MMA pound-for-pound rankings

    Kevin Iole
    Combat columnist
    (Paul Rosales/Yahoo Sports)

    Each week, I’ll post my 10 choices for the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artist (including women) in the world. To understand this, it helps to understand what pound-for-pound means. To me, and the way I’ll be voting, it’s who would win a fight if everyone weighed the same and all of their skills and physical attributes were proportional. For example, if I’m considering a flyweight who is a murderous puncher in his or her division, I will assume he or she would be a murderous puncher in every division, punching proportionally as hard at heavyweight as he/she did at flyweight.

    I will value activity and quality of opposition over inactivity and lighter opposition. That said, I won’t arbitrarily remove a fighter from my Top 10 if there is a logical and rational reason why they haven’t fought. But I will not vote for someone who has been inactive for a lengthy period for no apparent reason. Fighters who are under doping suspensions will not be included.

    Men’s MMA pound-for-pound rankings (Oct. 30)

    1. Khabib Nurmagomedov, UFC lightweight champion, 28-0. Previous ranking: 1

    2. Jon Jones, UFC light heavyweight champion, 25-1. PR: 2

    3. Stipe Miocic, UFC heavyweight champion, 19-3. PR: 3

    4. Daniel Cormier, UFC heavyweight contender, 22-2. PR: 4

    5. Henry Cejudo, UFC flyweight and bantamweight champion, 15-2. PR: 5

    6. Israel Adesanya, UFC middleweight champion, 18-0, PR: 6

    7. Kamaru Usman, UFC welterweight champion, 15-1. PR: 7

    8. Max Holloway, UFC featherweight champion, 21-4. PR: 8

    9. Tony Ferguson, UFC lightweight contender, 25-3. PR: 9

    10. Colby Covington, UFC welterweight contender, 15-1. PR: 10

    Women’s MMA pound-for-pound rankings (Oct. 30)

    1. Amanda Nunes, UFC bantamweight/featherweight champion, 18-4. PR: 1

    2. Valentina Shevchenko, UFC flyweight champion, 18-3. PR: 2

    3. Cris Cyborg, Bellator featherweight contender, 20-2. PR: 3

    4. Zhang Weili, UFC strawweight champion, 20-1. PR: 4

    5. Joanna Jedrzejczyk, UFC strawweight contender, 16-3. PR: 8

    6. Jessica Andrade, UFC strawweight contender, 20-6. PR: 5

    7. Rose Namajunas, UFC strawweight contender, 8-4. PR: 6

    8. Tatiana Suarez, UFC strawweight contender, 8-0. PR: 7

    9. Ketlen Vieira, UFC bantamweight contender, 10-0. PR: 9

    10. Julianna Peña, UFC bantamweight contender, 9-3. PR: 10