{"id":726586,"date":"2026-06-10T04:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726586\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T04:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:04:09","slug":"usa-today-sports-mma-junkie-rankings-june-9-ufcs-bonfim-climbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/726586\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings, June 9: UFC&#8217;s Bonfim climbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>June 9, 2026, 10:01 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The welterweight division saw a continued changing of the guard this past Saturday in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Former champion <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/belal-muhammad\/\" data-autotag=\"dcff0aca-b9c1-49a6-9808-65f40aa147a2\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Belal Muhammad<\/a> (24-6 MMA, 15-6 UFC) really had very little to offer against Gabriel Bonfim (20-1 MMA, 7-1 UFC) and was swept on the scorecards in the UFC Fight Night 278 main event. It was Muhammad&#8217;s third straight loss, including when he lost the title to Jack Della Maddalena in his first attempted defense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Now Bonfim is on the rise,\u00a0and even called out JDM, coincidentally\u00a0\u2013\u00a0though the Australian is working off back-to-back losses, himself, including his own title setback in his first attempted defense against <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/islam-makhachev\/\" data-autotag=\"3a8fae83-21ca-40ef-bc2e-df37b8a7def3\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Islam Makhachev<\/a>. And while that matchup might not make sense for him, what we do know is that he took a big jump on the chart at 170 pounds and supplanted Muhammad&#8217;s prior spot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Check out all of the moves in the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/rankings\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"gnt_em_cp_cw_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781064248_14_90067526007-ufc-fight-night-278-muhammad-vs-bonfim-event-poster.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\"\/><a class=\"gnt_em gnt_em_gl gnt_em__el\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/picture-gallery\/sports\/ufc\/2026\/06\/06\/ufc-fight-night-las-vegas-belal-muhammad-vs-gabriel-bonfim-best-mma-photos\/90431027007\/\" data-t-l=\"\u2691g:l|l|c|view gallery:inline promo\" aria-label=\"View Gallery - UFC Fight Night 278: Best photos from\u00a0Las Vegas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"gnt_em_gl_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781064248_787_90439060007-ufc-fight-night-278-meta-apex-las-vegas-prefight-octagon-4-b.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\"\/><\/a> <a class=\"gnt_em gnt_em__lp gnt_em_gl gnt_em__el\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/picture-gallery\/sports\/ufc\/2026\/06\/06\/ufc-fight-night-las-vegas-belal-muhammad-vs-gabriel-bonfim-official-scorecards-mma-photos\/90430946007\/\" data-t-l=\"\u2691g:l|l|c|view gallery:inline promo\" aria-label=\"View Gallery - UFC Fight Night 278: Official scorecards from\u00a0Las Vegas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"gnt_em_gl_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781064249_26_90430943007-ufc-fight-night-278-scorecards-thumb.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 9, 2026, 10:01 p.m. ET The welterweight division saw a continued changing of the guard this past&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[202558,64,63,786,785,315656,85,206029,206030,350116,208356,203781,235716,203147,206031,203139,205671,278096,202561],"class_list":["post-726586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-accessfree","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sourcemma-junkie","tag-sports","tag-sstssportsmma","tag-sstsnmma","tag-tagbelal-muhammad","tag-tagislam-makhachev","tag-tagmartial-arts","tag-tagmma-rankings","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagpfl","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagufc","tag-tagufc-freedom-250","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}