UFC Writer votes female Bantamweight top 15 despite no UFC wins and not being signed to promotion

Rankings in the UFC are done by a voting panel selected by the UFC made up of various figures within the media.  The members then are asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters ‘In the UFC’ by weight class and pound for pound.  The rules stipulate that only a fighter on active status in the UFC can be voted on.  The rules also allow for a fighter to be appear in more than one weight class at anytime, Champions and Interim Champions are always considered #1 in the division and aren’t eligible for the vote by weight class, however can be used for the Pound for Pound rankings.

The rankings are then used to determine a path to super fights, and title fights.  A fighter must get matchups to ascend the rankings in order to get a main event fight, to say the rankings don’t matter would be naive and negligent to the fact that contracts are incentive based largely on performance and ranking in Prized fighting, factors like sponsorship money, and payouts are determined largely by a fighters place within a division.

established and respected writer Ken Pishna of MMA weekly submitted his latest rankings for the UFC website and while his rankings are more accurate projection of the divisions than most of the other writers, there was one vote that raises a few eyebrows.  With the recent non-resigning of Leslie Smith the once ”deep” bantamweight division that Ronda Rousey once ruled, lost a top 10 fighter. Moving into the bantamweight rankings for the first time at number 15 is Larissa Pacheco, who last competed in the UFC in 2015 and went 0-2 with the promotion before being released.

While not currently enrolled in the USADA testing program, Larissa Pacheco did recently pick up her first Win since 2014 defeating Carolline Rosa Cavedo by guillotine choke in March inside the Hotel Laghetto Stil0 in Rio De Janeiro Brazil . The bout also featured Pacheco competing in the Featherweight Division and not the 135lbs weight limit she is currently listed in.

While the UFC currently does’t rank the Featherweight division, maybe they should look at lowering the Bantamweight rankings to the top 10 until the promotion has signed enough women again to have a full 15 fighters ranked with multiple wins inside the division, this would eliminate writers having to make votes on fighters they haven’t had the opportunity to watch compete.

Ultimately the ranking system needs to be re-looked at.  Fighters like Mark Hunt have complained about rankings and the way it effects his ability to get high ranking contender matches made.  Tyron Woodley who is the current Welterweight Champion and is witnessing an Interim Title being created in is weight class has also voiced his concerns with the seemingly arbitrary rankings and championship belts being created. To see the full results of the UFC Rankings, Click Here.  You can review all the writers votes and see exactly who helped Conor McGregor move up the pound for pound list and who moved Khabib Nurmagomedov down the list with their votes by looking at the panelist.