Francis Ngannou was the undisputed best heavyweight in the world when he left the UFC. Now that he’s officially a PFL champion, does he regain the top spot?
Rankings Shakeup: Francis Ngannou is back, but is he MMA’s No. 1 heavyweight again?
Alexander K. Lee is an editor for MMA Fighting who has been covering combat sports since 2014.
That’s the question posed to the MMA Fighting rankings panel following Ngannou’s emotional knockout of Renan Ferreira in the Battle of the Giants main event, which marked Ngannou’s first MMA fight since January 2022. “The Predator” made the most of his time away from the cage, booking lucrative boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, but he wasn’t active in MMA and that meant an automatic removal from our heavyweight list.
In his absence, Jon Jones bulldozed Ciryl Gane to claim the belt vacated by Ngannou, and a surge of contenders made their mark, most notably current interim UFC champion Tom Aspinall. Jones—also currently out of the rankings due to inactivity—is set to fight Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 in November, but Aspinall already has one up on “Bones” as he has already recorded a successful heavyweight title defense, something Jones is yet to do.
Because of that, Aspinall is our No. 1 for now, though two panelists saw fit to shift their allegiance to the returning Ngannou. Not only that, he placed high enough on the other ballots to jump all the way to the No. 2 spot, ahead of several notable names. It goes to show that Ngannou’s mystique remains as strong as ever and as long as he continues to deliver on fight night, his place in the heavyweight hierarchy is secure.
Check out the latest edition of the MMA Fighting heavyweight rankings and let us know where you rank Ngannou in the poll below.
