UFC to split up pound-for-pound rankings, create new men’s and women’s P4P rankings

The UFC has decided to split up the pound-for-pound rankings as men and women fighters will now be ranked in their own categories.

Even since the UFC instituted the pound-for-pound rankings a few years ago, they have allowed panelists to combine both men and women in the rankings. That’s led to some controversy, and many fans and media have felt for quite some time that there should be separate rankings for male and female fighters.

Now, there will be.

Bruno Massami, one of the UFC’s ranking panelists, confirmed on his Twitter the promotion will introduce the new women’s P4P list when the new rankings come out this week. That means that any women currently on the P4P list will be removed, and that list will become a men’s list.

Breaking: I have a good news to you.

Finally, UFC was decided to separate the P4P Rankings.

We will have Mens and Woman's P4P Rankings now.

— Bruno Massami (Бруно Массами) (@BrMassami) January 27, 2020

“Breaking: I have a good news to you. Finally, UFC was decided to separate the P4P Rankings. We will have Mens and Woman’s P4P Rankings now.”

Currently, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is the No. 1 ranked P4P fighter in the UFC. That, of course, won’t change when the new list is introduced this week. 13 of the top 15 fighters in the current P4P ranks are men, so they won’t leave the list, though they will all move up one or two spots with two women exiting the list.

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes is currently the No. 5 ranked P4P fighter, and presumably she will be No. 1 ranked on the new women’s list. UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko is ranked No. 12, so she will likely slot in as the No. 2 ranked P4P female fighter. UFC women’s strawweight champion Weili Zhang will also likely be placed highly on the list.

This news is great news for both men and women fighters as it gives both more of an opportunity to jump into the top-15 P4P rankings and gain some more recognition for their in-cage exploits.

Do you like the UFC splitting up the pound-for-pound rankings?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on 1/27/2020.