Just because your breakthrough win fails to break you into the top 10 does not mean you cannot have a real rankings impact.
UFC Fight Night 118 also saw another undefeated prospect join a respective bubble list, as 22-year-old Aspen Ladd pounded out Sweden’s Lina Lansberg in the second round, taking her spot among the women’s 135-pound contenders. Ladd is not the foremost blue chipper on the rise in this rankings update, however. That honor belongs to Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki flyweight champion Ariane Lipski.
The 23-year-old Lipski captured the inaugural KSW women’s 125-pound crown by submitting Romania’s Diana Belbita in front of nearly 58,000 fans in May, and at KSW 40 in Ireland, she defended it for the first time with a quick-and-dirty rear-naked choke win over fellow Brazilian Mariana Morais. “The Violence Queen’s” eighth straight win moves her from seventh to fifth in our flyweight rankings, vaulting the undefeated Ilima-Lei Macfarlane and Pancrase poster girl Rin Nakai.
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