UFC fighter rankings: Pettis enters P4P list, many other changes

Two events in three days have led to some changes in the UFC's official fighter rankings. The biggest divisional shift is undoubtedly at lightweight, where we have a new champion. In addition to that, a new contender emerged with a big win on Wednesday. Other changes came at P4P where the new champion bounced the old one, and at heavyweight where a former champion is back after more than a decade and looks to be in contention for the title after a big win.

You can check out the full rankings here, and use the dropdown menu to see the individual picks of the four BE contributors (myself, T.P. Grant, Fraser Coffeen, and Stephie Daniels).

We'll start at pound-for-pound. Anthony Pettis' submission win over Ben Henderson saw him enter the list at number eight, his first appearance here. Henderson dropped four spots to number ten. For some reason, Jose Aldo passed Anderson Silva for the number three spot as well, while Demetrious Johnson and Renan Barao moved up one spot (to six and seven respectively) in all the uproar.

Lightweight saw Pettis move up to champion of course, which knocked Henderson down to number one contender. This also moved Gilbert Melendez down one spot to number two. In the previous rankings after UFC Fight Night 27, Rafael dos Anjos moved from ten to six with his win over Donald Cerrone, while Cerrone fell three spots to nine. That caused Pat Healy to fall from nine to ten.

With his big win over Frank Mir, Josh Barnett moved up four spots from 10 to 6. Mir dropped from 6 to 8, while Roy Nelson and Stipe Miocic also dropped one spot (to 9 and 10 respectively).

The flyweight division also saw significant movement, with Tim Elliott using a win over Louis Gaudinot to jump from ten to seven. Gaudinot dropped two spots from seven to nine, while Darren Uyenoyama dropped one spot to ten.

Other changes included some reshuffling in the bottom half of welterweight - Robbie Lawler is up to eight and Matt Brown is up to nine while Tarec Saffiedine slipped to ten. At featherweight, Dennis Siver had moved ahead of Dustin Poirier earlier in the week but they're back to where they  were before despite Poirier's win over Erik Koch on Saturday. And Glover Teixeira moved up to the number two contender's spot at light heavyweight, passing Lyoto Machida. Teixeira fights this Saturday night against Ryan Bader.