘Ahalkalakets’ in the lightweight rankings, but was ahead of him in the P4P list. The comment read, “How is Oliveira ranked above Tsarukyan in the P4P, but below him in the LW rankings? Holloway I can kinda understand because he just came from another weight class, but that kinda makes no sense.” Another fan dismissed it all by pointing at Tsarukyan’s inactivity. He wrote, “Arman somehow entered the rankings despite not having a fight in over 12 months.”

Of course, the unrest was too high for Jones and Dvalishvili as well. One of the fans claimed that Jones shouldn’t really be considered in the list. The reason? His inactivity. The comment read, “Get Jones outta there, inactivity should automatically remove you from the list.” Meanwhile, another fan believed that ‘The Machine’ should replace Islam Makhachev. The fan claimed, “Merab should be number 1.”

What do you think about the latest pound-for-pound rankings? Should Dana White implement a clear set of criteria for the rankings? Can AI truly tackle this issue? Share your thoughts in the comments below.