‘Total bulls—!’ Moicano Remains At No. 11

There’s something seriously wrong with the UFC ranking system, which just ignored Moicano’s dominating win over Saint-Denis because the two were ranked 11 and 12.

Renato Moicano has not moved an inch in the lightweight rankings, despite beating up the odds favorite and hometown boy Benoit Saint-Denis so bad the doctors pulled the plug on the UFC Paris main event after the second round (see highlights here).

The official UFC ranking updates came out early this morning, and Moicano remains in the same No. 11 spot at 155 has he did before his big win. That’s because Benoit Saint-Denis was ranked No. 12, and apparently the rankings are no longer something that are adjusted by people with brains and eyes and reason. They’re basic math equations: beat No. 5, take No. 5’s spot. Everyone else slides down until someone hits your former spot.

That’s pretty absurd: Moicano proved he was a top five fighter with his impressive win on Saturday night, especially once he revealed he competed with a badly injured shoulder. His first round performance was dominant enough to earn him 10-8 scores on all three judges’ scorecards, which tells you something considering 10-8 scores are another element of MMA that are generally not handled correctly.

We’re not the only ones who have noticed the rankings turning into a simple ranking swap proposition. Renato Moicano himself seemed to expect disappointment on Monday as he awaited the update.

“Go to France no bonus,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “France usada try to f— me up on the weight ins…. France government takes a lot of my money… the only think missing is not being on the top 6 tomorrow.”

“If UFC Rankings Aren’t Total Bullshit, I Should Be Ranked #6 in the Lightweight Division Tomorrow,” he continued. “Why? In the last 8 months, I’ve fought 3 times and I’m on a 6-fight win streak in the lightweight division, with 5 stoppages.”

“Yet, ranked above me are #6 Michael Chandler: If anyone doesn’t deserve this spot, it’s Michael Chandler. He’s 2-3 in the UFC, coming off a loss to Dustin Poirier in November 2022. Since then, he’s been sitting out, waiting for Conor McGregor’s return, and only now decided to fight Charles Oliveira. There’s no way I’m not #6 in the lightweight division right now.”

Based on his performance, that’s where we would have placed Moicano: in the No. 6 slot at lightweight, above the inactive Michael Chandler and Beneil Dariush, whose last win came in October 2022. But that’s us using common sense. It’s unclear whether that’s still a thing being applied in the rankings, or if all the people the UFC claims are submitting rankings are still the ones actually behind this.

The list of contributors who supposedly submit rankings is wildly out of date — several news outlets listed don’t even exist any more. The reporters we here at MMA Mania know who do participate in the system have said there are often be big differences between what they submit and what shows up in the rankings, which is understandable given this is supposed to be aggregate rankings based off 20 or more submissions. But something has clearly gone off the rails.

Is it the people submitting the rankings that are the problem? Have they been doing the simple math of letting fighters ‘eat what they kill’ rather than basing it on level of dominance and skill shown? Simply taking the ranking of the guy you beat means fighting against someone near you in the rankings is a futile, stupid idea. That’s a real bad precedent to establish, and is gonna lead to more matchmaking gridlock as fighters rightfully refuse to fight anyone but the highest ranked opponent they can get their hands on. You don’t need to have a degree in game theory to see where that goes.

So add the UFC’s rankings to the list of things that need to be fixed, because Moicano not moving up a single spot after whupping the ass of “BDS” says something is deeply wrong with how things are working right now.