Max Holloway has shot up the UFC rankings after his spectacular knockout win over Justin Gaethje at UFC 300.
‘Blessed’ was in fine form as he outboxed his adversary on the feet for five rounds before sending him tumbling to the canvas face-first with one second left in the fight.
Holloway was rewarded for his heroics with a $600,000 bonus from UFC CEO Dana White and rose six places to No.8 in the pound-for-pound ratings when they were updated on Monday morning.
He also entered the lightweight rankings for the first time at No.9 but did so six positions behind Gaethje despite knocking him out last weekend.
When Holloway squared off against Gaethje for the BMF (Baddest Motherf***er) belt, ‘The Highlight’ was ranked No.2 at lightweight.
Usually, when a fighter defeats another ranked competitor they take their spot or, at the very least, leapfrog them in the list.
But this wasn’t the case here as Gaethje dropped from No.2 to No.3 with only Charles Oliveira and Arman Tsarukyan placed ahead of him.
The puzzling decision likely has something to do with Holloway only ever competing at 155lb in the UFC twice (1-1) – with his other outing being a unanimous decision loss to Dustin Poirier in 2019.
Regardless of whether Holloway is ranked in the top three at lightweight or not, his stock has certainly risen.
His knockout was the talk of social media having gone viral and been viewed millions of times around the world.
He also maintains his No.2 ranking in the featherweight division and is in a primed position to challenge Ilia Topuria for the 145lb belt next.
Elsewhere in the rankings, Aljamain Sterling entered the featherweight top 15 at No.8 following his win over Calvin Kattar at UFC 300, while Diego Lopes was also a new additive at No.14 after stopping Sodiq Yusuff on the same card.
Deiveson Figueiredo moved up two spots at bantamweight, Tatiana Suarez and Yan Xiaonan switched places at the top of the strawweight rankings and Jiri Prochazka became the No.1 contender to Alex Pereira’s light-heavyweight throne.
You can get all the latest UFC reaction by subscribing to talkSPORT’s new MMA YouTube channel.
News Summary:
- Max Holloway placed six spots below Justin Gaethje in new UFC rankings despite stunning KO win and $600k bonus
- Check all news and articles from the latest Football updates.