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Israel Adesanya showed he belongs among the top pound-for-pound fighters in MMA when he defended his UFC middleweight championship against a fellow top-10 fighter, ex-champ Robert Whittaker, and won a unanimous decision in the main event of UFC 271.
The problem for Adesanya, who was No. 2 in the ESPN rankings going into the bout, was that there was little opportunity for upward movement. The fighter ranked above him, UFC welterweight champ Kamaru Usman, wasn’t going anywhere. So Adesanya stayed put in the latest men’s rankings. He even fell one spot in the top 10s of two voters on the ESPN panel.
“Pound-for-pound rankings, you’re always splitting hairs,” Brett Okamoto said. “We’re talking about the very best handful of fighters on the planet. Obviously, there’s not much separation, and this list could change by the day. The reason I dropped Adesanya to No. 3 is not because I wasn’t impressed with him on Saturday; he fought another guy in my top 10 in Whittaker. But I was more impressed with Alexander Volkanovski’s last performance than this performance by Adesanya, so since I have them so close, I felt Volkanovski should get my nod.”
Whittaker, meanwhile, remains in the top 10 but slipped just a bit. Despite the loss, Whittaker’s performance was impressive enough that only one ESPN voter dropped him from his pound-for-pound top 10.
“It was nothing against Whittaker, really,” Jeff Wagenheim said. “I had him and Justin Gaethje pretty much neck and neck prior to UFC 271, and after Whittaker’s loss I flipped the order of those two. Whittaker would be my No. 11 if we weren’t restricted to a top 10.”
The women’s rankings remain unchanged, and with no one on the list officially scheduled for her next bout, we might not see change for a while.
Note: Results are current; rankings as of Feb. 16.
Men’s…
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Source : espn
