Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Dan Hooker’s close win over Paul Felder has pushed him up into title contender status in the UFC rankings.
UFC Fight Night Auckland had its fair share of decisions, but the main card mostly delivered with some good action. Unfortunately, and as usual for international Fight Night cards, it was low on relevance from a rankings perspective. Yan Xiaonan made an impression at strawweight with her big win, but nothing else really mattered until the headliner.
In that bout, Dan Hooker emerged victorious by the narrowest of margins over Paul Felder, and is now a legitimate lightweight title contender. He cracked the top five for the first time in his career, while Felder is trying to figure out what’s next.
Here’s a look at the few changes this week.
Men’s P4P – No changes.
Heavyweight – No changes.
Light Heavyweight – Ovince Saint Preux re-enters the rankings at 15.
Middleweight – No changes.
Welterweight – No changes.
Lightweight – Hooker is up two spots to five. Donald Cerrone falls one to six, with Felder down one to seven.
Featherweight – No changes.
Bantamweight – No changes.
Flyweight – Kai Kara France is up one to seven, dumping Rogerio Bontorin one spot to eight. They finally have a full 15-person list again, because Tyson Nam entered the list at 15. Even though he’s 0-2 in the UFC. Hmm.
Women’s P4P – No changes.
Women’s Bantamweight – No changes.
Women’s Flyweight – No changes.
Women’s Strawweight – Yan Xiaonan enters the rankings at 11 after dominating Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Felice Herrig drops two to 13. Alexa Grasso drops one to 14. Angela Hill re-enters at 15.