Merab Dvalishvili Leaps Past Jon Jones In P4P Rankings

The UFC has a new No. 2 ranked pound-for-pound fighter following Saturday’s UFC 316 fight card as UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili bumped inactive UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones from that spot.

Merab Dvalishvili Moves Up The UFC Pound-For-Pound Rankings

Dvalishvili (20-4) extended his winning streak to 13 straight in the main event of UFC 316. The 34-year-old easily defended his UFC bantamweight title in front of a sold-out crowd at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, submitting Sean O’Malley at the top of the pay-per-view card. The Dvalishvili vs. O’Malley matchup was a rematch of their September 2024 meeting. Dvalishvili took the UFC bantamweight title from O’Malley on that night, winning a unanimous decision.

Dvalishvili has not lost since he opened his UFC career with back-to-back losses to Frankie Saenz and Ricky Simon in 2017 and 2018.

With his win at UFC 316, Dvalishvili advanced two spots in the official UFC Pound-For Pound-Rankings:

1 Islam Makhachev

2 Merab Dvalishvili

3 Jon Jones

4 Ilia Topuria

5 Dricus Du Plessis

6 Magomed Ankalaev

7 Alexander Volkanovski

8 Jack Della Maddalena

9 Alex Pereira

10 Alexandre Pantoja

11 Tom Aspinall

12 Max Holloway

13 Belal Muhammad

14 Charles Oliveira

15 Arman Tsarukyan

Despite losing to Dvalishvili, O’Malley maintained the No. 1 spot in the bantamweight rankings.

Dvalishvili’s next title defense is likely to come against No. 4 ranked UFC bantamweight Cory Sandhagen.

Kayla Harrison Moves To No. 3 In the UFC Women’s Pound-For-Pound Rankings

In the other title fight at the top of the UFC 316 fight card, Kayla Harrison easily dispatched Julianna Pena, winning the UFC women’s bantamweight title in the process.

With her win, Harrison (19-1) moved to 3-0 in the UFC. The newly crowned 135-pound champ jumped four spots in the women’s pound-for-pound rankings, moving to the No. 3 spot. With the loss, Pena fell to No. 5 in those rankings.

1 Valentina Shevchenko

2 Zhang Weili

3 Kayla Harrison

4 Manon Fiorot

5 Julianna Peña

6 Natalia Silva

7 Alexa Grasso

8 Erin Blanchfield

9 Virna Jandiroba

10 Raquel Pennington

11 Tatiana Suarez

12 Rose Namajunas

13 Yan Xiaonan

14 Amanda Lemos

15 Maycee Barber

With her loss to Harrison at UFC 316, Pena is now the No. 1 ranked fighter in the UFC women’s bantamweight division.

Harrison’s win is likely to set up a fight with former two-division champion Amanda Nunes.

Joshua Van Makes A Move At Flyweight

Young UFC flyweight contender Joshua Van moved his winning streak to four straight on Saturday with a TKO win over veteran competitor Bruno Silva. The victory moved Van from No. 14 in the UFC’s 125-pound division, but more importantly for the 23-year-old, it earned him a short-notice shot at the No. 1 ranked UFC flyweight Brandon Royval on the UFC 317 fight card at the end of this month in Las Vegas.

1 Brandon Royval

2 Brandon Moreno

3 Amir Albazi

4 Kai Kara-France

5 Tatsuro Taira

6 Manel Kape

7 Alex Perez

8 Asu Almabayev

9 Steve Erceg

10 Joshua Van

11 Tim Elliott

12 Tagir Ulanbekov

13 Ramazan Temirov

14 Bruno Silva

15 Kai Asakura

This weekend, in the main event of UFC Atlanta, two fighters who are in the top 10 of the UFC rankings for the welterweight division face off. We will have coverage of the UFC Atlanta fight card throughout the week and live results on Saturday night.