The UFC has a new rankings system in place. Since February 2013, a media voting panel has determined which fighters have a number next to their name. Starting on Monday, the Meta UFC Rankings will begin replacing the old system.
Meta designed the Elo rating system, a mathematical method used to calculate the relative skill of athletes, which began development in February 2025 with the intent to trade nuance for objectivity when ranking fighters within their division. The media rankings are not immediately obsolete. The UFC will continue to reference the media rankings while matchmaking, and other factors catch up to the new system. Both rankings will be publicly available, with the old system phasing out at a later date.
Ahead of the Meta UFC Rankings debut, CBS Sports was among a select few publications taking part in an hour-long Q&A to break down how the new system works. Here's everything you need to know about how the rankings will take shape in real time.
Winning is still the most important factor
Winning remains the most important condition for moving through a division. Numerous factors are taken into account under the hood, but who you beat carries the most weight.
"Did you win, and who do you beat effectively accounts for 95% of why someone is ranked," a UFC representative told CBS Sports during the limited media Q&A.
Generally, the media rankings reward a lower-ranked opponent who beats a higher-ranked opponent with that higher ranking. It's not a hard rule, but it is historically the tenor of how things play out. The new rankings function differently. A fighter will always move ahead of the opponent they beat, but how far they move is based on a broader analysis of the division. Narrow gaps between fighter ratings can spring bigger jumps.
For example, an eighth-ranked fighter might beat the seventh-ranked fighter in their weight class. The winning fighter could move up higher than No. 7 -- let's say to the No. 5 spot. If that happens, it's because the system assessed that the No. 7-ranked fighter was only incrementally behind No. 6 and No. 5. In theory, the winner proved to be better than several fighters who were neck-and-neck.
Finishes will apply a small bonus to fighter ratings; however, decisions -- no matter how dominant -- will not factor in. The argument against decision bonuses was the component of human error.
"A unanimous decision is better than a split decision," the rep argued. "I don't know. Who were the judges?"
Fight metrics, such as significant strikes or takedowns landed in a fight, also aren't considered. The designers told CBS Sports that they tinkered with it but ultimately found it ineffective for their purposes.
Activity and inactivity impact ranking
The new ranking system applies a bonus to active athletes. Fighters who compete more often will see their scores boosted.
"Create your velocity inside of weight class," the rep said. "We want to incentivize people who fight often."
The inverse has the opposite effect. Two more functions that impact a fighter's total rating are inactivity decay and legacy fight decay. Inactivity decay negatively impacts a fighter's ranking after 18 months without competition. Legacy fight decay penalizes the value of fights that are five years old, making them obsolete after 10 years.
"Inactivity is not a penalty," they continued. "It's a consequence."
Inactivity is one of the biggest problems facing the existing media rankings. A recent example involves now retired welterweight contender Colby Covington. His prime years netted him a high ranking, which he largely held onto by not competing. Decay is the new system's method for addressing that issue, with velocity playing a factor. Longer stretches of inactivity and older fights will be exponentially penalized.
"We don't want people coasting on reputation," the rep explained. "Nobody gets to hold their place in line because they beat somebody good..."
UFC determines fighter eligibility
The new system is indiscriminate towards inactivity. Injuries, pregnancies, division jumping and contract disputes are treated the same for fighter decay. A fighter could fall out of the top 15 from the impact inactivity has on their score, but how long they should remain eligible is subjective. UFC matchmakers will decide when a fighter loses ranking eligibility.
While UFC determines which divisions fighters competing in multiple weight classes are eligible for, the new model will factor in how to handle their ratings. A fighter competing in a new division will receive an adjusted score, based on their rating in their original division, with certain modifiers applied. From there, a fighter competing in multiple divisions is treated as different people. What happens in one division will not impact their score in another division.
Beyond eligibility, there will be no human intervention in the ranking process.
"There's no failsafe or emergency brake," the rep said.
Expect unexpected shake-ups
Monday morning was like Christmas Day for UFC athletes. Some received shiny new rankings, and others woke up ranked lower than when they fell asleep. This is a result of how the Meta UFC Ranking models have rated each fighter.
"The goal was not to try to take human rankings and redo them with math..." they explained. "The goal was to try and do something different, and ideally better. These are not going to look and work exactly like human-style rankings. That's not a weakness. You can decide if it's a strength or not when you see it -- but it's not a weakness, which is to say if things are different, that's intentional."
For example, one of the approximately 50 models tested had Melquizael Costa ranked ahead of Arnold Allen before their UFC Fight Night main event. Allen is ranked No. 7 in the current media rankings, while Costa sits at No. 13. The model assessed Costa's recent success and consistency more favorably than Allen's total body of work, which saw almost all his success come between 2015 and 2022.
The Meta UFC Rankings launched with the familiar top 15. The model has the information and capacity to extend beyond 15 in each weight class. The UFC, should they ever decide to, could expand the rankings beyond 15 in each division.
There's no pound-for-pound
The UFC media rankings include a pound-for-pound category. The section is especially subjective, requiring panelists to weigh the accomplishments between athletes in different weight classes, most of whom haven't or can't fight each other. The new rankings will launch without a pound-for-pound ranking, as it'll require a completely different model to operate.
Are these AI rankings?
UFC CEO Dana White has spoken for months about replacing the media rankings with a new AI-powered ranking system. The representative clarified that the active system does not use artificial intelligence. Machine learning was used to design the model; however, the final product does not use AI.
"We didn't build an AI to rank fighters," the rep said. "AI was used in creating the system, but on a week-to-week basis, when you see the rankings come out, it's not because AI said so."
"A mathematical model is doing the work on the backend, computing things and spitting out numbers," they added separately. "Those numbers are ranked."
There is a trade-off: human nuance for mathematical objectivity. There will be instances where people look at a ranking and argue that subtlety was lost. The team behind the new system acknowledges this, but believes accuracy and impartiality are net benefits.
"There is no intelligence. It's not smart. It cannot see," they said. "It doesn't judge... This is math."
"There are no decisions made week-to-week. All the decisions have already been made. From now until the death of the universe, there are rules, and the rules will be followed. That's how mathematical models work. It's based on assumptions, and those assumptions are baked into the system."
How did the old media rankings work?
Media members from 22 publications comprised a voting panel. Each week, panelists submit their top 15 for each division, including pound-for-pound, based on the results of the previous week. Their rankings are compiled and averaged to produce the official rankings. Only fighters deemed active by the UFC can be voted for.
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