Latest UFC rankings update: Al Iaquinta punches his way into lightweight Top 5

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is now a couple of days removed from its UFC on FOX 31 mixed martial arts (MMA) event (results here), which means it’s time for the promotion’s “official” rankings to be updated to reflect the biggest winners (and losers) coming out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

As expected, lightweight veteran Al Iaquinta got a huge bump from turning away former interim title contender Kevin Lee (highlights). Edson Barboza actually lost a spot with the “Motown Phenom” shake up, despite his destruction of Dan Hooker (more on that here).

In other news, Sergio Pettis moved to bantamweight and is no longer ranked at 125 pounds. Former women’s flyweight champion, Nicco Montano, has been removed from the charts after getting stripped of her title, and Julianna Pena is gone from women’s bantamweight while home playing mom.

Here’s how the rankings work, courtesy of UFC.com:

Rankings were generated by a voting panel made up of media members. The media members were asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters in the UFC by weight-class and pound-for-pound. A fighter is only eligible to be voted on if they are in active status in the UFC. A fighter can appear in more than one weight division at a time. The champion and interim champion are considered to be in the top positions of their respective divisions and therefore are not eligible for voting by weight-class. However, the champions can be voted on for the pound-for-pound rankings.

Take a look at what the latest rankings field looks like courtesy of UFC.com. Note: (+/- = movement in rankings, *NR = Not previously ranked).

POUND-FOR-POUND
1 Daniel Cormier
2 Khabib Nurmagomedov
3 Jon Jones
4 Max Holloway
5 TJ Dillashaw
6 Georges St-Pierre
7 Tyron Woodley
8 Conor McGregor
9 Stipe Miocic
10 Henry Cejudo
11 Cris Cyborg
12 Robert Whittaker
13 Tony Ferguson
14 Amanda Nunes
15 Rose Namajunas

FLYWEIGHT
Champion: Henry Cejudo
1 Jussier Formiga
2 Joseph Benavidez +1
3 Ray Borg +1
4 Deiveson Figueiredo +1
5 John Moraga +1
6 Wilson Reis +1
7 Alexandre Pantoja +1
8 Dustin Ortiz
9 Alex Perez +1
10 Tim Elliott +1
11 Magomed Bibulatov +1
12 Said Nurmagomedov +1
13 Ryan Benoit +1
14 Eric Shelton +1
15 Matt Schnell *NR

BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion: TJ Dillashaw
1 Cody Garbrandt
2 Dominick Cruz
3 Raphael Assuncao
4 Marlon Moraes
5 Jimmie Rivera
6 John Lineker
7 Aljamain Sterling
8 John Dodson
9 Pedro Munhoz
10 Rob Font
11 Cody Stamann
12 Alejandro Perez
13 Thomas Almeida
14 Douglas Silva de Andrade
15 Rani Yahya

FEATHERWEIGHT
Champion: Max Holloway
1 Brian Ortega
2 Jose Aldo
3 Frankie Edgar
4 Renato Moicano
5 Chad Mendes
6 Jeremy Stephens
7 Cub Swanson
8 Mirsad Bektic
9 Josh Emmett
10 Alexander Volkanovski
11 Ricardo Lamas
12 Yair Rodriguez
13 Chan Sung Jung
14 Zabit Magomedsharipov
15 Darren Elkins

LIGHTWEIGHT
Champion: Khabib Nurmagomedov
1 Tony Ferguson
2 Conor McGregor
3 Dustin Poirier
4 Al Iaquinta +4
5 Kevin Lee -1
6 Edson Barboza -1
7 Justin Gaethje -1
8 Anthony Pettis -1
9 Michael Chiesa
10 Nate Diaz
11 James Vick
12 Alexander Hernandez
13 Francisco Trinaldo
14 Dan Hooker
15 Paul Felder

WELTERWEIGHT
Champion: Tyron Woodley
1 Colby Covington
2 Kamaru Usman
3 Darren Till
4 Stephen Thompson
5 Rafael Dos Anjos
6 Robbie Lawler
7 Santiago Ponzinibbio
8 Demian Maia
9 Jorge Masvidal
10 Leon Edwards
11 Neil Magny
12 Gunnar Nelson
13 Donald Cerrone
14 Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos
15 Alex Oliveira

MIDDLEWEIGHT
Champion: Robert Whittaker
1 Yoel Romero
2 Luke Rockhold
3 Jacare Souza
4 Kelvin Gastelum
5 Chris Weidman
6 Israel Adesanya
7 Paulo Costa
8 Derek Brunson
9 Jared Cannonier
10 Brad Tavares
11 David Branch
12 Antonio Carlos Junior
13 Elias Theodorou +1
14 Uriah Hall -1
15 Thiago Santos

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion: Daniel Cormier
1 Jon Jones
2 Alexander Gustafsson
3 Anthony Smith
4 Jan Blachowicz
5 Ilir Latifi
6 Volkan Oezdemir
7 Thiago Santos
8 Dominick Reyes
9 Jimi Manuwa
10 Corey Anderson
11 Ovince Saint Preux
12 Glover Teixeira
13 Mauricio Rua
14 Misha Cirkunov
15 Nikita Krylov

HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion: Daniel Cormier
1 Stipe Miocic
2 Derrick Lewis
3 Francis Ngannou
4 Curtis Blaydes
5 Alexander Volkov
6 Alistair Overeem
7 Junior Dos Santos
8 Aleksei Oleinik
9 Justin Willis
10 Marcin Tybura
11 Tai Tuivasa
12 Shamil Abdurakhimov
13 Andrei Arlovski
14 Stefan Struve
15 Blagoy Ivanov

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT
Champion: Rose Namajunas
1 Jessica Andrade
2 Joanna Jedrzejczyk
3 Nina Ansaroff
3 Tatiana Suarez
5 Claudia Gadelha
6 Karolina Kowalkiewicz
7 Tecia Torres
8 Michelle Waterson
9 Carla Esparza
10 Felice Herrig
11 Cortney Casey
12 Cynthia Calvillo
13 Alexa Grasso
14 Randa Markos
15 Mackenzie Dern

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT
Champion: Valentina Shevchenko
1 Jessica Eye
2 Sijara Eubanks +1
3 Katlyn Chookagian +1
4 Joanna Jedrzejczyk +3
5 Alexis Davis
6 Liz Carmouche
7 Roxanne Modafferi +1
8 Lauren Murphy +1
9 Jessica-Rose Clark +1
10 Joanne Calderwood +2
11 Ashlee Evans-Smith
12 Mara Romero Borella +1
13 Andrea Lee +1
14 Jennifer Maia +1
15 Montana De La Rosa *NR

WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion: Amanda Nunes
1 Germaine de Randamie
2 Holly Holm
3 Ketlen Vieira
4 Raquel Pennington +1
5 Cat Zingano +1
6 Marion Reneau +1
7 Aspen Ladd +1
8 Sara McMann +1
9 Yana Kunitskaya +1
10 Irene Aldana +1
11 Tonya Evinger +2
11 Bethe Correia +1
13 Lina Lansberg +2
14 Lucie Pudilova
15 Talita Bernardo *NR

There you have it.

You can expect these standings to change -- particularly in the light heavyweight division -- in roughly two weeks, as the promotion is set to uncork the UFC 232: “Jones vs. Gustafsson 2” pay-per-view (PPV) event on Sat., Dec. 29, 2018 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada (more on that fight card here).

For even more upcoming UFC events click here.