{"id":861055,"date":"2026-08-19T17:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T17:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/861055\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T17:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T17:32:12","slug":"usa-today-sports-mma-junkie-rankings-aug-18-mackenzie-dern-new-no-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/861055\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings, Aug. 18: Mackenzie Dern new No. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:MMA Junkie;\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"MMA Junkie\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"471\" height=\"100\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/aol_mma_junkie_227.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>George Garcia, MMA Junkie<\/p>\n<p>Wed, August 19, 2026 at 3:08 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"2472\" height=\"3708\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d627ddc5-9ef5-4262-8894-1441abe2c3e8.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/mackenzie-dern\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Mackenzie Dern<\/a> and <a data-ylk=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/islam-makhachev\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Islam Makhachev<\/a> are still on top.<\/p>\n<p>At UFC 330, both champions of their respective divisions successfully defended their titles. Makahachev handed <a data-ylk=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/ian-machado-garry\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Ian Machado Garry<\/a> the second loss of his career in the main event in Philadelphia. In the co-feature, Dern notched her first strawweight title defense by beating Gillian Robertson. <\/p>\n<p>With Makhachev already at No. 1 in his division and in the pound-for-pound rankings, there was nowhere for him to move. Dern, however, passes <a data-ylk=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/zhang-weili\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Zhang Weili<\/a> at No. 1 in the strawweight division, and jumps up to No. 3 in the women&#8217;s P4P rankings. <\/p>\n<p>Check out all of the moves in the latest <a data-ylk=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/rankings\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a data-ylk=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2026\/08\/19\/usa-today-sportsmma-junkie-rankings-aug-18-mackenzie-dern-new-no-1\/91369547007\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">USA TODAY Sports\/MMA Junkie rankings, Aug. 18: Mackenzie Dern new No. 1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Garcia, MMA Junkie Wed, August 19, 2026 at 3:08 PM UTC Mackenzie Dern and Islam Makhachev are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-861055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861055","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=861055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}