There are times when UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis looks like an oversized toddler running downhill while throwing punches at whoever is backpedaling to get the hell out of his way. That’s when he’s most dangerous.
We saw it again at UFC 305 on Saturday night at the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia, as Du Plessis defended his 185-pound title against his greatest rival, Israel Adesanya. Du Plessis would lunge forward at Izzy throughout the fight, landing long, straight, jousting-style punches, as he did with Robert Whittaker and Derek Brunson. That can be hard to defend, as every middleweight who’s stood in against the South African has rudely found out.
As far as UFC main events go, it was a good one. Adesanya began to dial in and piece Du Plessis up from the third round on, yet after getting caught with a couple of wild punches along the fence, he was in full retreat. Moments later, he was tapping out to Du Plessis, who tried to crank Adesanya’s head off his shoulders. That’s how fast it happens against Du Plessis.
And just like that, the fight went from “and new” to “and still …,” as in, Du Plessis is still the middleweight champ.
With the victory, he cracks the top 10 of this month’s pound-for-pound rankings. The panel of Chuck Mindenhall, Petesy Carroll, and fearless Ringer MMA Show producer Troy Farkas have ranked both the men’s and women’s P4P best, one through 10.
Our only criterion for these monthly rankings is that a fighter has competed within at least a calendar year of the publication date, or has at least had a fight booked within that window. If a fighter hasn’t competed in a year and books a fight after that time, he or she is once again eligible to be voted back in.
Fighters who retire are no longer eligible for the rankings.
Though most of the best fighters are currently in the UFC, these rankings are not UFC exclusive. We take into consideration all the major promotions, from the Bellator/PFL conglomerate to ONE Championship.
Without further ado, the Ringer MMA P4P Rankings for August.
Men’s Pound-for-Pound Rankings
1. Alex Pereira
UFC Light Heavyweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 1
After stepping in to save UFC 300 and UFC 303 with knockouts of Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochazka, respectively, Poatan said he’d like to take a little time off. How much time is a little? A couple of months. Dana White announced this past week that Pereira will face Khalil Rountree in the main event of UFC 307, which will take place in Salt Lake City in October. Pereira’s meteoric rise in the UFC has been fascinating to watch, but the fact that he’s averaging three fights a year since coming to the UFC is truly astonishing given the ever-heightening magnitude of the bouts.
2. Islam Makhachev
UFC Lightweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 2
It’s looking more and more like a 2025 return for Makhachev, who suffered a hand injury in his last fight with Dustin Poirier. The UFC had hoped to book Makhachev at UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi this fall against Arman Tsarukyan, but with Islam unable to go, Ilia Topuria is now taking on Max Holloway. The rematch with Tsarukyan will keep until then, but it’s still a bummer. For one thing, Makhachev defended his title only once in 2024, which means the UFC’s lightweight division has slowed to a crawl as contenders try to keep themselves busy.
3. Tom Aspinall
UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 3
Here’s guessing that interim heavyweight champ Aspinall will spend a few days enjoying a lovely autumn in New York as the UFC returns to Madison Square Garden on November 16. No, he (likely) won’t be fighting, but he can perform admirably in his understudy role, available to jump in if either Jon Jones or Stipe Miocic falls out of their highly anticipated title bout. Aspinall is in a good place right now, as most of the fight public views him as the best heavyweight going. Then again, if you believe Dana White, so long as Jones is alive and breathing, there’s only one pound-for-pound king. Ahem ...
4. Jon Jones
UFC Heavyweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 4
OK, OK, we get it—Jones hasn’t really lost a single fight in his 16-year UFC career, which is an unassailable statistic. Of course, we’ve seen so much with Jones over the years that things get extremely complicated when discussing his MMA GOAT-dom. There are the failed drug tests, the disqualification loss to Matt Hamill early in his career, and the gifted victory he received versus Dominick Reyes, to go along with those times he appeared in an orange jumpsuit and slammed his head into a police car. Will the public come around to Dana’s insistence that he is the greatest combat athlete that has ever lived if he beats Miocic? Remains to be seen, but as long as Aspinall is alive and breathing, there’s still work to do.
5. Ilia Topuria
UFC Featherweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 5
Originally, Topuria was hoping for a fight at Sphere in Las Vegas to close out an already magical year in which he laid claim to the 145-pound title, but the UFC had other plans. Now that he’s been redirected to Abu Dhabi to fight Max Holloway at UFC 308, he can focus on the next goal—bringing the title back to Spain in 2025 for a fight at the Santiago Bernabéu. Of course, first things first. Beating BMF champion Holloway is no easy chore. In fact, since 2013, leaving the losses against Alexander Volkanovski out of it, Max has gone a perfect 19-0 in the featherweight division. Topuria has his work cut out for him.
6. Belal Muhammad
UFC Welterweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 6
The UFC doesn’t seem overly keen on giving Leon Edwards a rematch against the new welterweight champ, and that’s probably a good thing. With names like Shavkat Rakhmonov, Ian Machado Garry, Jack Della Maddalena, Sean Brady, and even Kamaru Usman queuing up in the ranks, there’s no shortage of new blood coming for Belal’s title. For now, though? That victory lap is a sweet one for a guy who has been so neglected from a marketing standpoint—and so overlooked in general—that his nickname doubles as a plea: “Remember the Name.”
7. Sean O’Malley
UFC Bantamweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 7
O’Malley’s second title defense is a doozy. He’ll go head-to-head with Merab Dvalishvili, a frenetic beast who never tires and has made a pastime of crushing the willpower out of people at 135 pounds. What? Suga worry? Nah. He likes his chances in the matchup the way a sniper likes their chances from a bell tower. So long as O’Malley can keep the range, he thinks he can control the fight and punish any fits of aggression. It’s a fascinating stylistic matchup, and the fact that it’s happening at Sphere in Vegas, with a fully immersive hallucinatory experience going on all around them—well, this promises to be one hell of a trip.
8. Dricus Du Plessis
UFC Middleweight Champion
Previous ranking: n/a
Nobody really saw Du Plessis coming, yet all he does is win. When the UFC booked him against Robert Whittaker last summer, it was roundly thought that he would be overmatched and humbled. Du Plessis won via a second-round TKO. When he fought the newly crowned champion, Sean Strickland, there was a lot of talk about how Du Plessis’s fast-break approach to offense would do him in. Du Plessis prevailed again, this time to win the middleweight title. Now he goes and overthrows the former champ Izzy Adesanya, showcasing his grit and mettle as well as his heart, and people like Alex Pereira are calling him out. What an interesting ride it’s been for South Africa’s own!
9. Alexander Volkanovski
Former UFC Featherweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 8
Well, the UFC visited Australia, and it didn’t ask Volkanovski to participate. Probably hurt Volk to be on the sidelines while so many of his countrymen were competing on home soil. But fear not—the time away is just what the doctor ordered for a guy who fought six times in high-profile fights in 22 months. Make no mistake, though—Volk will have a serious rooting interest at UFC 308 in October. Should Holloway reclaim the title against Topuria, Volk will be ready to take him on, as he already has three victories against him. And here’s guessing that Holloway would be up for a fourth encounter just to get that fact off his conscience.
10. Max Holloway
UFC Featherweight Contender, BMF Champion
Previous ranking: no. 10
It took a perfect storm for Holloway to achieve new levels of cult status in the UFC. Topuria beat the bane of Max’s existence, Volkanovski, to clear a path back to the title, and then Max stood in with Justin Gaethje for five rounds to establish himself as the baddest motherfucker on the planet. That Gaethje knockout was one for the ages, putting Holloway in the running for Comeback Fighter of the Year. Will the fight gods continue favoring the Hawaiian legend as he rolls into his title showdown with Topuria at UFC 308?
Others receiving votes: Leon Edwards, Merab Dvalishvili
Voting Results
Women’s Pound-for-Pound Rankings
1. Zhang Weili
UFC Strawweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 1
We’ve seen so little of Zhang over the last couple of years that we tend to forget how good she really is. Though Yan Xiaonan had some moments against Zhang at UFC 300, there was never any real danger for China’s breakthrough star. A slew of women’s fights were announced over the last couple of weeks, and the one conspicuous omission was Zhang’s next title defense, which the fight public is hoping (and praying) will be against the undefeated Tatiana Suarez.
2. Valentina Shevchenko
Former UFC Flyweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 2
Shevchenko gets her chance to avenge the controversial scorecards from last year in Vegas with a trilogy fight against Alexa Grasso, and it’s about damn time. As this will be a Mexican Independence Day–themed celebration on September 14 at Sphere—“the greatest sporting event of all time,” to hear Dana White say it—Shevchenko will effectively be there to ruin the party. That’s a good role for her. She has always carried herself like a James Bond villain.
3. Alexa Grasso
UFC Flyweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 3
At this point, Grasso has heard all about the gift she received from the judges last year in retaining her belt, when the sporting (and betting) public thought she lost. Soon, she can put all that behind her when she goes face-to-face with Shevchenko one final time to settle the score. It says something that Grasso is the only Mexican fighter battling for a title on Noche UFC, the UFC’s big night celebrating Mexican Independence Day. It also says something that in terms of programming, she’s going head-to-head with Canelo Álvarez, whose unified world title bout against Edgar Berlanga will take place that same night. What does it say, exactly? The UFC sees Grasso as capable of big things.
4. Cris Cyborg
Bellator Featherweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 4
Finally! The PFL announced that the 39-year-old Cyborg will face off against Larissa Pacheco on October 19 in what is being dubbed the “Battle of the Giants.” This was the fight to make, and it’s a great pairing with Francis Ngannou’s promotional debut against Renan Ferreira in a heavyweight showdown. Cyborg’s achievements throughout her career are second to none, yet there’s always a small asterisk next to her name because she hasn’t consistently faced off with the best competition (in part because she’s a natural featherweight, which is on the upper extreme for women’s weight divisions). This fight with Pacheco is a whopper, perhaps the hardest test for Cyborg outside of her showdown with Amanda Nunes.
5. Tatiana Suarez
UFC Strawweight Contender
Previous ranking: no. 5
Let’s all hold hands and say it together, hoping it reaches the celestial bodies governing above. “Please let that title fight happen against Zhang Weili. Please let it happen.” Currently, Suarez is hovering in that space of great “what ifs” alongside the likes of Zabit Magomedsharipov and TJ Grant, names that looked destined for titles (or at least title shots) yet disappeared before getting there. Suarez has had the look of a champion for years. It’s time to find out once and for all if she is one.
6. Manon Fiorot
UFC Flyweight Contender
Previous ranking: no. 6A
Being the official “backup” fighter for a big event like UFC 306 isn’t exactly the most glamorous gig, but when there’s a bottleneck situation like what’s going on at women’s flyweight, you take it. Fiorot will cut the weight and prepare to step in for Grasso or Shevchenko, should one of them get hurt, and you’d like to think that going through that quiet battle would at least ensure her the chance to fight the winner. Worst-case scenario, Fiorot gets to spend a night cageside at Sphere as a special guest of the UFC.
7. Kayla Harrison
UFC Bantamweight Contender
Previous ranking: no. 6B
Salt Lake City for UFC 307, huh? So be it! Harrison will take whatever the UFC throws her way. In this case, it’s Ketlen Vieira, a brave soul who apparently didn’t get spooked watching Harrison rag-doll Holly Holm at UFC 300. Vieira promises to put up a little more resistance than the 42-year-old Holm did, yet most think she is just a steak being slid under the door for a hungry contender biding her time while Raquel Pennington and Julianna Peña sort out the title that same night.
8. Raquel Pennington
UFC Bantamweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 8
Listen, that trip to Utah in October will be a daunting adventure. Not only will Pennington stand opposite Peña in her first bantamweight title defense, but the looming presence of Harrison will be there as an ominous reminder that rewards for winning come with cautionary labels. Not that anything will get to Rocky, who has persevered like nobody’s business through many years in the UFC. She currently finds herself on a six-fight winning streak. If anybody is equipped to keep defying the odds, it’s Rocky.
9. Erin Blanchfield
UFC Flyweight Contender
Previous ranking: no. 9
Losing always hurts, but for a 25-year-old warrior like Blanchfield, it also helps. Things didn’t go as she hoped they would against Fiorot, who dealt Blanchfield only her second pro loss, but it was a lesson in making sure to always have a plan B. We’ll find out just how much her resolve has been strengthened on November 2, when she steps back into the octagon against Rose Namajunas. The fight will take place in Edmonton, Canada, which is an arbitrary setting for a main event, but here’s guessing that will come as a relief after the New Jersey native was faced with getting so many tickets for friends and family for her homecoming fight in Atlantic City.
10. Larissa Pacheco
2023 PFL Featherweight Champion
Previous ranking: no. 10
Guess what? Nobody has ever beaten both Harrison and Cyborg, which is what Pacheco can accomplish come October in Saudi Arabia. Would a victory over Cyborg raise her profile in the ranks of women’s MMA? Like a beautiful Roman candle. Pacheco is just entering her prime at 29 years old and riding a 10-fight win streak; if she gets by Cyborg, the PFL can make a claim that they have the best women’s fighter in the world strutting around under their banner.
Others receiving votes: Rose Namajunas, Yan Xiaonan
