The 2026 Rankings Prediction Game!

[Trupsi]

Already 0 point for me in LW... Totally forgot that Myktybek fought Hermansson at WW and planned on staying there.

 

[IsNormal]

I asked AI to do most of this for me. Perhaps cheating, but kinda fun to see if it has a clue
The prompt was to focus on those who may get fights with big names.

FLW: Kyoji Horiguchi
BW: Raoni Barcelos
FW: Joanderson Brito
LW: Chase Hooper
WW: Yaroslav Amosov
MW: Ikram Aliskerov
LHW: Ibo Aslan
HW: Robelis Despaigne

WSW: Natalia Alves
WFLW: Diana Belbiţă
WBW: Amanda Nunes

---
Some notes:
* Horiguchi is coming off 7 fights without a loss and is facing #6 Albazi on Feb 7
* Amosov is 29-1
* Hooper may be coming off a loss. But that was to a #4 ranked guy. They like giving him decent names
* BW was a tough choice between the AI pick Barcelos or Vinicius Oliviera (6 fight win streak and is fighting #9 Mario Bautista on feb7)

EDIT:
Changed some picks, removed Casey O'Neil who AI forgot was already ranked

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

I asked AI to do this for me. Perhaps cheating, but kinda fun to see if it has a clue
I asked it to focus on those who could get fights with big names and move up the ranks fast

FLW: Ramazan Temirov
BW: Raoni Barcelos
FW: Joanderson Brito
LW: Chase Hooper
WW: Yaroslav Amosov
MW: Ikram Aliskerov
LHW: Ibo Aslan
HW: Robelis Despaigne

WSW: Natalia Alves
WFLW: Casey O’Neill
WBW: Amanda Nunes

Haha, well that's a hell of a selection of picks.

Barcelos is on a streak so he could make it, but on the other hand, he is turning 39 in a few months.

Now, I did hit reply when that WW choice was still Jack Jenkins, which is a hell of a left field pull. Former Bellator champ Amosov is a much better pick.

Aslan lost all 3 of his 2025 fights

Despaigne got released in 2024 and is the KC champ.

Natalia Alves also isn't in the UFC, but I don't remember if she was also one of the edits.

And Casey O'Neil just might be the best pick on this list, being that she is already ranked at #11, which unfortunately makes her ineligible for points.


If AI does better than the average, I'm gonna be upset

 

[Mohawk Banditó]

WBW: Mesquita. I don't think Nunes is staying, so predicting that she's the champ at the end of the year would take very lucky timing or Harrison's return

lucky timing *on* Harrison's return. I realized I made a mistake here when I was trying to pick 2 different things to say and was just about to edit it to fix it before realizing that would invalidate all my picks.

 

[IsNormal]

Now, I did hit reply when that WW choice was still Jack Jenkins, which is a hell of a left field pull. Former Bellator champ Amosov is a much better pick.

Yeah, I just changed it - after a round of follow-up prompts about fighters who had success in other org, the AI also started to realise that and changed to Amosov.