Rankings Updated Following UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs. Hernandez | Toyota Center, Houston, TX \u2014 Feb. 21, 2026<\/p>\n
The UFC released its updated divisional rankings Monday following Saturday night’s card in Houston. Below is a complete breakdown of every movement across all divisions.<\/p>\n
Welterweight\u00a0(Champion: Islam Makhachev)<\/p>\n
Uro\u0161 Medi\u0107 \u2014 ENTERS at No. 12 (NR)\u00a0| “The Dalmatian” crashes into the rankings with his Round 1 KO of Geoff Neal<\/p>\n
Colby Covington \u2014 UP 1, now No. 13\u00a0| Covington ticks up one spot despite not competing in the UFC in quite some time \u2014 a notable passive rise driven by others’ results<\/p>\n
Daniel Rodriguez \u2014 DOWN 2, now No. 15\u00a0| “D-Rod” slides two places following the ranking reshuffle<\/p>\n
Geoff Neal \u2014 EXITS Top 15\u00a0| The Houston native is dropped entirely after being stopped on home soil<\/p>\n
Middleweight\u00a0(Champion: Khamzat Chimaev)<\/p>\n
Sean Strickland \u2014 HOLDS at No. 3\u00a0| Main event TKO win not enough to move the needle for “Tarzan” in a crowded division<\/p>\n
Brendan Allen \u2014 UP 1, now No. 4<\/p>\n
Israel Adesanya \u2014 UP 1, now No. 5<\/p>\n
Anthony Hernandez \u2014 DOWN 2, now No. 6\u00a0| Pays the price for the TKO loss in the main event<\/p>\n
Heavyweight\u00a0(Champion: Tom Aspinall)<\/p>\n
The Spivac win over Ante Delija sent significant ripple effects down the entire division. Derrick Lewis returns to the Top 10.<\/p>\n
Serghei Spivac \u2014 UP 1, now No. 6<\/p>\n
Rizvan Kuniev \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 7<\/p>\n
Marcin Tybura \u2014 UP 2, now No. 8 (tied)<\/p>\n
Derrick Lewis \u2014 UP 3, now No. 8 (tied)<\/p>\n
Ante Delija \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 10<\/p>\n
Tallison Teixeira \u2014 UP 1, now No. 11<\/p>\n
Shamil Gaziev \u2014 UP 1, now No. 12<\/p>\n
Mick Parkin \u2014 UP 2, now No. 13<\/p>\n
Vitor Petrino \u2014 ENTERS at No. 15 (NR)<\/p>\n
Women’s Bantamweight\u00a0(Champion: Kayla Harrison)<\/p>\n
Joselyne Edwards \u2014 UP 3, now No. 11\u00a0| The biggest mover of the week following her dominant finish<\/p>\n
Mayra Bueno Silva \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 12<\/p>\n
Nora Cornolle \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 13\u00a0| Falls following the loss to Edwards<\/p>\n
Miesha Tate \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 14<\/p>\n
Men’s Flyweight\u00a0(Champion: Joshua Van)<\/p>\n
Lone’er Kavanagh \u2014 EXITS Top 15\u00a0| Drops out entirely ahead of his Feb. 28 main event vs. Brandon Moreno in Mexico City<\/p>\n
Joseph Morales \u2014 ENTERS at No. 15 (NR)<\/p>\n
Featherweight\u00a0(Champion: Alexander Volkanovski)<\/p>\n
Melquizael Costa \u2014 ENTERS at No. 13 (NR)<\/p>\n
Kevin Vallejos \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 14<\/p>\n
Women’s Flyweight\u00a0(Champion: Valentina Shevchenko)<\/p>\n
Gabriella Fernandes \u2014 UP 1, now No. 14<\/p>\n
JJ Aldrich \u2014 DOWN 1, now No. 15<\/p>\n
No Changes<\/p>\n
Lightweight, Light Heavyweight, Men’s Bantamweight, Women’s Strawweight, and both Pound-for-Pound rankings all held steady with no movement following UFC Houston.<\/p>\n
The next UFC event is UFC Fight Night: Moreno vs. Kavanagh on Saturday, February 28, 2026 in Mexico City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rankings Updated Following UFC Fight Night: Strickland vs. Hernandez | Toyota Center, Houston, TX \u2014 Feb. 21, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,50095],"class_list":{"0":"post-496501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-rankings"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}