Sherdog’s Official Mixed Martial Arts Rankings
Cleveland's New Champ
The Ultimate Fighting Championship has a new heavyweight titleholder. In the modern MMA world, that means we have a new No. 1 heavyweight.
In front of 45,000 fans on May 14 at UFC 198 in Curitiba, Brazil, Stipe Miocic needed one beautiful right hook to put champion Fabricio Werdum flat on his face and take the UFC heavyweight crown. Miocic first entered the Sherdog.com rankings in February 2014, and outside of a close decision loss to Junior dos Santos in December 2014, it has been onward and upward for the Ohio native ever since. However, the UFC heavyweight title has long come with a price: no man has ever been able to defend the title more than twice in a single reign, and Miocic is now staring at potential challenges from the likes of Cain Velasquez, Travis Browne, Alistair Overeem or even Werdum in a rematch.
Just like Miocic popped up in our rankings in the No. 10 spot a little more than 27 months ago, this latest update sees two new entrants take the final spot in their respective divisions. At UFC 198, John Lineker continued to prove doubters wrong regarding his bantamweight prospects, bashing up Rob Font and debuting in our 135-pound ranks. Meanwhile, the split decision defeat of previously 10th-ranked Corey Anderson at the hands of former king Mauricio Rua at UFC 198 paves the way for the surprising, streaking Nikita Krylov to enter our 205-pound register.
If we are going to discuss steady climbs in the rankings, we cannot overlook one of UFC 198’s most outstanding exponents. Demian Maia was an afterthought when he cut to 170 pounds four years ago. After surprising wins over Dong Hyun Kim, Rick Story and Jon Fitch, his losses to Jake Shields and Rory MacDonald seemed to bring the former UFC middleweight title challenger back to Earth. However, there has been no regression to the mean for Maia, who has ripped off five straight wins in two years, four of them over top 15 opponents. His third-round submission of Matt Brown has the 38-year-old Brazilian re-entering our welterweight top five.
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