A new Elo-based Meta UFC Rankings system is set to begin replacing the long-running media-voting rankings starting Monday, with winners weighted far more heavily than fight finishes, decision bonuses removed, and inactivity and aging fights built into the math
By Monday, something familiar in UFC TV graphics will start to change—quietly at first, then all at once.
Since February 2013, a media voting panel has determined which fighters have a number next to their name in UFC rankings. Now. the UFC is moving to the Meta UFC Rankings. a new system designed to trade what its builders describe as human nuance for mathematical objectivity. Meta designed the Elo rating system, and development for this UFC version began in February 2025.
The transition is not an immediate disappearance of the old rankings. The UFC will continue to reference the media rankings while matchmaking, with other factors catching up to the new system. Both rankings will be publicly available, and the old model will phase out later.
Ahead of the debut, the UFC explained how the new numbers will be made in an hour-long Q&A hosted by CBS Sports as part of a limited media session.
Winning still drives everything—yet how the system reads “winning” will surprise viewers
The UFC’s representative made one thing plain: winning remains the most important factor.
“Did you win, and who do you beat effectively accounts for 95% of why someone is ranked,” the UFC representative told CBS Sports.
Under the current media rankings, the general pattern has been that a lower-ranked opponent who beats a higher-ranked opponent earns that higher ranking—an approach that rewards upsets, often without major reshaping beyond that core idea.
The Meta system still moves a fighter ahead of the person they beat, but how far they move depends on a broader picture of the division.
If two fighters are close on the ratings board, the jump can be smaller. Narrow gaps can also create bigger jumps when the winner looks better than several fighters who are “neck-and-neck.”
A concrete example was offered using weight-class placement. An eighth-ranked fighter could beat the seventh-ranked fighter and end up moving higher than No. 7—jumping to something like No. 5. The explanation given was that the system would have assessed the No. 7-ranked fighter as only incrementally behind both No. 6 and No. 5. In theory, the winner is proving to be better than multiple fighters who were previously clustered together.
Finishes get a small bonus, but decisions won’t
In the Meta UFC Rankings model, finishes receive a small bonus to fighter ratings.
But decisions are treated differently. The UFC representative said decisions—no matter how dominant—will not factor into the rating.
The argument offered against decision bonuses was the component of human error. A unanimous decision is better than a split decision, the representative said, but then pushed the uncomfortable question back: “I don’t know. Who were the judges?”
Fight metrics also won’t be used the way fans are used to seeing them
Significant strikes and takedowns landed in a fight also aren’t considered. The designers told CBS Sports they tinkered with it, but found it ineffective for their purposes.
Activity gets rewarded. Inactivity gets dragged downward.
As the new system replaces the old, it doesn’t just react to what happens in the cage. It also responds to how often fighters show up.
The Meta model applies a bonus to active athletes. Fighters who compete more often will see their scores boosted. The representative framed it as a push for regular competition: “Create your velocity inside of weight class,” and “We want to incentivize people who fight often.”
The inverse is built into the system too. Two functions affect a fighter’s total rating beyond simple results.
Inactivity decay negatively impacts a fighter’s ranking after 18 months without competition.
Legacy fight decay penalizes the value of fights that are five years old, making them obsolete after 10 years.
“Inactivity is not a penalty,” the representative said. “It’s a consequence.”
That’s a direct answer to one of the most persistent frustrations people have raised about the existing media rankings: the ability for fighters to hold a high position without competing.
A recent example was offered involving now-retired welterweight contender Colby Covington. His prime years netted him a high ranking, which he largely held onto by not competing. Under the Meta system. the UFC representative said. decay is meant to address that issue. with velocity playing a factor and longer stretches of inactivity and older fights being exponentially penalized.
“We don’t want people coasting on reputation,” the representative explained. “Nobody gets to hold their place in line because they beat somebody good…”
Eligibility isn’t softened for the “usual” reasons—injuries, pregnancies, and disputes all count the same
The system is indiscriminate toward inactivity for eligibility purposes.
Injuries, pregnancies, division jumping, and contract disputes are treated the same for fighter decay. The representative also said a fighter could fall out of the top 15 based on inactivity’s impact on their score, but the question of how long they remain eligible is subjective.
UFC matchmakers decide when a fighter loses ranking eligibility.
The UFC also determines eligibility for fighters competing in multiple weight classes, but the Meta system handles ratings in a way that treats what happens in one division separately from another.
A fighter moving into a new division receives an adjusted score based on their rating in the original division. with certain modifiers applied. After that. a fighter competing in multiple divisions is treated as different people for ranking purposes: what happens in one division does not impact the score in another division.
And then comes one of the sharpest lines in the entire Q&A: the model isn’t designed for human steering after results come in.
“Beyond eligibility, there will be no human intervention in the ranking process.”
“There’s no failsafe or emergency brake,” the representative said.
Sunday night to Monday morning is expected to be the shock some fans will feel first
The UFC representative described Monday’s changes as the kind of shake-up that can feel personal, because rankings are personal to fighters.
Monday morning was “like Christmas Day” for UFC athletes. the representative said—some received new rankings. and others woke up ranked lower than when they fell asleep. The explanation was that the Meta UFC Ranking models rate each fighter differently. and the system was designed not to look and operate like the older human-style process.
“The goal was not to try to take human rankings and redo them with math…” the representative said. “The goal was to try and do something different, and ideally better.”
“These are not going to look and work exactly like human-style rankings. That’s not a weakness. You can decide if it’s a strength or not when you see it—but it’s not a weakness.”
A test-case example was included to show how a familiar fighter pairing could flip. One of approximately 50 models tested had Melquizael Costa ranked ahead of Arnold Allen before their UFC Fight Night main event.
Allen is ranked No. 7 in the current media rankings, while Costa sits at No. 13. The model assessed Costa’s recent success and consistency more favorably than Allen’s total body of work, which saw almost all of Allen’s success come between 2015 and 2022.
The Meta model still launches with a top 15—at least for now
The Meta UFC Rankings launch with the familiar top 15.
The model has the information and capacity to extend beyond 15 in each weight class, and the UFC, if it ever decides to, could expand the rankings beyond 15 in each division.
No pound-for-pound this time
The media rankings include a pound-for-pound category, and the UFC representative described why that piece is different.
The section is subjective, requiring panelists to weigh accomplishments between athletes in different weight classes, most of whom haven’t or can’t fight each other.
The Meta UFC Rankings will launch without a pound-for-pound ranking because it would require a completely different model to operate.
So is it AI? The UFC’s representative says the week-to-week ranking won’t be driven by it
The shift has been talked about for months through UFC CEO Dana White’s push to replace the media rankings with a new AI-powered system.
But in the Q&A, the representative clarified a key distinction: the active system does not use artificial intelligence.
Machine learning was used to design the model; however, the final product does not use AI on a week-to-week basis.
“We didn’t build an AI to rank fighters,” the representative said. “AI was used in creating the system, but on a week-to-week basis, when you see the rankings come out, it’s not because AI said so.”
“A mathematical model is doing the work on the backend, computing things and spitting out numbers,” the representative added separately. “Those numbers are ranked.”
The core trade-off is explicit: nuance for math
The Q&A leaned into the philosophical difference between panel voting and model computation.
There will be instances, the representative acknowledged, where people argue that subtlety was lost. But the team believes accuracy and impartiality are net benefits.
“There is no intelligence. It’s not smart. It cannot see,” the representative said. “It doesn’t judge… This is math.”
The representative also argued that the system doesn’t “decide” in real time. Decisions are set by rules already in place.
“There are no decisions made week-to-week. All the decisions have already been made. From now until the death of the universe, there are rules, and the rules will be followed. That’s how mathematical models work. It’s based on assumptions, and those assumptions are baked into the system.”
How the old media rankings work—and who gets to vote
The media rankings are built by a panel of media members from 22 publications.
Each week, panelists submit their top 15 for each division, including pound-for-pound. They do it based on results of the previous week.
Their rankings are compiled and averaged to produce the official rankings.
Only fighters deemed active by the UFC can be voted for.
Now that framework is set to share space with the new Meta UFC Rankings model—starting Monday—and the first real test of how fans accept the change will arrive with the first set of numbers that look different, move different, and treat aging competition differently.
In the days ahead, the biggest story may not be whether the numbers change. It’s why they change so sharply—when the most important question is finally answered in the same language the sport has always used: who won, and what that win actually means inside the division.
UFC rankings Meta UFC Rankings Elo rating system fighter eligibility inactivity decay legacy fight decay pound-for-pound CBS Sports Q&A
So basically they’re changing the numbers again. Cool cool.
I don’t get why “media panel” was bad but whatever. If winners are weighted more than finishes, doesn’t that kinda help boring decision guys? Like the UFC already acts like cardio wins are everything.
Elo ratings have always sounded like a chess thing to me, so I’m already like… is this just gonna make the rankings feel fake? Also they said decision bonuses removed, so if someone fights the whole time and wins they get punished?? That seems backwards.
Meta UFC Rankings sounds like it’s run by Facebook now lol. Next they’re gonna hide fights behind algorithms. And “aging fights” in the math?? so if your last win was a year ago you’re just cooked automatically?? I think the old way was at least somebody watched the dang thing.