UFC CEO Dana White is seemingly done with the UFC rankings. Well not the rankings themselves, but how they are decided. As you know the UFC’s rankings are determined by a jury made up of media members who cast individual votes that are then tallied up and aggregated to come up with the final rankings. But the cyclic blunders in framing an errorless list have largely loomed over the UFC in recent times.

And so incensed was Dana White at Khalil Rountree Jr. not improving his rankings despite a heroic performance against Alex Pereira at UFC 307 earlier this month, that he has vowed to change the entire ranking system. But UFC commentator and former champion Daniel Cormier thinks Rountree Jr. despite giving a valiant performance against ‘Poatan’, ultimately lost quite comprehensively in the end. And because of this, the insider felt that the rankings were pretty fair.

“When talking about rankings there is no easy way to rank anything, especially fighting. One of the biggest issues Dana had with the rankings was Khalil Rountree staying where he was prior to the fight with Alex Pereira. Khalil fought a good fight, a really good fight. Khalil could potentially go up a spot or two in the rankings, yes. But Khalil lost that fight and didn’t beat anyone ahead of him. And so to play Devil’s Advocate, I don’t know the grounds at which he should have gone up much if anything because Pereira beat him,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel.

‘DC’ felt that even if the UFC were to take the rankings out of the media members’ hands, that still wouldn’t solve all the problems. In fact, Cormier predicted that whatever new system the UFC comes up with will only lead to new problems. Unless that is, the UFC gets experts to do the rankings.

“Khalil did really well… But at the end of the day, he still lost. So on what grounds are we really moving him up? Especially when the other guys didn’t really fight. I believe that when you change this and they will, it’ll lead to a different set of complaints from people… I think we got to just get the people in a position that knows what they’re talking about if we want those rankings to change for the better guys,” he added. But what is the new system that the UFC CEO is talking about?

Dana White reveals UFC will outsource rankings

Dana White has made it clear that if the rankings are taken out of the media members’ hands, the UFC will not be the one doing the rankings as there might be concerns about conflict of interest and bias. In fact, he feels that the rankings should go to an independent third party to ensure rankings are done fairly.

After all, #11 ranked lightweight Renato Moicano took great umbrage to his rankings being unchanged despite his recent spectacular victory over #12 Benoit Saint-Denis. Max Holloway, despite beating #3 Justin Gaethje, being ranked as low as #9 in the 155-pound division has also not gone down well with fans.

But perhaps the most memorable yet controversial rankings goof-up came to light in 2016 when Conor McGregor unseated Pound for Pound #1 Demetrious Johnson despite the latter already registering 8 title defenses in the flyweight division. It speaks a lot about the criteria with which fighters are ranked on this illustrious list.

At the moment, White has not given any details about the new system. But the head honcho will talk to people who have promised him a new and better system. Of course, the most important thing will be the criteria for rankings. Level of activity and level of opposition are likely to continue to be important parameters for the new rankings system too.

In addition, things such as finishes, activity during top control, and pressure will be good additions to the ranking criteria. What do you think about Daniel Cormier’s warning for Dana White regarding the planned UFC rankings overhaul?