MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: Who Has the Best Chance To Dethrone Khamzat Chimaev?

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

The UFC's middleweight division is in a fascinating place right now. Khamzat Chimaev is the brand new middleweight champion after dominating Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319, which has shaken up the MMA Fighting pound-for-pound rankings. With four contenders vying for the chance to face Chimaev in his first title defense, who has the best chance to get it done? On an all-new edition of the MMA Fighting Rankings Show, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew step in for Alexander K. Lee in the hosting chair to discuss all of the changes going on in the rankings since we last spoke — including the madness at middleweight, Chimaev's rise and du Plessis' fall down the pound-for-pound rankings, and ranking who has the best shot to beat Chimaev in Nassourdine Imavov, Caio Borralho, Reinier de Riddder, and Anthony Hernandez. Additionally, they discuss where Brian Ortega now goes after a terrible week at UFC Shanghai, changes in the featherweight rankings, and who could make a low-key leap up the rankings by the end of the year. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠@m_heckjr⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠@JedKMeshew⁠ Subscribe:⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠ Read More: ⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's week two of Canadian tires early Black Friday sale. These prices won't go lower this year. So you're lying on the floor? Save up the 50% November 13th to 20th. Conditions apply, details online. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello there, everybody. And welcome to a brand new edition of the MMA fighting ranking show for this wonderful month of August, following UFC 319, UFC Shanghai, and a whole bunch of craziness that has gone on since we last spoke.

Mike Eck. Yes, I am not my best friend, Alexi to Kaylee, because AK is on vacation. So we're doing things a little bit differently. We don't have an entire panel fighting back and forth about how bad Casey's ranking. I mean, how bad some of our rankings are, JK. But Jed is here once again. And we're going to talk about all the craziness that has happened, especially in the middleweight division, plus some other topics along the way as well. So we're going to do the best we can and navigate through this without our fearless rankings leader, Alexander Cayley. So, Jed, thank you for doing this. How are you, sir?

I'm sad. I'm sad that our fearless leader is enjoying a well-deserved vacation in parts unknown, just getting his Anthony Bourdain on and leaving us in the trenches, taking grenades. And I'm especially sad because we're going to have to talk about the saddest thing that's happened to me in some time. And that's my big, beautiful bozo losing, losing badly, and falling quite badly as well. So it's going to be a tough one, but I will power through for you, the people at home. So just, I mean, a lot of you know how the rankings work. Usually you have to pay for your events. We update some things.

Sometimes you update all things. And after UFC 319, we updated all things, the men's pound for pound list, all the rankings. Every single division we did and tried to update to the best of our ability. But a lot of times after these events, we're working until like 5.36 in the morning. It's late. And then some of us have to wake up early on like two hours sleep and then work again. So we get through these rankings. And sometimes we're able to really barrel through these things and take our time and give it the respect it deserves.

And other times we're just trying to barrel through it and get it done. But middleweight and the pound for pound rankings became. very, very interesting following Hamzaa Chimayev finally becoming a UFC world champion Jed, defeats your boy, Drickus Duplice, not a competitive fight, not a very close fight. Shemayev is the champion, Drickus Duplice, no longer champion, and obviously the pound-for-pound rankings reflect that. Hamzaat Jamev jumps up eight spots in the pound-for-pound rankings to number five. Drickis duplicee was the number five ranked fighter overall in the pound-for-pound rankings.

for final rankings for M.A.fighting.com. He dropped six spots to number 11, and we'll get to DDP in a second. Well, let's start with Hamzaa Shamaev, Jed. Because right now, according to our rankings, Islam Makachev remains in the number one spot with three first place votes, Ilya, two first place votes at number two.

Alexander Pantosha, the flyweight champion, number three with one first place vote that we have, the Bannamai Chameh, Mard Walsh, Svili, number four, Habat Shumayef, at number five, Magamette Ankylaif and number six. So now that we've had some time to reflect on this, Jed, almost two weeks now. Do we get this right?

Hamzat Shamaev number five. Is this correct, or should he be higher? Should he be lower? What do you think? I think this is exactly right. I think we nailed it. These aren't, like, it doesn't align totally with my rankings, but I took some liberties with my rankings, and broadly it does.

I think you're the one and two for almost everybody in the whole wide world is Machachev and Dupura. and I'm open to either of those dudes having the top spot, frankly. I am the lone Pantosia top spot. I think he's got a credible case to it as well. And honestly, if somebody wanted to put Marab up there, I would not call them crazy.

I think any four of those men have very credible cases to hold the top spot. And so them being our four in whatever order you want that to be. And I think the order we length, landed on is probably the order, you know, the will of the masses, right, Mike? Like, this is probably the order that if you pulled the most people who know about the sport, this is probably the order you'd get. And I have Chimaima, I have Chamea of five.

He's my first guy outside of that order. This was one I thought about long and hard. And I ultimately, the dominance of the performance over Drikas duplice, who I had had in the number four spot prior to that. plus the rest of Chimayev's career made me ultimately put him here, right? And I, if you wanted to put him a couple of spots lower, because his career has been odd, right? Like, he doesn't have sustained success in one weight class,

which we are seeing from the other guys above him functionally. He's had basically a couple of middleweight wins and then had like that, obviously the one Kevin Holland weird fight and a good successful run at Welterweight as well. but the fat like it's it's the totality of his career he's got a lot of good wins overall a dominant performance over a pound for a top five pound for pound guy uh and that you know the fact that he has barely been hit for most of its career and has looked like a sheer force of

nature that ultimately led me to put him uh one spot over tommy aspinall i do think tom aspinall should be ahead of maguenacolaev um but he's one spot behind him in our rankings and that's frankly to be expected because people in pound for pound rankings historically heavyweights rarely get like a ton of credit because they're heavy weights. I've made the case in various previous rankings pods actually where it's just like okay if Tom Aspinall can't be higher I don't know what you expect he's literally doing he's killing everyone in less than a minute so you're just saying you can't rank heavyweights highly and I disagree with that fundamentally, but not all members of the panel agree.

And ultimately, him being one spot behind Angolaev's not bad. I like the rest of our top 10. I do think Drickish probably should still be in the top 10, but he's 11, so it's fine. Yeah, this is kind of a tough one for me because especially looking at everybody's pound for power rankings now, there's a couple people at Shami if at 8, some at 6. five seems to be I think two people at him at five I'm comfortable with any of that yeah I had him at three I put Hamz out of three I had him over Marab but I also had DDP over Marab prior to the fight and I'm less okay with that but I get it yeah DDP was there in multiple

title defenses the names he was finishing incredible like the run he was on I wanted to give that man the credit he deserved and Marab was right there and these are real tough like I think that was your top five I think Islam, Ilya is pretty much undeniable. I mean, if you want to give pants as flowers, totally understand that as well. And Marabs look good. But this is one of those things, especially pound for pound. Marab goes out there and just whoops Corey Sanhagan's ass on October 4th.

He's going to jump Hamza up back into the number three spot. It's just one of those things right now. But just the way Hamzaat beat DDP. I know it's not the most thrilling thing in the world, and it's not going to be fight of the year or anything of that nature. Like, DDP had nothing for this guy. and it's just really, really stunning to see. So I'm giving Hamzaat that respect at least for now,

but if Maraub beats Corey Sanhagan and does so impressively, he'll jump back over. And there you go. I mean, Casey has, there's, there's people who just have the top five kind of all over the place. I see some people who have Angoliath in the top five. I have Ankleife at number nine. I have Aspedal three spots above Ankelyfe. And I would love to put Aspenol in the top five,

but I just can't put them over Pantosia. or any of these other guys. So it's an interesting time right now. And then DDP dropped a whole bunch, Jed. You said he should be in the top 10. Some people have him down to 15. I dropped him to 13. That's where I ended up with.

A lot of 12s. He's kind of all over the place. But still, it's to be dominated like that and still be sort of in the top 12, pound for pound, that says a lot about his run. Because usually when champions lose their belts, unless it's like Alexander Volcanovsky or something like that. Like he'll fall, but not that far. Are you surprised he dropped all the way to 11 overall?

No, because I dropped him to 10. There's just too many names. And like, you know, he's basically behind every male champion who are above him. And then it's Volcanovsky and Pereira. And like Alex Pereira has obviously accomplished a lot in multiple weight classes. Volcanovsky was the number one pound for. guy for quite some time. Just reclaim the belt. That's the one I did not agree with because I have Volkanowski behind DDP, just because

Volk lost three fights, and DDP lost one. And to me, he lost one fight to a guy that is our number five pound for pound dude. I mean, you can make still the argument, Volk lost three fights to the numbers one and two guy, but three is just a lot of fights to lose, frankly. And so that's the one where I would quibble. Well, like, again, it's quibbling, right? 11 versus 12. Not a massive difference.

The one panelist who has DDP at 15. I would argue pretty strongly that that's poor form. And I, because, again, like, sure, he lost a fight, but, I mean, God love Armand Sarukian, who's a terrific fighter, and I certainly have ranked. If you believe Armand Sarukian's run is better than Drickus Du Plus he's run, we can't there's no common ground for us to even have a debate over like armin's run is fantastic drick is just beating four champions you know like these aren't the same thing and one loss as bad as that loss was shouldn't you know arm and he's this his panel's got armin at seven um that's

that's i think that that's pretty outrageous but you know small small things a big pick sure I think we've got this mostly right. Yeah, I would agree. But even the, and now middleway is just so interesting. Like, Shaheen and Al-Shadi and I, we predicted middleway would be just this fire division for years to come. And it's actually better than I could have been imagined right now with some of the contenders that we have. So just based on the middle way rank is obviously Hamasat Shamaif is number one. Drick's duplice drops number two. We have Nasrudein, Imova at three. Sean Strickland at four, Israel Adasanae at five. The biggest jumper, of all was

Ryan to Ritter Jetty. He jumps four spots from number 10 to number six, which means Kyle Bajalio, Robert Whitaker, and Anthony Hernandez who may have had the best performance in all of MMA this year, actually drops a spot to number nine. We have a couple of newcomers.

Michael Venom Page is in at number 10. Costello von Vienis, the PFL middleweight champion, enters the rankings in number 13. Biggest drop was Johnny Eblen, dropped six spots. I actually believe I took Johnny completely out of the rankings, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

But let's talk about the brass tank. You did not. He's at 15. You did the same thing I did. I dropped him to 15. There's just nobody else to really put in front of him at that point. And he's like, yeah, you kind of have to keep him in there. But maybe he gets his rematch, but I don't think he's going to.

I think he's going to have to watch Fabian Edwards fight for the belt before that can happen. But the UFC middleweight division, Jed, we got four horses currently vise. for that spot. And you know what? Maybe we could throw a trickus duplicy in there because he could just be a win away. Who knows when he's going to fight or who he's going to fight. So, you know, maybe we'll take DDP out of the equation right now.

We have Nasrede and Imovov getting ready to fight Kyle Baha'alio. That is the main event next Saturday at UFC Paris. Massive fight. Timing for that couldn't be more perfect. And then Dana White announces last week that the main event for UFC Vancouver, October 18th, will be your boy, Ryan DeRitter, taking on Anthony Fluffy Hernandez,

just a massive, massive fight at 185 pounds. And Dana basically said this is going to be a four horse race, two fights, whoever blows the doors off better than the rest, they are going to fight Humsat Shemayev next, probably in 2026. So based on what you view an MMA, and based on what you think would be the most interesting,

even just looking at how the, betting lines would perceive things between nassadini mavov kail bohahlio r d r anthony anthony fluffy hernandez rank in order from one to four the most interesting to the least interesting challenges for hamzaa shimai if should they fight him next so this is a little tricky because i'm going to give you my ranking based on today them not fighting but this is one of the times I actually really love what the UFC has done because I think that this is

I think they've done it perfectly right we talked about this before I didn't think that this is where we'd be I thought that they would just sort of kind of see how they felt and whoever said yes would get the Chimaev fight but they've done it right whereas we already had the Baha'o Imov fight

the winner of that incredibly deserving and the winner of this already our fluffy fight will also be incredibly deserving and legitimately the one I will be the most interested to watch Challenge Chameh, whoever looks the best in those two fights. Like if Kaaba Hayao goes out there and kills Nasserine and I'm even if I'm pretty interested in the Chimov fight. Same for Fluffy or RDR or Yemov for that matter.

And so, you know, that this, my, these rankings might look incredibly different if you ask me in November after all the, all the chips have fallen and I'd be like how this will go. But if I'm going to go right now, I have already talked myself into Reiner de Ritter beating Hamzaa Shmaev, and so he asked him in number one. I understand how that might fail, but I also oddly feel like Riner DeRitter maybe just has a sort of style that will be a problem for Shemayev. What with the knees to the body, his defensive grappling is just obviously light years better than Dracus Duplice's.

And like, you know, we've seen Chimayev, you know, didn't want to engage too much with Gilbert Burns in the grappling in that respect. And I think that of these guys, RDR is the guy to bring the most defensive grappling to the table. And maybe that makes Chimaiov go back to his

like power punching knockout style, which he could totally lamp RDR with. But maybe eats a bunch of knees to the belly and suddenly, suddenly Chimayev's gag. gas tank, which we still think is a little questionable, RDR's there. So give me RDR number one. Fluffy is my number two, just because I'm sure that you will have Fluffy as your number one. I don't really like Fluffy's chances, frankly, against Jemayev. But as I've said before,

he has a superpower, and sometimes that's all you need, right? If he can make this a cardio competition and survive grappling with Hamzot early, then he'll just still be, the same hard, hard grinding dude for 25. And we've seen Marab Valshvili beat fighters that I think are technically superior to him because he can just make him work. And so Fluffy can do that. I always really like Cabahio. And so I'll put him over Imov.

Imov, you know, the dark horse of this entire division, so probably just that I have him ranked as number four in this little thing of ours. Yeah, I think it's It's Fluffy number one And I just want to preface this by saying I think Hamzat's going to roll over all four of these guys But I do think Fluffy has Mostly because of what you just said

He has the best chance of beating Hamzat Shamaif I think So I'll go Fluffy one I will go I'll go Bhalio 2 I think I don't know why But there's just something about Kyle Baha'a Where I just completely overlook him Is that fighting nerds?

bro. Yeah, he just, he just gets it done. And if he wants to mess around, just strike with you, he'll still win. Like, it may not be the smartest game plan, but he still finds way to win, ways to win all these fights. I'll go RDR3 just because of his size and he can't grapple. And I just think it would be really, I don't know, funny is the right word, but seeing him try to mash up. It's always funny. RDR fighting is always funny. It's super funny. And plus if RDR loses the fluffy, we're almost guaranteed RDR DDP. and I love that oh so much. And then I'll go Yimov number four.

But, you know, Permanian disrespect of Nasardini Mavov. Yeah, our number three middleweight. Because I don't know if he's going to beat Kayao, man. I don't know. But again, like you said, prefacing it earlier, Nasradi might just go out and just beat the shit of Kaya Bahalio, and then we might have a completely different conversation

in a week and a half. It's going to be great. He's going to club Bahaio out. He's going to beat Hamzot, and everyone's just going to be like, I don't really know if this is this. guy that's just i don't know the just for whatever reason he's got that sort of face i guess where nobody respects him because i don't i'm not this is not me trying to tell you all like i did you should respect ddp it's like i'm right on board with you i'm disrespecting this guy too and

maybe we're all just going to look real dumb casey will have natserdine imovovus is number one pound for pound fighter if that happens with a bullet the rest of us will have imov rank like number three at middleweight if he's the champion. So that's just, that's just it, but probably not. But middleweight is just fun, man. It is just a fun division. The next couple of months are going to be really, really interesting. I cannot wait to see what Fluffy versus RDR looks like. I have my own theory on how that fight's going to look, but I could be dead wrong. And I'm just looking, oh, so forward to seeing how this all plays out. So let's, let's continue on here. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for

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Black Friday. IKEA. Bring home to life. Two more quick topics before we get out of here. First of all, let's talk about Brian Orteca, because coming out of UFC Shanghai, I think he's probably the most interesting case on this entire card because just kind of looking at where we had the featherweight rankings heading out of UFC 319.

Where are the heck? Brian Ortega's ranked number four in our rankings, which I'm actually pretty stunned to see him that high. Al Jermaine Sterling was ranked number nine. Sterling. He's going to plummet. Oh, yeah. He, well, and that's what this topic's all about, because Brian Ortega, another horrific weight cut. He's unable to make the featherweight limit. This fight has to be contested in a catchweight of 153 pounds. And right now, his future

is so unknown, whether or not he is going to be a featherweight, if he's going to move lightweight, or if the UFC is just going to cut bait with him altogether. So, if our fearless leader, Alexander Kay Lee came back from vacation today and said, hey, I want a rankings updated featherweight after what just happened at UFC Shanghai. What are you doing, Brian Ortega? Is he out of your rankings? Is he no longer a featherweight in your eyes? Are you going to have to wait and see what the UFC does with him before you make that choice? Like, how are you moving forward if AK says do this right now?

I tried to cut him. I tried to drop him out of featherweight already. And AK literally did not let me do it. when Ortega was like, I'm no longer fighting at featherweight, I'm moving up, and then he had like, did the blown weight Diego Lopez thing.

Like I literally pulled him from my rankings and AK sent me an angry message. And he was like, yeah, you can't do this. I'm putting him back in. So, like,

if I had my druthers, yeah, because he's not a feather weight. Like he says he doesn't want to be it. He's barely making weight now as it is. Um, and he just makes it all weird. It's weird that he is our number.

number four ranked featherweight. And he is basically because he beat Iyer Rodriguez and good for him. But like, like that's a good win. But his whole career has been super weird, especially the last few years. And it, it's kind of just indicative of what featherweight is.

Like, look at the featherweight rankings from our last thing. Like, I know these would change some. Aaron Pico probably falls out entirely. But it's all just like, it's super weird in part because the champion left. And so like,

you know, Okunovsky's here, but also Max Holloway left, and it's, Evoev can't get his title fight for whatever reason. It is a weird mishmash of bodies in the featherweight rankings. And so if I'm not allowed to cut Ortego, which I would choose to do, but I don't believe I would be allowed to, he would drop pretty substantially because, like, yeah, you're Rodriguez should also be dropped pretty substantially. Yeah, you're, as a Josh Emmett win and a pit bull win, but like, guys like,

mean, Sterling, Laurel Murphy, Jean-Silva, like, they're winning more meaningful fights recently and probably should be rewarded for that.

And so, um, that's like probably what I would do. But I mean, that performance was so bad for Mortega that if you want to hold him in the top 15 because of past accomplishments,

okay. But like, he should probably not be a top 10 fighter because that was so bad. Yeah. He, I probably put him at 10. Maybe, I don't know. It's real weird because, like, Yair, Arnold Allen and Ortega are like this like triumvirate of weirdos because Arnold never fights.

Yeah, year fights like once every other year. Like he just, he basically just fights like no chase or whatever. And Brian Ortega has kind of been booked to fight, but then wasn't and then tried to go lightweight and has blown weight a bunch. So the three of them who are four, five, and six at the most recent update are like, I don't know. They're entirely there from legacy and not from like recent accomplishment, frankly. And so it's just a whole, it's super weird. I think my featherweight rankings when we redo them, those three are going to get dumped just because they're not, they're not contributing to the weight class. I mean, Yair does have what, two straight wins?

Uh, is it two? Oh, no, he lost Ortega. I'd say it's, it's Pitbull. Yeah, but he lost Ortega before that. He stunted up Pitbull pretty good. That fight is not competitive at all. Yeah, he had the two wins when he got the Volk fight, Ortega and Emmett wins. And, you know, Emmett, good win, right, for the interim championship.

Like, that's a good win. Uh, he got dummied by Volk. Got kind of dummied by Ortega in the rematch, frankly. And then he beat Pitbull who, God love Pitbull. you know, a terrific legacy. Not sure anyone thinks Pip, like, Pipple's hanging around the top 15 because of what he's previously accomplished. There are probably 20 feather weights I'd pick over Pipple

and a fight with them right now. Oh, 100%. I'm with you on that. And so, like, that's why featherweight's weird, man, because you've got guys like Pipple, like Pipple, Allen, Ortega Rodriguez. They have, the idea of them is much better than the actual, like, product because for half of them, don't even fight. like that much. So it's, it's super weird right now.

Yeah. Updated featherweight rankings, Laurel Murphy jumps up from number nine to number seven. John Silva drops to number eight. Sterling dropped to number nine, but that's obviously going to change. Josh Emmett goes up to one. Patricia Pitbull goes up a spot to number 11. Josh has a 10, excuse me. Aaron Pigo's still in the rankings. Only drop two spots. That's fucking crazy to me. I took him out of my rankings altogether. I know I left him at 15. I just, he's got to get a win, man. He does not have, he was out. He stayed fairly high in several people's rankings, which was insane.

Surprising. Very surprising. And I think honestly, like, he should have been. It was surprising from one of these people, but two of these people left Pico very high in their rankings. If he did not fight at UFC 319, he would have been out of the rankings altogether due to inactivity. And his late, his recent win was against Henry Corrie. Corrales who rolled off the couch and flew to freaking Saudi Arabia on 72 hours notice. I hate this.

He was in the rankings exclusively because of what we think he might be, not of what he has accomplished. And he does not have a relevant win. He does not have a relevant win. It's so, it's so tough, man, like, because he's so frigging good. And he could be the best, he could be the best fighter we've ever seen. It could be. He could be that guy. but like his career is just so bizarre.

I just can't rank him right now. I can't rank him over Steve Garcia. I can't rank him over Yusuf Zalal or Movlaqqqqqqqqqqqqq. I don't even think I have Kabulov ranked in my rankings right now. And yet David Onama, A.J. McKee, like I wouldn't rank peak over either of those guys right now. So like, wow, you don't have Kabbalai. That is true. Wow.

I'm at six. He would be like number 16. Um, Onama has won a lot of fights in a row. and he's got like good relevant wins. And Kabulav's like right there. So if I could rank two guys at 15, that's probably where I would have them.

But again, Brian Ortega is about to drop out. I might just drop Ortega out of the rankings and just put Kabbalov in there. Oh, don't worry. A.K.O. Yelly you. again, I've tried.

Well, yeah. Our featherweight, our featherweight, my featherweight rankings are due for an overhaul. But I am afraid to keep talking about Aaron Pico because some people from a particular gym might spend a full week,

blowing up my Instagram because of an opinion that I hold. Yeah. By the way, I went back and re-listen to that. There's not a disrespectful thing said in that entire slander is what it was, Mike. It was slander. Absolutely.

And someone asked a question that actually like stop the conversation. It was like, who was in the corner at UFC 319? And then everyone just stopped commenting. Isn't that fun? Isn't that fun of that all works out? But it's just a suggestion. It's just a suggestion.

It's all good. Hey, we said that about Johnny Walker and look what happened to Johnny Walker. People were like, to be fair, when I said Johnny Walker should change gyms, I was pretty unequivocal that his gym was shit. Yeah, that's not. I did not say those words about Jackson's wink. I just said he should maybe try a new look because sometimes that's what you need. You know, not to discredit a gym. For SBG, I was like, SBG is a bad gym and you should not.

go to it. Why didn't you say that about Patchy Mix? Because Patchy Mix is a world champion has relevant wins. And he took that fight on relatively short notice. So like, I mean, I don't, that I won't even like equate into it because when you come in, you talk all the shit that patch you did, you deserve the fall, the fallback from that. But at least he has relevant wins. That you makes a lot of very good wins. So yeah, but that's neither here nor there. That's a different conversation. And look, if we've, we've said stuff about coaches and other gyms, you want to know what usually happens, you get a phone call, you talk it out, you deal with it, and then you move on. But some people like to just create extra accounts just so they could comment and get the

percentages in their favor, because if you look at the comments, not a lot of people on that side of the friends. Nobody's ever talking me off a take. I don't know if y'all are new here. When I say a take, I'm dying on that hill, baby. Yeah, it's never going to happen. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Carroll, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like glass animals.

I guess that was the idea was to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus. Last thing I want to discuss real quick before you get out of here. It is August. We are knocking on the door of September, Jed.

We're approaching Labor Day weekend. So this, what, Monday is going to be September 1st, which means we are. approaching Q4 of 2025, the last queue of the ESPN, UFC pay-per-view era Jed. So kind of just like looking at the rankings, maybe guys who are currently ranked, maybe fighters who are currently outside of your rankings. One fighter you have your eye on that can make a serious move before this year is over. I mean, serious move is, it's always going to be an interesting question. Because, like, you could make a really strong argument, right?

That the middle weights we already talked about, right? That the triumvirate. If RDR or Fluffy gets like a huge win, I imagine both of them who, like, Fluffy's nine, RDR six in our rankings, if one of them just absolutely runs rough shot over the other, they're probably moving up to like two. or three in our rankings. That's a, if you're fluffy, that's a huge move. But in the spirit of this being, you know, a little bit more,

we're looking for somebody to make a much bigger leap than sort of mid-tier to actual title contender. I was looking around and basically I focused on a couple of weight classes to be like, what are the weight classes where it seems like things are bad functionally. And so, like, there's just a lot of mid-tier dudes. I think featherweight, as we talked about, there's, like, a lot of opportunity for one big win to get you somewhere.

You know, Jean Silva could suddenly be, like, the number two dude in, like, a month. But what I was looking at is welterweight. Because welterweight is tricky in that, like, the very top has a lot going on that's really good. right you've got Shavcott you've got Sean Brady but you've got guys like Kamah Usman hold in the number five spot

Leon Edwards and they're going to have to fight back at this point in time and Carlos Prattis feels like he is on the cusp and because of the IMG like maybe it's Carlos Prattis that gets up there Mike like maybe he just throws one hell of a win

and suddenly he is right in the mix So I think that's where I'm going to go. It's Carlos Prattis moves from like our number 11 guy into the top five because he fights all the time and he's calling for big names and the UFC seems to love him. And so I think he's going to get that if it's a Kamar Uzman, whatever it ends up being.

I think he'll get that and then he might be a top five guy by the end of the year. I love that pick. I think that's a great pick. I went with sort of the same mentality. I think most people, if you had to take three guesses of where I was going with this, you'll probably get a right. I think most of you think I'm probably going to go with Fluffy Hernandez, but I can't rank him higher.

I cannot possibly rank him higher than I have him right now. I think I'm at five. I can't, like, even if he meets RDR, maybe I bump up like one spot. I just don't know how much higher I can put him right now without fighting. He beats RDR. He'll be my number three. Yeah, so maybe he gets up there. So it's not a big leap for me at this point. I went immediately to 205 because I just,

feel like that is it is two oh five is it is a very tough division there's a couple of big matchups coming up at two oh five and i just true i choose to believe in a couple of things oh my god are you about to do it are you about to do it one fight obviously very as a member of kanoff can make a big move if he goes out in nukes alexander rackett which is probably going to do you have c321 but it's only moving up a couple of spots in our rankings rackage is our number eight versus conalves 11 yeah i have 11 i have rackets eight so but it's dominic grayis it's dominic grais he is the guy he's currently tied for knife overall in our rankings uh i have him at 10 currently if he beats carlos oldberg and boy

this division needs that to happen uh he will be he might go to number three i might bump him up to three. I don't know. I mean, of course we get Yuri and Roundtree. He can't go to three. He can't put him above Encliffe Pahetta or Yeri. Can't do it. Yeri is coming off of multiple knockout losses. Yuri killed him. Yeah, but Yuri also killed Ray. That's true. I try to forget. I try to get it. But he can probably go above Roundtree, though.

He could definitely go above Roundtree. Like, for sure. Like, I could put him at four and I'd be comfortable with that. Like, if he beats all over five. That's Still, Dominic Grace, Hedrich. And that's great, but he can't go above Yeri. There's just no way you can sell me on that. That was my knockout of the year. I think I was the only one to pick that one. That was also my fight of the year.

I would say that was a fight of the year contender. It was insane. He was winning until he didn't. It was one of the scariest knockouts ever. It was nutty. I thought. I thought you were going to do it. The thing you talked, we talked about on Otno that you talked about on the post show.

I thought you were going to be like, Johnny Walker's going to get Jan Belhovic, and he's going to go from 15 to 6. So I do think he's going to get that. I just don't think he's going to get it this year. I don't think I fight happens. Very possible. So, I mean, Walker just headlined. He's not the most active cat in the world, and we know Jan Belhovic isn't a guy who's going to fight multiple times a year that often. Maybe December we get that?

I don't know. But, yeah, I'm going with Dominic Reyes. At least we know he has a big fight booked. And if he wins this fight, I think you just give him a title fight. I think you just give it to him. And what a story that would be. So those are our picks. There's obviously other low-key answers.

You can let us know what you think. Derek Lewis, always at risk. Oh, that would be a top five heavyweight. That's a great. These are the ones I was thinking. I was like, that's too much of them. Like he's not going to have a fight that's going to get him there. Unfortunately, like, hey, I'll tell you one right now, actually.

this news literally broke immediately before we did this. Tracy Cortez is getting Aaron Blanchfield. If Cortez wins that, I don't think she's going to. But she's 14 in our rankings. She wins that. She's going to be top five. That's very true. It's very true.

She's not going to win that, but if she does. She did it before. She did it before. Maybe it, you know, you have to win the judge. She did. Technically, she did win it before. Yes, technically she did win. So that's someone to keep it.

eye on as well. So that's it. We, uh, we did our part. It is not your typical hour and 30 minute ranking show that we normally do. But honestly, if you just looked at what we're, what we've had to do the last couple days, uh, we got vacations coming up. 36 minutes is a lot of minutes, if we're being honest with you. So we, we are troops without a leader, you know, this is, this is why, this is why back in the olden days, you weren't supposed to, uh, target the, the, the, the lieutenants and the captains, because then you just have aimless troops out there, and there's no direction.

And that's us. Without Alexander K. Lee, we have no purpose, and we have no compass, no guiding light, and we're just doing the best we can. Yes, so enjoy this, and a better produced,

better organized, more functioning ranking show will return later on down the line once AK returns to action from his vacation. But until then, everybody, for Jen Bichu, I am Mike Eck. No UFC this week. It's on to Misfits' Boxing and then it's on to UFC Paris next weekend.

We will see you then. Thank you for listening to the August edition of the M.A. Fighting Rankings Show. I'll feel all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrance Suts. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Holtz Holiday Shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com.

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