MMA rankings report: The difficulty of dealing with Conor McGregor after UFC 246

You knew heading into UFC 246 that there would certainly be movement in the rankings coming out of it, but maybe there wasn’t as much as expected.

The first pay-per-view of 2020 features the highly anticipated return of Conor McGregor, who put on a great performance in defeating Donald Cerrone by TKO in just 40 seconds of their main event. Even though the fight took place at welterweight, the impact on the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings comes at lightweight, where the two fighters traditionally have been active.

As usual, there’s difficulty in deciding where to rank McGregor. He’s the biggest start in the sport with a tremendous skillset, but his inactivity – especially while others rack up big wins – is always something to consider. He entered UFC 246 at No. 13 and made a huge jump this week after an undeniably brilliant performance against “Cowboy.”

The rankings also got a shakeup at women’s bantamweight, where Holly Holm makes a jump after beating Raquel Pennington for the second time. And there also was a women’s flyweight shakeup to consider after Roxanne Modafferi dominated Maycee Barber for an easy unanimous decision win.

To hear about the big changes this week, let MMA Junkie’s “Gorgeous” George and John Morgan walk you through them in the video above.