Real Current P4P Feb 2024

[gentel]

Obviously this official P4P is ridiculous, the most egregious thing is the underrating of Pantoja. DDP being ranked above Pantoja, when all he got was a controversial split decision over Strickland, who only won one title fight ever and lost to Cannonier, is extremely egregious. So what should the real P4P rankings be?

My first iteration:

1. Islam - the official rankings are totally right about him, now with head kicks and overall striking skill in addition to the Dagestani grappling
2. Volkanovski - the two losses to Islam are bad, but still a dominant champ in a stacked weight class
3. Pantoja - only two title wins thus far, but it's about the in-cage action and quality of his opposition. Moreno is a guy with 3 title wins, and is a BJJ black belt whose striking stopped Figueiredo with a broken orbital. Beating opponents on the level of Moreno and Royval is a huge deal
4. Leon - again the in-cage action is the biggest factor - when dedicated grapplers like Usman and Colby can't get or keep you down, and your striking game is elite at the same time, that's P4P talent
5. O'Malley - Has plenty of doubters but even in the grappling department, Yan failed to keep him down meaningfully, and Aljo couldn't get him down at all. Outstriking Yan and finishing Aljo make him a top P4P talent, the explosiveness and reach make him a problem for the division
6. Jones - too inactive and his HW title win was over someone with zero grappling skill, and fighting Stipe rather than real top contenders plus the injury further reduce his P4P eligibility. Nonetheless, he's extremely well-rounded among HWs
7. Pereira - Knockout power and striking accuracy, he's absolutely a solid champion. Still not tested enough in the grappling department, however, and Ankalaev is going to be testing that
8. Aspinall - Knockout power, takedown threat, and sub threat. We haven't seen enough of him yet to really tell his skill level but running through Volkov and knocking out Pavlovich definitely say he's up there
9. Dricus - Current MW champ, got size, power, and the fact that he has a takedown threat makes him stand out in a division that has so little grappling offense and defense
10. Usman - Idk why he's so low on the P4P, yes he lost twice to Leon but the Khamzat loss was a robbery (should've been a draw) and doing that against a guy like Khamzat up a weight class on short notice is 100% savage. Imo he's more well-rounded and facing better opposition than Adesanya so I ranked him higher
11. Adesanya - The Strickland loss was uncharacteristic, he may be losing his edge with age. But his previous fight was a win over Pereira, overall his skill level is clearly high among his division
12. Moreno - Not on the official P4P at all but with how close he made it against Pantoja plus his Figueiredo and KKF wins, totally deserving of a spot
13. Oliveira - Takes too much damage even in his wins like we saw with Poirier, but we just saw him finish Dariush and he beat a lot of top guys in a stacked division
14. Holloway - Lost to Volk 3x but otherwise reigning over an extremely stacked division
15. Topuria - Maybe controversial cause he hasn't had a title fight yet, but he's breezed through the FW division. Yair couldn't breeze through Emmett and almost got slept by his overhand, whereas Topuria made it look easy and took basically no damage

 

[Psychojoe86]

Interesting how Volk is the longest reigning champ with 5 defenses. No one else even has 3 lol.

Currently Islam deserves p4p number 1. Jones is clearly avoiding the top competition and Islam beat Volk twice. It’s currently well deserved.

Alex pereira might rise quickly in p4p with his second title reign tbh

 

[Striker Fox]

Everybody on that list is currently a better p4p fighter than Jones, yet he's #2....

 

[ComfortablyNumb55]

Strickland too low.

Who beat him recently, weight bully Alex? Because Cannonier nor DDP beat Sean.

So he has one notable loss to a man that is now the champion of a division up.

Sean is extremely underrated.

 

[jk7707]

O'Malley is laughably high.

 

[gentel]

O'Malley is laughably high.

Honestly I don't think so, beating Petr Yan and finishing Aljo shows O'Malley to deserve a high P4P rank. Both guys tried to grapple him and had little success, so even the usual "good striker but hasn't had to deal with grappling yet" excuse doesn't apply. Merab might beat him but even if he does, that just means both belong on the P4P

 

[phillystyleswag]

Islam, Volk and Leon are my top three.

I’d put Jon at 4 just because of the lack of long-standing champions.

Pereira may be fifth just due to the amount of names he’s beat in a short amount of time plus double champ status. Pantoja should be right around there as well.

After that it’s a cluster fuck. Many of the non-champs (Oliveria, Izzy, Usman) have cases to be higher than some of the current champions.

 

[Trabaho]

Joke concept

 

[jk7707]

Honestly I don't think so, beating Petr Yan and finishing Aljo shows O'Malley to deserve a high P4P rank. Both guys tried to grapple him and had little success, so even the usual "good striker but hasn't had to deal with grappling yet" excuse doesn't apply. Merab might beat him but even if he does, that just means both belong on the P4P

First off, he lost to Yan. It was Sherdog's robbery of the year for a reason. The media scores were 24-1 for Yan. I'll give him credit for beating Aljo. I thought he'd get grapplefucked, but he knocked him out.

Sterling was not a dominant champ. He arguably lost to both Yan and Cejudo.

This combination does not make a P4P fighter.

 

[gentel]

First off, he lost to Yan. It was Sherdog's robbery of the year for a reason. The media scores were 24-1 for Yan

They're all biased based on reputation. Yan had the reputation of being a killer whereas O'Malley was "a can crusher marketing to casuals" so people underrate damage done by O'Malley and overrate damage done by Yan. It's the same sort of reputation bias that had one judge scoring Jones 4-1 over Reyes

I rewatched the fight and O'Malley did more damage in the 1st and 3rd rounds. The stats say O'Malley landed more significant strikes in those rounds, and in addition he's a more explosive power striker who has 1-hit KOed people in the past. Cut Yan's forehead with a knee and left him a bloody mess, overall 2-1 O'Malley

 

[jk7707]

They're all biased based on reputation. Yan had the reputation of being a killer whereas O'Malley was "a can crusher marketing to casuals" so people underrate damage done by O'Malley and overrate damage done by Yan. It's the same sort of reputation bias that had one judge scoring Jones 4-1 over Reyes

I rewatched the fight and O'Malley did more damage in the 1st and 3rd rounds. The stats say O'Malley landed more significant strikes in those rounds, and in addition he's a more explosive power striker who has 1-hit KOed people in the past. Cut Yan's forehead with a knee and left him a bloody mess, overall 2-1 O'Malley

Try to justify it all you want. Close fights don't get robbery of the year status, with 24-1 members of the media scoring it for the guy who "lost"

 

[Dick]

I'd replace Dricus with Strickland, but good list otherwise.

 

[nostradumbass]

Islam and Volk seem the least vulnerable, but Volk likely doesn't have too much longer at 35. Aspinall also doesn't seem particularly vulnerable, but he's kind of frozen out of the official title at the moment. I don't think Leon would be that heavy of a favorite against most of the WW top 10 or against Islam. No idea about Dricus because he's much better than he looks, and O'Malley just lost 2 fights ago even though they somehow gave him a SD. Pereira I don't know either. He's not exactly dominating everyone either, and his opponents has a combine like 15 subs in 200 fights, and 9 of them are Jan who got most of those in the Polish minor leagues, but Ankalaev is pretty much the only guy at LHW with decent wrestling.

 

[RockyLockridge]

View attachment 1027866

Obviously this official P4P is ridiculous, the most egregious thing is the underrating of Pantoja. DDP being ranked above Pantoja, when all he got was a controversial split decision over Strickland, who only won one title fight ever and lost to Cannonier, is extremely egregious. So what should the real P4P rankings be?

My first iteration:

1. Islam - the official rankings are totally right about him, now with head kicks and overall striking skill in addition to the Dagestani grappling
2. Volkanovski - the two losses to Islam are bad, but still a dominant champ in a stacked weight class
3. Pantoja - only two title wins thus far, but it's about the in-cage action and quality of his opposition. Moreno is a guy with 3 title wins, and is a BJJ black belt whose striking stopped Figueiredo with a broken orbital. Beating opponents on the level of Moreno and Royval is a huge deal
4. Leon - again the in-cage action is the biggest factor - when dedicated grapplers like Usman and Colby can't get or keep you down, and your striking game is elite at the same time, that's P4P talent
5. O'Malley - Has plenty of doubters but even in the grappling department, Yan failed to keep him down meaningfully, and Aljo couldn't get him down at all. Outstriking Yan and finishing Aljo make him a top P4P talent, the explosiveness and reach make him a problem for the division
6. Jones - too inactive and his HW title win was over someone with zero grappling skill, and fighting Stipe rather than real top contenders plus the injury further reduce his P4P eligibility. Nonetheless, he's extremely well-rounded among HWs
7. Pereira - Knockout power and striking accuracy, he's absolutely a solid champion. Still not tested enough in the grappling department, however, and Ankalaev is going to be testing that
8. Aspinall - Knockout power, takedown threat, and sub threat. We haven't seen enough of him yet to really tell his skill level but running through Volkov and knocking out Pavlovich definitely say he's up there
9. Dricus - Current MW champ, got size, power, and the fact that he has a takedown threat makes him stand out in a division that has so little grappling offense and defense
10. Usman - Idk why he's so low on the P4P, yes he lost twice to Leon but the Khamzat loss was a robbery (should've been a draw) and doing that against a guy like Khamzat up a weight class on short notice is 100% savage. Imo he's more well-rounded and facing better opposition than Adesanya so I ranked him higher
11. Adesanya - The Strickland loss was uncharacteristic, he may be losing his edge with age. But his previous fight was a win over Pereira, overall his skill level is clearly high among his division
12. Moreno - Not on the official P4P at all but with how close he made it against Pantoja plus his Figueiredo and KKF wins, totally deserving of a spot
13. Oliveira - Takes too much damage even in his wins like we saw with Poirier, but we just saw him finish Dariush and he beat a lot of top guys in a stacked division
14. Holloway - Lost to Volk 3x but otherwise reigning over an extremely stacked division
15. Topuria - Maybe controversial cause he hasn't had a title fight yet, but he's breezed through the FW division. Yair couldn't breeze through Emmett and almost got slept by his overhand, whereas Topuria made it look easy and took basically no damage

Stopped reading at islam number 1

 

[Goutfather]

View attachment 1027866

Obviously this official P4P is ridiculous, the most egregious thing is the underrating of Pantoja. DDP being ranked above Pantoja, when all he got was a controversial split decision over Strickland, who only won one title fight ever and lost to Cannonier, is extremely egregious. So what should the real P4P rankings be?

My first iteration:

1. Islam - the official rankings are totally right about him, now with head kicks and overall striking skill in addition to the Dagestani grappling
2. Volkanovski - the two losses to Islam are bad, but still a dominant champ in a stacked weight class
3. Pantoja - only two title wins thus far, but it's about the in-cage action and quality of his opposition. Moreno is a guy with 3 title wins, and is a BJJ black belt whose striking stopped Figueiredo with a broken orbital. Beating opponents on the level of Moreno and Royval is a huge deal
4. Leon - again the in-cage action is the biggest factor - when dedicated grapplers like Usman and Colby can't get or keep you down, and your striking game is elite at the same time, that's P4P talent
5. O'Malley - Has plenty of doubters but even in the grappling department, Yan failed to keep him down meaningfully, and Aljo couldn't get him down at all. Outstriking Yan and finishing Aljo make him a top P4P talent, the explosiveness and reach make him a problem for the division
6. Jones - too inactive and his HW title win was over someone with zero grappling skill, and fighting Stipe rather than real top contenders plus the injury further reduce his P4P eligibility. Nonetheless, he's extremely well-rounded among HWs
7. Pereira - Knockout power and striking accuracy, he's absolutely a solid champion. Still not tested enough in the grappling department, however, and Ankalaev is going to be testing that
8. Aspinall - Knockout power, takedown threat, and sub threat. We haven't seen enough of him yet to really tell his skill level but running through Volkov and knocking out Pavlovich definitely say he's up there
9. Dricus - Current MW champ, got size, power, and the fact that he has a takedown threat makes him stand out in a division that has so little grappling offense and defense
10. Usman - Idk why he's so low on the P4P, yes he lost twice to Leon but the Khamzat loss was a robbery (should've been a draw) and doing that against a guy like Khamzat up a weight class on short notice is 100% savage. Imo he's more well-rounded and facing better opposition than Adesanya so I ranked him higher
11. Adesanya - The Strickland loss was uncharacteristic, he may be losing his edge with age. But his previous fight was a win over Pereira, overall his skill level is clearly high among his division
12. Moreno - Not on the official P4P at all but with how close he made it against Pantoja plus his Figueiredo and KKF wins, totally deserving of a spot
13. Oliveira - Takes too much damage even in his wins like we saw with Poirier, but we just saw him finish Dariush and he beat a lot of top guys in a stacked division
14. Holloway - Lost to Volk 3x but otherwise reigning over an extremely stacked division
15. Topuria - Maybe controversial cause he hasn't had a title fight yet, but he's breezed through the FW division. Yair couldn't breeze through Emmett and almost got slept by his overhand, whereas Topuria made it look easy and took basically no damage

p4p has never meant less than it currently does. so many of the top fighters haven’t been tested or had to face only mediocre tests. very few of them have more than one defense, some don’t have any defenses. a good chunk of them have recent losses, which could be forgiven if they were all to fellow p4p players. moreover, several of them have recent controversial wins. all of these factors muddy up the list.

p4p meant more when we had multiple divisional goats competing at the same time, all with long undefeated streaks, all looking invincible.

 

[Gamer2k4]

Why is Islam ranked higher than Jones? If you want to say Jones is inactive, fine, but then don't have him on the list at all. If you are going to include Jones, though, dominance over a whole division followed by moving up in weight and destroying the #1 fighter in that class as well is a whole lot more impressive to me than two title defenses against someone from a lighter division.

 

[gentel]

Why is Islam ranked higher than Jones? If you want to say Jones is inactive, fine, but then don't have him on the list at all. If you are going to include Jones, though, dominance over a whole division followed by moving up in weight and destroying the #1 fighter in that class as well is a whole lot more impressive to me than two title defenses against someone from a lighter division.

P4P is about current in-cage skill display and quality of opposition that they won over. It's not a GOAT list where long-term achievement matters - wins help but only as evidence, not as a cumulative resume. HW is clearly a lower-skill weight class compared to 125-155 and so is LHW for that matter. The grappling technique that Jones took Gane down with, and the sub he got the finish with, would accomplish absolutely nothing against Islam. Oliveira is one of the best grapplers in the UFC with something like 16 submission wins in the UFC, and Islam subbed him with relative ease

 

[Prince Nephilim]

Jones should be most definitely number 1 but the rest is speculation

 

[gentel]

p4p has never meant less than it currently does. so many of the top fighters haven’t been tested or had to face only mediocre tests. very few of them have more than one defense, some don’t have any defenses. a good chunk of them have recent losses, which could be forgiven if they were all to fellow p4p players. moreover, several of them have recent controversial wins. all of these factors muddy up the list.

p4p meant more when we had multiple divisional goats competing at the same time, all with long undefeated streaks, all looking invincible.

I mean the truth is, the longer the UFC exists, the fewer GOATs and concurrent GOATs we're going to see. It's a whole lot easier to be the best champ out of 5 champs in a division's history, than to be the best champ out of 30 in a division's history

But as far as your issue about fighters being untested or having mediocre tests, that's the good thing about p4p - you can give the edge to people who have proven themselves both through the quality of opponents beaten and in-cage action

 

[blaseblase]

Honestly I don't think so, beating Petr Yan and finishing Aljo shows O'Malley to deserve a high P4P rank. Both guys tried to grapple him and had little success, so even the usual "good striker but hasn't had to deal with grappling yet" excuse doesn't apply. Merab might beat him but even if he does, that just means both belong on the P4P

Most people have him losing to Yan, he didn't deserve a title shot in the first place, and now he's ducking the top 2 contenders to fight Chito. As well as being one dimensional. He should be under DDP.