Featherweight is the WORST division in the UFC right now, and I will prove it to you. First let me explain what I mean by "worst" division: my main problem with 145 is that majority of the top 15 refuses to fight each other, leading to a lack of ranked matchups and majority of the top 15 being extremely inactive. Additionally, because they all refuse to fight eachother and scramble the rankings, we have multiple people holding their rankings based off of wins over washed fighters that hold no real ranking value, specifically Josh Emmet, Calvin Kattar, Dan Ige, & Giga Chikadze, as you will soon see. So to help highlight this problem, I went through EVERY fighter in the top 15, what ranked wins they have, & that opponents record before & after the fight. This should give a very good indication of the difference between which fighters earned their ranking from beating over the hill guys, and which fighters actually beat legit contenders to earn their spot. I will be using 3 different qualifications for each fighter & their rank. This qualification does not indicate how I feel about the fighter as a whole, only how I feel about whether their spot in the rankings is justified. LEGIT - justified spot in the rankings UNPROVEN - contender, but slightly overly ranked FRAUD - extremely overranked / shouldn't be ranked *indicates rank at the time of the fight, only used if fighter is no longer ranked (Worth noting I used google's AI for some of this research, so rankings at time of fight may not be 100% accurate) #1 Evloev: - #2 Lopes (2-2 in last 4, 5-0 after) - #3 Murphy (17 win streak, hasn't fought again) - #4 Sterling (10-1 in last 11, 2-0 after) - #7 Allen (12-1 in last 13, 2-1 after) - *#10 Ige (1-3 in last 4, 4-6 after) First and only loss to Champion Volk. 42-7 opponents combined record at time of fights, 13-7 afterwards - LEGIT #2 Lopes: - #5 Silva (13 win streak, 2-0 after) - #10 Garcia (7 win streak, hasn't fought again) - #13 Ortega (1-2 in last 3, 0-1 after) - *#13 Yusuff (2-1 in last 3, 0-1 after) 2x title challenger and had a very close fight with #1 Evloev in his debut. 23-3 opponents combined record at time of fights, 2-2 afterwards - LEGIT #3 Murphy: - *#7 Emmet (1-2 in last 3, 0-2 after) - #11 Pico (debut, 2-0 after) - *#11 Barboza (2-2 in last 4, 0-3 after) - *#14 Ige (1-2 in last 3, 1-3 after) Pico win will age well, but he was debuting, no other impressive wins. 6-6 opponents combined record at time of fights, 4-8 afterwards - FRAUD #4 Sterling: - *#5 Ortega (2-4 in last 6, hasn't fought again) - #8 Zalal (8 win streak, hasn't fought again) - *#8 Kattar (1-3 in last 4, 0-2 after) 11-7 opponents combined record at time of fights, 0-2 afterwards - UNPROVEN @ 145, proven LEGIT @ 135 #5 Silva: - #7 Allen (1-2 in last 3, 1-0 after) - #9 Vallejos (11 win streak, 7-0 after) - *#15 Mitchell (2-2 in last 4, 2-0 after) 14-4 opponents combined record at time of fights, 9-0 afterwards - LEGIT #6 Rodriguez: - *#5 Emmet (5 win streak, 1-4 after) - *#6 Zombie (4-1 last 5, 3-3 after) - *#8 Stephens (0-2-1 in last 3, 1-6 after) - #13 Ortega (1-2 in last 3, 1-2 after with win over Rodriguez) - #14 Pitbull (1-2 in last 3, 2-1 after) So the only current ranked win Yair has is Ortega, who has beat him since then. 11-7 opponents combined record at time of fights, 8-16 afterwards - FRAUD #7 Allen: - *#5 Kattar (3-3 in last 6, 0-3 after) - *#9 Chikadze (10-1 in last 11, 0-3 after) - *#11 Yusuf (6 win streak, 2-3 after) - #12 Costa (6 win streak, hasn't fought again) - *#13 (@ 155) Hooker (1-3 in last 4, 3-3 after) Had one of the best resumes at the weight 3 years ago, but too inactive to justify his current spot. 26-7 opponents combined record at time of fights, 5-12 afterwards - UNPROVEN #8 Zalal: - *#10 Kattar (1-4 in last 5, 0-1 after) - *#10 Emmet (1-3 in last 4, 0-1 after) 2-7 opponents combined record at time of fights, 0-2 afterwards - FRAUD #9 Vallejos: - *#11 Emmet (1-4 in last 5, hasn't fought again) - *#15 Chikadze (1-3 in last 4, 0-1 after) He is riding a 6 fight win streak and his only loss is to #5 Silva on DWCS. 2-7 opponents combined record at time of fights, 0-1 afterwards - UNPROVEN #10 Garcia: - #12 Costa (3-1 in last 4, 6-1 after) - *#14 Kattar (0-4 in last 4, hasn't fought again) - #15 Onama (6-1 in last 7, hasn't fought again) 9-6 opponents combined record at time of fights, 6-1 afterwards - LEGIT #11 Pico: - #14 Pitbull (2-1 in last 3, 1-0 after) 2 wins in a row and only UFC loss to #3 Murphy - LEGIT #12 Costa: - *#14 Ige (2-4 in last 6, 0-1 after) Riding a 6 fight win streak before losing to #7 Allen, good wins over Erosa, Fili, & Rodriguez. - UNPROVEN #13 Ortega: - *#3 Rodriguez (2-2 in last 4, 1-0 after) - *#3 Edgar (7-1 in last 8, 2-5 after) - *#4 Zombie (3-2 in last 5, 1-2 after) - *#4 Swanson (4-2 in last 6, 0-3 in next 3) - *#7 Moicano (11 win streak, 3-3 in next 6) - *#10 Guida (3-5 in last 8, 6-8 after) One of the most outdated resumes on the roster, in context Moicano & Edgar are the only really impressive wins he had, and both were almost 10 years ago. 30-12 opponents combined record at time of fights, 13-21 afterwards - FRAUD #14 Pitbull: - *#11 Ige (2-3 in last 5, 0-2 after) Only UFC wins are Doo Ho Choi & Ige, neither of which are rankable wins, but he is a previous 2 weight world champion - UNPROVEN #15 Onama: - *#15 Chikadze (1-2 in last 3, 0-2 after) Chikadze is not a great win, and he has a loss to Landwehr which is pretty bad - UNPROVEN So out of the 15 ranked Featherweights, only 5 (6 w/ Sterling) actually feel like they've earned their spots. Of these current 15 ranked fighters, there are a combined 15 "ranked" wins over Josh Emmet, Calvin Cattar, Giga Chikadze, & Dan Ige. Essentially for the last 2/3 years these 4 have been the stepping stones for EVERY prospect to enter the rankings. If you exclude Movsar & Diego (the only 2 who actually fight), the remaining 13 fighters only have 10 fights between eachother. If you take out Yair and Ortega thats only 8 fights between 11 people. Take out the Silva & Vallejos fight from DWCS and its 7 fights between 11 people. Without doing all this work for the other divisions, I would be willing to bet it is one of, if not the lowest number of matchups between ranked fighters. This division is plagued with diva's who get a single ranked win and then sit around whining for a title shot. Most likely a side effect of Volk's dominance at the weight, clearing out contenders so everyone thinks they have a chance at the shot. Hopefully we see this change real soon with Volk's retirement, will leave the division wide open. Only the most deserving and hungry contender will take that spot, leaving all these current frauds behind and bringing real life to the division. What does everyone think? Do you agree, or did I just waste 3 hours doing all this research? Let me know you beautiful bastards 💪

I think if the interim champ beats the champ it should count as a title defense. I recently have been thinking about this since prates vs morales was announced. Carlos was the clear no 1 contender and this fight does nothing for him. All he is doing for fighting for a shot at the title he is already entitled to. I believe if he beats morales and Islam that the Islam fight school count as a title defense. There is no point of having an interim in situations like these.

Here is your daily reminder that Lerone Murphy is insanely overranked. His only ranked win is Pico, who is #11 and was debuting, yet that somehow justifies a #3 ranking? Aljo is #4 and has wins over #8 & #13 Silva is #5 and has wins over #7 & #9 Heres how the top 5 would look if the rankings weren't made by a brain dead imbecile: C: Volk 1. Movsar 2. Diego 3. Silva 4. Sterling 5. Literally anyone (absolutely NONE of the rest of the ranked fighters have or will fight eachother excluding a couple fights, will break this down later tonight)

The most logical next step would be Pico v Zalal but realistically they will fast track him and do Pico v Silva and give the winner of that a title shot. I would want Pico v Allen or Pico v Movsar but Allen’s foot doesn’t look great and Movsar will be sitting out for a hot minute.

Will BSD Make the Same Mistakes Against Salkilld? After the Paddy fight, I completely lost hope in BSD. And we've seen how much Quillan Salkilld has improved. I think BSD really needs to improve his fight IQ, or we could see another Moicano vs. BSD 2.0 if he makes the same mistakes against Salkilld.