{"id":741763,"date":"2026-06-17T06:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/741763\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T06:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:16:08","slug":"usa-today-sports-mma-junkie-rankings-june-16-josh-hokit-skyrockets-after-ufc-freedom-250","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/741763\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings, June 16: Josh Hokit skyrockets after UFC Freedom 250"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>June 16, 2026, 10:55 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Big fights. Big stage. Big movement in the MMA Junkie rankings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">UFC Freedom 250 was only seven fights, but the impact was felt up and down the divisions due to the magnitude and divisional importance of the bouts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The main event sent new UFC lightweight king <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/justin-gaethje\/\" data-autotag=\"267e3c2d-20ce-4e98-81b8-f87a1e326ebf\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Justin Gaethje<\/a> into the No. 1 slot, as he finished <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/ilia-topuria\/\" data-autotag=\"d2d9c8e7-e859-407a-b607-f197e9766d0c\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Ilia Topuria<\/a> with a fourth-round stoppage on the stool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Topuria dropped one slot in the pound-for-pound rankings, as did <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/alex-pereira\/\" data-autotag=\"ce486d6a-f145-4361-848f-0c7402f7a976\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Alex Pereira<\/a>, who lost to Ciryl Gane by second-round TKO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But that&#8217;s not all. Josh Hokit&#8217;s pummeling of Derrick Lewis shot him high up the ladder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">How high? 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\/89709378007-image.jpg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 16, 2026, 10:55 p.m. ET Big fights. Big stage. Big movement in the MMA Junkie rankings. UFC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[202558,64,63,786,785,357643,85,206029,206030,208095,271037,204387,213550,203781,235716,203147,203139,202561],"class_list":["post-741763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-accessfree","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sourceultimate-fighting-championship","tag-sports","tag-sstssportsmma","tag-sstsnmma","tag-tagalex-pereira","tag-tagciryl-gane","tag-tagilia-topuria","tag-tagjustin-gaethje","tag-tagmartial-arts","tag-tagmma-rankings","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741763","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=741763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}