USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings, April 13: Big wins equal big moves all around

Pound For Pound Rankings

Already considered one of the greatest fighters of all-time, Jones said he wants to turn his attention to heavyweight and says he has no intention of returning to 205 pounds.

Adesanya rolled the dice in a move to light heavyweight but came up short against Jan Blachowicz and says he’ll now return to 185 pounds and prove his dominance as UFC champion.

After suffering the first knockout loss of his career, Johnson openly contemplated the idea of potentially competing in kickboxing next, which he could also do under the ONE Championship banner.

Ngannou claimed the UFC heavyweight title with a brilliant win over Stipe Miocic and is looking for a quick turnaround, targeting a summer date for his first title defense.

Miocic apologized for deviating from the gameplan against the dangerous Francis Ngannou, a mistake that cost him the UFC heavyweight title.

Bader was certainly disappointed to lose his Bellator champ-champ status, but he’s advancing in Bellator’s light heavyweight grand prix and may be able to win his 205-pound title back.

It wasn’t as convincing as the first time around, but Volkanovski picked up a second win over Max Holloway and says he wants to continue taking out top contenders.

Holloway delivered a record-breaking destruction of Calvin Kattar and now looks like he’ll get a chance to regain the UFC featherweight title later this year.

Already a two-division Bellator champion, Freire will look to add a grand prix title to his belt collection when he faces the undefeated A.J. McKee.

Khabib Nurmagomedov proved to be too much for Gaethje at UFC 254, but ‘The Highlight’ could very well get another title shot in the very near future.

Blachowicz realizes there are some that doubt his legitimacy as UFC champion, but his win over a previously undefeated Israel Adesanya went a long way toward silencing those critics.

Honorable Mentions

USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings, April 13: Big wins equal big moves all around

With UFC, Bellator and ONE Championship all in action this past week, there was some major moves made throughout the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings.

Starting with ONE on TNT I last Wednesday, Adriano Moraes retained his flyweight title with a second-round knockout of Demetrious Johnson. With that monumental victory, Moraes goes from being unranked to No. 8 in this week’s flyweight rankings, while Johnson drops from the top spot for the first time in a long time.

At Bellator 256 last Friday, Ryan Bader (light heavyweight), Cat Zingano (women’s featherweight) and Liz Carmouche (women’s flyweight) all made moves this week after scoring wins in their respective divisions last Friday.

To close things out at UFC on ABC 2 last Saturday, Marvin Vettori pushed his winning streak to five by defeating Kevin Holland at middleweight, while Mackenzie Dern made a statement about her strawweight contendership with a first-round submission of Nina Nunes.

Check out the dropdowns above to find out all the moves in this week’s rankings.

Ranking Criteria

The rankings take into account a fighter’s wins/losses, quality of competition, finishing rate/dominance and frequency of fights.

Fighters are no longer eligible to be ranked after they’ve been inactive for 24 months, either due to injuries, drug/conduct suspensions, contract disputes or self-imposed hiatuses.

Fighters serving drug/conduct suspensions are eligible to be ranked, so long as they’re not inactive for more than 24 months.

To the best of our ability, fighters will be ranked in their primary weight class. Catchweight fights and bouts outside the fighter’s primary weight class can have a positive or negative impact on the ranking. However, non-titleholders can be ranked in only one weight class at a given time, and in most cases, they won’t be ranked in a new weight class until they’ve had their first fight at that weight.

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