The new UFC rankings system is said to ignore popularity and opinion.
Last year, Dana White said ‘I can’t take it anymore’ when talking about the current way that the rankings are decided in the UFC.
The promotion’s president made the case that while he takes issue with the way they’re voted for by a media panel, these decisions shouldn’t be made by the UFC either.
Following talk of how Mark Zuckerbeg could help aid White’s issues, the promotion has finally announced that they’re going to be implementing some changes.
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You are Dana White for the day, what’s the one change you’d make to the UFC?
New rankings system revealed during the UFC Vegas 118 broadcast that will focus on performance
Before Belal Muhammad’s losing streak continued in the main event of UFC Vegas 118, an announcement was made during the broadcast.
Commentator Brendan Fitzgerald explained the promotion’s plans to implement a new ranking system that looks to judge fighters purely on what they do inside the Octagon.
While some details, like when this will be implemented, were left out, the UFC are finally addressing criticisms of the current format.
“A new UFC rankings system is currently being developed that will focus on measurable performance, not opinion, not popularity,” Fitzgerald said. “By evaluating who you beat, strength of competition, activity, and consistency. The system is being designed to reward performance and better reflect results inside the Octagon. We’ll have more details on that coming soon.”
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The UFC aren’t the only ones who have tried to improve the way they rank fighters, with the likes of Tapology also making several changes in recent times.
For example, the MMA database recently added a new feature that ranks the strength of a UFC fighter’s schedule by looking at their last six fights.
Tapology now shows Strength of Schedule for UFC fighters, seen on fighter, event, and rankings pages. The new metric helps quantify the level of opposition each fighter has faced. pic.twitter.com/44EFLw6pJZ
— Tapology (@tapology) May 7, 2026
It displays this by assigning the strength of schedule a number from 1 to 99 to display what level of opposition they’ve recently competed against.
As Fitzgerald said, stay tuned for more updates on how the UFC will look to improve their rankings.
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