Projected UFC rankings after UFC 333: Reyes up, Yakhyaev in

The UFC's media panel has not voted on UFC 333 yet. The official rankings on the site are still the board of October 20, four days before Abu Dhabi. So before the panel gets there, here is where I expect it to land, and the receipts for why.

The numbers below come from our projected UFC rankings, which take the last official board and roll it forward through every result on the card using rules fitted on every UFC rankings update since 2013. It is UFCalendar's projection, not the UFC's ranking, and it gets scored against the real board the moment that board lands. Fourteen bouts, 13 ranked fighters involved (champions included), and the projection moves exactly seven places in four divisions.

Light heavyweight: the swap and the newcomer

Photo: The White House / Public domain

Dominick Reyes was No. 8 and knocked out No. 7 Azamat Murzakanov in 2:40 of the first round. The projection swaps them: Reyes to 7, Murzakanov to 8.

This is the panel's most reliable habit. When a lower-ranked fighter beats a higher-ranked one, the winner lands exactly on the loser's old spot 55 percent of the time and within one place of it 84 percent of the time, and the loser usually drops one or two places. Reyes has now won two straight, a split decision over Johnny Walker in April and Saturday's knockout, after being stopped by Carlos Ulberg in September 2025. Murzakanov has been knocked out in back-to-back fights, by Paulo Costa in April and now Reyes. If anything, the one-place drop is the generous version for him.

The less certain call is at the bottom. Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev was unranked, and he finished No. 15 Nikita Krylov at 2:38 of round one. The projection puts Yakhyaev in at 15 and drops Krylov off the board.

Here the history is a lot less tidy. An unranked fighter who beats a ranked one enters at the loser's spot only 37 percent of the time, and the ranked loser falls off the board 45 percent of the time. Both halves of this projection are the single most likely outcome, not the usual one. What helps the call is the shape of both men's year: Yakhyaev is 11-0 and has finished all three of his 2026 opponents in the first round, while Krylov has now been knocked out twice in a row, by Robert Whittaker in July and by Yakhyaev on Saturday. If the panel wanted a reason to take its time with an 11-0 newcomer, Krylov's form does not give it one.

Featherweight and middleweight: the quiet climbs

Aaron Pico was No. 11 at featherweight and knocked out the unranked Losene Keita in 74 seconds, a late replacement after Arnold Allen came off the card in early October. The projection moves Pico up one, to 10, and Steve Garcia down one, to 11.

Abus Magomedov did the same at middleweight. He was No. 12, he submitted the unranked Cam Rowston at 1:44 of the first, and the projection lifts him to 11 past Jared Cannonier.

A ranked fighter beating an unranked one usually earns nothing. The panel leaves a higher-ranked winner where he is 57 percent of the time, and otherwise moves him up one or two places. So why are these two the exceptions? Look at who sits directly above them. Garcia's last fight was a second-round knockout loss to Diego Lopes in June. Cannonier has lost his last two, unanimous decisions to Michael Page in August 2025 and to Christian Leroy Duncan in July. A winner climbing over a fighter coming off a loss is exactly the kind of move the panel makes, and the projection is betting on it twice.

What does not move, and why

The most interesting part of this projection is what it leaves alone.

Movsar Evloev lost a title fight by knockout and stays at No. 1 at featherweight. Merab Dvalishvili lost a title fight by unanimous decision and stays at No. 1 at bantamweight. The champions, Alexander Volkanovski and Petr Yan, stay champions. Losing to the champion from the top spot does not hand anybody else a reason to climb past you, and the projection keeps both men where they were.

Lone'er Kavanagh, No. 6 at flyweight, knocked out No. 10 Ramazan Temirov and took a Performance of the Night bonus. Neither man moves. Alexander Volkov, No. 2 at heavyweight, beat No. 7 Rizvan Kuniev on all three cards. Neither man moves. That is the favourite rule again: beating somebody ranked below you mostly confirms where you already are.

And the six fights between unranked fighters move nothing at all, including Grant Dawson taking a 12-0 record off Nurullo Aliev. The panel can only rank 15 people per division. Dawson will need more than one night to get back on it.

How much to trust this

The model was fitted on the boards from 2013 to 2023 and chose between candidates using 2024, so the 2025 onward window is the only honest test, and the full track record is public. Before scoring that window we set ourselves a bar of five points over the no-change baseline. It came in at 4.2. We published it with that number on it.

The ceiling is not a secret either. The panel also moves fighters who did not fight: retirements, releases, division moves and re-votes at the bottom of the board. No model built on results can see those, and a lot of the misses live there.

So if you want the one place this projection is most likely to be wrong, it is not the swap at light heavyweight. It is the bottom of that board, where a newcomer with three first-round finishes in a year is waiting on a panel of media members to agree with each other. I will score it here when the real board drops.