Tony Ferguson Loses a Place in UFC Pound For Pound Rankings. But Why?

Tony Ferguson is undoubtedly the most dominant fighter in UFC who has not won an undisputed title. Ferguson is on a 13 fight win streak in one of the toughest divisions in UFC at the moment. He has even won an interim lightweight championship that he never lost to anybody. However, that is not good enough to maintain his position on the UFC pound for pound rankings. Ferguson lost his place to UFC middleweight champion, Robert Whittaker.

UFC Pound for Pound rankings remains a puzzle that is complex for a significant portion of MMA fans. What does the UFC consider while ranking a fighter on the pound for pound list? Is it the number of wins or win streak in UFC? Is it the number of the championship the fight has won? Is it the dominance the fighter shows inside the octagon? Or is it the skillsets that the fighter brings into the octagon irrespective of the weight division.

Now we did see a few other changes in the ranking as well. Valentina Shevchenko moved up by one place and the former lightweight champion, Conor McGregor loses his place.

This can be justified as Schevchanko has been dominating the whole division and she is probably in the argument for the best women fighter title at the moment in UFC. Also, Conor Mcgregor has been inactive since his last loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov. Before that fight, McGregor was inactive for more than 2 years. The last win McGregor had was in 2016. So it makes sense for Mcgregor to lose a spot in the rankings. However, similar can not be said about Tony Ferguson.

Tony Ferguson has fought twice in the past year against former champion, Anthony Pettis and Donald Cerrone. He dominated both of them to the point that the fights had to be stopped since his opponents could not continue to fight. On the other hand, Robert Whittaker has not competed in since his fight against Yoel Romero. He was scheduled to fight Kevin Gastelum, but that fight did not happen as Whittaker had to pull out due to a life-threatening injury. So how does it make sense that Whittaker is moving up in the rankings when he has not even competed in the last year.

UFC Pound For Pound

1. Jon Jones
2. Khabib Nurmagomedov
3. Henry Cejudo
4. Stipe Miocic
5. Amanda Nunes
6. Daniel Cormier
7. Max Holloway
8. Kamaru Usman
9. Robert Whittaker +1
10. Tony Ferguson -1
11. Valentina Shevchenko +1
12. Conor McGregor -1
13. Dustin Poirier
14. Israel Adesanya
15. Tyron Woodley

Tony Ferguson is most likely to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov for the lightweight championship. However, the fight has not been made official yet.