Rankings Shakeup: Dan Hooker, Kai Kara-France headline big moves after UFC 305

By Shaun Al-Shatti@shaunalshatti Aug 20, 2024, 11:00am EDT

Israel Adesanya may have fallen short in his bid to recapture the UFC middleweight title, but the rest of City Kickboxing’s crew showed out at UFC 305.

Chief among them were Adesanya’s teammates, lightweight Dan Hooker and flyweight Kai Kara-France, both of whom picked up the biggest wins of their respective UFC careers on Saturday’s pay-per-view card. Hooker won a grueling war of attrition against Mateusz Gamrot to push his win streak to three straight and vault into lightweight title contention, while Kara-France needed less than a round to knock out previous title challenger Steve Erceg and reestablish his presence in the flyweight championship picture.

As such, Hooker and Kara-France make up two of the most impactful moves in the MMA Fighting global rankings as the dust settles from Perth. In our latest divisional update, Hooker jumps up three spots into the No. 9 lightweight ranking, while Kara-France advances to No. 6 in the flyweight ladder.

While it may not be as immediately visible as those two, one other notable outcome from UFC 305 centered around the event’s headliner, UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis. The South African titleholder may still have some doubters in the MMA community because of his unique style, but you won’t find them among MMA Fighting’s seven-person voting panel. With his fourth-round submission of Adesanya, “Stillknocks” captured all seven first-place votes from our team at 185 pounds, finally convincing the lone holdout on our panel of du Plessis’ superiority over undefeated Bellator champion Johnny Eblen.

Du Plessis now represents our team’s first unanimous No. 1 middleweight in the world since Adesanya’s second title reign ended in shocking fashion at the hands of Sean Strickland.

Check out our updated rankings below from the divisions most affected by UFC 305.