Sherdog’s Official Mixed Martial Arts Rankings - Pole Position
By: Tristen Critchfield Nov 18, 2019
Jan
Blachowicz has demonstrated a knack for giving former
middleweight champions a rude welcome to 205 pounds.
After knocking out ex-UFC king Luke
Rockhold in the summer, Blachowicz captured a split-decision
triumph over former Strikeforce titlist Ronald
Souza in the UFC Fight Night 164 headliner in Sao Paulo on
Saturday. It wasn’t an enthralling victory, but at a minimum, the
36-year-old Pole doesn’t lose any momentum in a division in which
he has established himself as an unlikely contender. Blachowicz,
who has won six of his last seven, holds steady at No. 7 in our
latest 205-pound poll.
Elsewhere, Sinead
Kavanagh knocked Olga Rubin
out of the women’s featherweight Top 10 with a TKO triumph at
Bellator 234 in Israel. Both Kavanagh and Rubin find themselves on
the 145-pound bubble in a division where the talent pool is quite
slim. On that same card, Linton
Vassell won his first heavyweight fight at the expense of
Sergei
Kharitonov, and as a result, Jarizinho Rozenstruik claims the
final spot on the big-man bubble. Finally, Charles
Oliveira extended his finishing streak to six at UFC Sao Paulo,
and he maintains his standing on the lightweight bubble.