A broken promise: why Makhachev was not put in first place in the combined rating of UFC fighters

After the victory of Islam Makhachev over Alexander Volkanovski, many were quick to proclaim the reigning UFC lightweight champion as the best fighter, regardless of weight categories.

The Russian himself spoke about this, and his manager Ali Abdel-Aziz and many colleagues, moreover, even the press service of the championship called him none other than the first number of P4P.

However, two days later, an updated rating was published, in which the heir to Khabib Nurmagomedov remained in second place.

In this regard, a logical question arises, why was Makhachev not recognized as the strongest in the organization?

Indeed, over the past months, their fight with Volkanovski has been promoted as a fight not only for a trophy in the category up to 70.3 kilograms, but also for leadership in the list of the best of the best.

And although Islam won (even if not everyone agreed with this) and held the first defense, he received only half of the regalia promised to him.

To answer it, you need to understand exactly how the UFC ratings are formed.

As stated on the official website, they are compiled on the basis of a survey of journalists who are invited to vote for the best representatives both in individual weight categories and in the combined one.

At the same time, athletes themselves can participate in this, but with a few reservations.

Unlike ordinary fighters, current champions cannot influence the formation of the ranking list in their division, but they are able to determine the best in P4P.

Thus, the current position in the consolidated list of fighters rather indicates not the status and merits of Makhachev, but the level of his popularity, including the media and colleagues.

On paper, the victory over Volkanovski should have brought him huge dividends and the respect of the entire MMA community, but in the end this did not happen.

The audience did not see a super-dominant performance in the battle with a counterpart noticeably inferior to him in anthropometry, and the story with the possible use of a dropper after the weighing procedure dealt a serious blow to the reputation.

And all this together could affect the opinions of experts and athletes, some of whom hastened to accuse him of uncleanliness.

Perhaps if Makhachev had won much more confidently (or better, ahead of schedule) or if rumors had not appeared about the use of prohibited recovery methods, the jury would have been more favorable to him and helped repeat Nurmagomedov's achievement.

But in the current conditions, it was reckless to expect such a thing.

And if the management of the promotion had the opportunity to influence this, they would hardly want to use it.

And there could be several reasons for this.

The first was announced by the winner of the UFC 6 tournament Oleg Taktarov.

As he rightly noted, in terms of popularity, Volkanovski surpasses Makhachev, and is also generally more media than his last rival.

And at the moment it could play a key role.

In the West, the Australian has a much larger army of fans than the Russian, who has not yet managed to approach the status of his former teammate.

If Khabib was a global phenomenon for mixed martial arts, then Islam has not yet managed to become one.

Let him already managed to win the trophy and get closer to the lightweight record for the duration of the winning streak.

The second may well lie in the desire of the matchmakers to create another bright and tense confrontation.

The first fight between Makhachev and Volkanovski, although it ended in favor of the reigning lightweight champion, opened up an excellent prospect for a rematch.

Moreover, both opponents expressed their readiness to meet again in the octagon and thus gave the league the opportunity to earn solid profits.

If the first fight between Islam and Alexander did not arouse much interest from the audience, then the return fight will surely provoke a huge stir in the world of MMA fans.

And then the sales of paid broadcasts will certainly be much higher than this time.

According to preliminary information published by ITN WWE, they amounted to only 500 thousand. For comparison, the duel between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov gathered 2.4 million people at the screens.

But would Makhachev have the motivation to fight Volkanovski again if he immediately received the title of the first number of P4P?

If so, then it would certainly be much lower than in this case.

After all, now the victory will not only allow him to earn a solid fee and silence Volkanovski, who calls himself a better fighter than Islam, but also take away the first line of P4P from him.

After all, after two consecutive successful defenses, there should be no doubts about the status of the strongest.

If this does not help Makhachev to climb to the top of the rating, then it will be possible to think again about whether this is connected with the difficult political situation in the world.

Recently, Russian athletes have repeatedly suffered from ambiguous refereeing decisions.

Suffice it to recall the controversial defeats of Petr Yan in the battles with Algemain Sterling and Sean O'Malley, as well as the unprecedented decision to declare a draw in the duel between Magomed Ankalaev and Jan Blakhovitch.

Although it’s not entirely correct to write everything off for politics, because even earlier in the history of the UFC there were cases when the summary table was formed in a strange way.

So, at the beginning of 2021, the top two lines were occupied by Nurmagomedov and Amanda Nunez, but when the Russian who ended his career was expelled from the top, John Jones suddenly rose to the top.

Although by this time the legendary American had not fought for more than a year, the Brazilian still held two titles and continued to perform actively.

And she suffered her second defeat in the championship much later - in December.