USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie rankings, Nov. 24: Deiveson Figueiredo climbs P4P list

With his first title defense under his belt, Deiveson Figueiredo is making moves.

Figueiredo, the reigning UFC flyweight champion, looked impressive this past Saturday at UFC 255, where he defeated Alex Perez by first-round submission. That result was good enough have him climb two spots in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie pound-for-pound rankings, moving him from No. 9 to No. 7 and leapfrogging a pair of champions in Ryan Bader and Alex Volkanovski.

But at flyweight, Figueiredo stays put at No. 2 behind former UFC champion and ONE Championship star Demetrious Johnson – but barely. Here’s the explanation from our rankings chair, “Gorgeous” George Garcia:

“This one is tough. Figueiredo is now 8-1 in the past 36 months. He’s finally got a title defense under his belt, 20-1 overall, five-fight winning streak. Johnson is 4-1 in his past 36 months. ONE just hasn’t rebounded the way UFC has, so the inactivity stands out. As now, we still don’t have an exact date for Johnson’s next fight, but we expect the first quarter of 2021. ONE titleholder Adriano Moraes is a quality opponent, but he’s not top 15. Figueiredo keeps getting the top guys, and now Moreno is on tap.

“We’re talking about one of the GOATs of this sport in Johnson. What he did is pretty amazing, but that’s slowly wearing off in terms of these rankings. I think one more fight is worth the wait. If Figueiredo wins at UFC 256, he goes to No. 1. After that, he’ll probably take some time off. Johnson would have a chance to overtake him at that point.”

Aside from Figueiredo, there were other movers and shakers to come out of UFC 255, as well as Bellator 253, where undefeated featherweight A.J. McKee scored the biggest win of his career with a slick submission of Darrion Caldwell in the promotion’s grand prix semifinals.

Find out where McKee and others ended up by clicking through the dropdowns above.