Pereira Bashes P4P Rankings After Being Passed By ‘Bones’

Pereira wasn’t happy with the UFC pound-for-pound rankings after being knocked from his No. 2 spot by Jones … but not for the reason you might expect.

Another week, another UFC rankings controversy.

UFC CEO Dana White has been going wild over recent movements and non-movements in the official rankings, which were set up by the promotion a decade ago and left to crumble over the years that followed. At this point the remaining submissions come from a hodgepodge of random outlets, and all the movements up and down follow a predictable path … one the UFC has pushed rankers to follow.

So you could argue the UFC has no one to blame but itself after the post-UFC 309 rankings came out and things weren’t to their liking. Following his dominant win over a slow Stipe Miocic, Jon Jones moved up a spot in the pound-for-pound rankings to No. 2, pushing light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira down to No. 3.

Remaining in the No. 1 spot: 155 pound belt holder Islam Makhachev.

That’s a problem, according to Pereira — but not how you might expect. He took to Instagram and added a 1 on Jones’ ranking and a 2 on Makhachev.

“With this change only I would be already happy,” he wrote.

“Poatan” has shown nothing but respect to “Bones” over the past several months, which may be why Jon is interested in fighting him over an “asshole” like Aspinall. Or maybe it’s Pereira’s relative lack of ground game in comparison? Either way, Jones is saying “Chama” to a Pereira superfight, and Pereira is happy just spreading positive vibes outside the cage — an entertaining counterpoint to the destruction he unleashes during fights.

As for White? What’s the opposite of chama? Nhama? He’s saying nhama to Jones vs. Pereira, but has admitted it’s possible if both men continue to ‘go crazy’ about it to him. But first, the rankings.

“I have to get rid of these CLOWNS!” White wrote of the ranking panel after Jones was denied the No. 1 spot. “Mark Zuckerberg, let’s get this AI deal done ASAP!”

Interestingly enough, later that day UFC announced an AI partnership … but not with Zuckerberg’s Meta. The promotion is teaming with IBM and their AI, watsonx, to provide realtime statistics during events. Given the number of sponsors and partners the UFC has, perhaps there’s room in the company for two AIs to provide different services? Maybe they could duke it out to determine which one is the P4P best.