After more than a decade remaining undefeated and winning two divisional golds, Jon Jones continues to impress fans with his unmatched level of skills inside the Octagon. With an incomparable record at hand, Dana White insists that ‘Jonny Bones’ is the undisputed pound-for-pound No.1 fighter. But is he really, though? Well, we have a few reasons that refute the UFC CEO’s claims.

Dana White seems to have had enough of the influence the media has on the athlete rankings. He believes that artificial intelligence is the way to go, and after the recent announcement of the UFC’s partnership with IBM, fans will get to see a more precise ranking system. However, that still won’t justify the 55-year-old’s claims about Jon Jones, and here’s why.

Jon Jones has just fought twice in the last 4 years

The first and the most obvious factor that comes into play when talking about pound-for-pound rankings, or just the usual divisional rankings, is that activity plays a big role. It’s not an all-time list, which would again be highly subjective for some. It’s undeniable that Jon Jones has probably been the least active champion since the beginning of this decade. He hasn’t fought more than twice in over four years, so to put him at the top of the P4P list just doesn’t seem reasonable.

On the contrary, every other champion, both male and female alike, has fought more times than Jon Jones since he took his break from 2020 to early 2023. The current king of P4P: Islam Makhachev has been fighting regularly, at least once a year, since 2020, making a total of four title fights and three defenses. This makes his top-spot status a bit more legitimate than ‘Bones’.

However, this isn’t even the more jarring part of Dana White‘s claim. If we look at the roster to find other dominant fighters, Alex Pereira certainly fits the criteria, and the pace at which he recorded his achievements, well, Jon Jones perhaps has never done anything like that in the UFC.

Alex Pereira’s recent track record overshadows Jon Jones

The new flavor of the UFC for fans is watching Alex Pereira knock out his opponents, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing since the beginning of his UFC run back in 2021. Except for losing just once under the UFC banner against former Glory rival, Israel Adesanya, ‘Poatan’ amassed 9 wins in just a span of 3 years fighting under Dana White’s promotion, which is something that Jon Jones did do at the beginning of his career, but not any time recently.

In 2011, Jon Jones had three championship fights, with two of them being title defenses. Meanwhile, Alex Pereira in 2024 joined the prestigious group of fighters such as Demetrious Johnson and Kamaru Usman for defending the title three times in the same year, with two of them being against former champions. That’s one thing that ‘Bones’ has never done. Another startling statistic when it comes to ‘Poatan’ is that all of his title fight wins have come from ‘Performance of The Night’ winning knockouts. Isn’t that impressive?

Certainly, Alex Pereira also makes a case for his admission to the top of the pound-for-pound list, even surpassing Islam Makhachev. However, when it comes to the level of competition, the lightweight champion seems to have more of a claim over the P4P No.1 status than Pereira and Jon Jones.

Islam Makhachev- truly deserving of the P4P crown

After Khabib Nurmagomedov’s retirement, the whole weight of the Dagestani camp fell on Islam Makhachev’s shoulders, and since then, he’s been carrying that weight like a champion. Islam Makhachev has been nothing less of dominant, in most of his fights, beating three former champions in his four title fights so far. Dustin Poirier, Charles Oliveira, and Alexander Volkanovski have all failed against the 26-1 star.

When we take a look at his two fights against Alexander Volkanovski, while the first one was a close call, Islam Makhachev totally destroyed ‘Volk’ with a vicious head kick knockout to take the best pound-for-pound title from the Aussie star. Moreover, Islam Makhachev has competed in a total of 8 fights since 2020, which, as we’ve already mentioned, was the year Jon Jones decided to take a break from fighting, where 7 of them were finished. That’s another factor that plays into Makhachev’s status as the best fighter on the UFC roster regardless of any weight classes.

Legacy-wise, sure, Jon Jones is just untouchable. However, the current UFC landscape is full of new and exciting fighters, who’ve made a significant impact when ‘Bones’ was away for a while. Keeping that in mind, it’s important that recent performances inside the Octagon, and not the career-long legacies should take precedence when it comes to the pound-for-pound rankings. After judging all the stats, we ultimately conclude that Islam Makhachev is the rightful earner of the P4P top spot, and Dana White may need to acknowledge that fact.

What do you think about the current pound-for-pound rankings scenario? Drop your comments below.