The heavyweight division has been one of the major talking points across the MMA world in 2024. Whether it’s the conversation surrounding Jon Jones’ upcoming UFC title defense against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 or the recent PFL debut of Francis Ngannou.
After Ngannou’s triumphant return to MMA last month where he stopped Renan Ferreira at PFL’s Battle of the Giants, this then prompted the question as to whether he’s still the best fighter in his weight class.
The former UFC champion wasn’t beaten for his title because he vacated it when parting ways with the promotion at the start of last year. This debate becomes a lot more interesting because many fight fans would make the case for a UFC heavyweight other than Jones being the top guy in the promotion right now.
Interim titleholder Tom Aspinall also has to be in the conversation which includes Ferreira to varying degrees based on who you ask. In a recent interview with Inside Fighting, one of the competitors in this weight class gave his thoughts on the top of the division.
ONE Championship athlete Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida is a submission grappling icon who after going 4-1 in his transition to MMA, is finally back at ONE 169 to try and regain the momentum he had before suffering his first defeat last time out.
He believes that despite the fact that we’ve only see him compete at heavyweight on just one occasion, the best is still “Bones”.
“I think not putting Jon Jones as first one, I think it’s hard. I think for sure is the number one.”
Almeida then ranked the rest of his top four but surprisingly didn’t include Aspinall in his current heavyweight Mount Rushmore. He instead picked the current ONE heavyweight champion Anatoly Malykhin, who also holds belts in ONE at light heavyweight and middleweight.
“Number second I would say between Renan Ferreira and Francis and Anatoly. Those three guys are there. Francis just won the fight so I think he deserves to be still on the top position after that, Renan. He’s doing crazy things in this sport. He won the PFL tournament, he beat Ryan Bader from Bellator and just did the fight with Francis so I think he’s there too like number three. Number four, Anatoly, of course it’s hard to put like a rank like that but for sure these four guys I think would be my four favorites for sure.”
Continue Reading Heavyweight Contender Ranks His Top Four In The Weight Class, Excludes Tom Aspinall at MMA News.