New AI UFC Rankings system goes live from Meta
The brand new Meta UFC Rankings system has now officially gone live, with the Ultimate Fighting Championship now transitioning away from the traditional media panel towards an AI-assisted ranking.
UFC recently issued the following with regards to the new format of rankings:
“As of June 22, 2026, the UFC will begin the transition of its official rankings from the traditional media panel towards Meta UFC Rankings, offering an innovative new approach to rankings determined entirely by fight data. In close collaboration, the two organizations came together to develop a new methodology for an objective and clear UFC athlete ranking system that fans and athletes can understand and trust.”
UFC and Meta AI Rankings
UFC President Dana White recently explained why he was “unhappy” with how the rankings system has worked historically, making this move to try and create a “better way” to rank the different divisions:
“I’ve been unhappy with the rankings and always believed there had to be a better way. We’ve always been a company that runs toward technology and innovation and now we’ve worked with Meta to integrate it directly into our rankings system. I’m excited to see how this innovation can help change the sport for both the fans and the athletes.”
The new rankings are available at www.ufc.com/rankings, but the Media Ranking is still available if you toggle the option on the left of the page. Whether this will actually help create more exciting fights for fans remains to be seen, but this “data-driven” option will certainly spark some debate as more companies start moving their data collection and analysis over to AI systems.
Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator for NationalWorld. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012. His work has also been featured on Wrestling Headlines, Wrestlingnewsco, HotNewHipHop and The Hard Times.
Previously, he worked as the Editor in Chief of 24Wrestling, building the site profile with a view to selling the domain, which was accomplished in 2019. Jake was previously the Editor in Chief for FightFans, a combat sports and pro wrestling site that was launched in January 2021 and broke into millions of pageviews within the first two years. He previously worked for Snack Media and their GiveMeSport site, creating Evergreen and Trending content that would deliver pageviews via Google as the UFC and MMA SEO Lead. Jake managed to take an area of GiveMeSport that had zero traction on Organic and push it to audiences across the globe. Jake also has a record of long-term video and written interview content with the likes of the Professional Fighters League, ONE and Cage Warriors, working directly with the brands to promote bouts, fighters and special events.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling, as PR Head and Head of Media across the social channels of the company.