A Betting Guide to the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship)

Updated: 949 Boxing and MMA

In this betting guide to the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), we look ahead to which bouts are coming up over the next month or two and see which men and women are ranked as the best pound-for-pound fighters in the UFC.

A Betting Guide to the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship)
Frank Monkhouse Boxing Editor

Former professional Boxer Frank Monkhouse delivers knock-out content for OLBG as our Boxing betting expert

What is the UFC?

When it comes to UFC and MMA, it does confuse some people as to if they are different things or one of the same.

The simple explanation is that MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is a sport, it falls along the same lines as boxing, football etc, it's a sport whilst the UFC is an organisation or promotion company, think of it as a league.

An example of that would be whilst MMA is the equivalent to football then the UFC is the equivalent to The FA or UEFA, another example is that MMA is the equivalent to basketball whilst the UFC is the equivalent to the NBA.

Tom Aspinall Exclusive Interviews with OLBG
ALSO READ

Tom Aspinall Exclusive Interviews with OLBG

The UFC is the largest MMA organisation, the first-ever event was staged in 1993, within the UFC there are a total of twelve weight divisions with eight men and four womens, and fighters adopt styles from a range of disciplines like boxing, kickboxing, judo, taekwondo and more which is why it adopted the Mixed Martial Arts naming.

When looking for UFC predictions, head over to our Best UFC Tipsters page, on here we only highlight tipsters who have shown a profit over the past year for their tips on UFC & Boxing which means you are getting the best of the best UFC Tipsters.

Upcoming UFC Events

Remember to head over to the UFC Betting Tips page close to these events to see which fighters the OLBG UFC expert tipsters are predicting to win the bouts, in addition to UFC you will also find boxing predictions on there too.

Event Date Venue Location
UFC on ESPN: Nicolau vs. Perez Apr 27, 2024 UFC Apex Las Vegas
UFC 301: Pantoja vs. Erceg May 4, 2024 Farmasi Arena Rio de Janeiro
UFC on ESPN: Lewis vs. Nascimento May 11, 2024 Enterprise Center St. Louis
UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs. Murphy May 18, 2024 UFC Apex Las Vegas
UFC 302: Makhachev vs. Poirier Jun 1, 2024 Prudential Center Newark
UFC Fight Night 242 Jun 8, 2024 KFC Yum! Center Louisville
UFC Fight Night 243 Jun 15, 2024 UFC Apex Las Vegas
UFC on ABC: Whittaker vs. Chimaev Jun 22, 2024 Kingdom Arena Riyadh
UFC 303: McGregor vs. Chandler Jun 29, 2024 T-Mobile Arena Las Vegas
UFC Fight Night 244 Jul 13, 2024 TBA TBA
UFC Fight Night 245 Aug 3, 2024 Etihad Arena Abu Dhabi
UFC 305 Aug 18, 2024 RAC Arena Perth
UFC 306 September 14, 2024 Sphere Las Vegas
Share

UFC - The Biggest PPVs

Dana White is probably the one name which comes to mind with the UFC, he has been president since 2001 and has grown this into a multi-billion dollar company during his time at the helm and sent it worldwide with TV audiences from around the globe turning into each UFC event of which there has been over 500!

With the popularity came the $$$, the Khabib vs McGregor fight at UFC 229 in 2018 was the most sold event on PPV with 2.4m sales which well exceeded the previous record which was Diaz vs McGregor 2 at UFC 202 in 2016 which sold 1.6m PPV sales.

Still, since UFC 236 in 2019, the PPV has changed and figures are no longer available.

UFC - The Biggest Gates

In terms of the most considerable gates, the Alvarez vs McGregor fight which headlined at UFC 205 in 2016 holds the record with $17.7m receipts (20,427 attendance), it even beats the Khabib vs McGregor bout at UFC 229 in 2018 which brought in $17.2m (20,034 attendance).

When the UFC goes on the road that is when the attendances spiral out of control, especially in Australia, in 2015 UFC 193 was held at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne where a record-breaking 56,214 fans attended beating the 2011 record of 55,724 who participated at the Rogers Center in Toronto in 2011.

In 2019, the UFC returned to Australia again at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne for UFC 243 and the record was broken again with 57,127 fans turning out for the event!

If you are planning on having a bet on any of the upcoming UFC events then be sure to head over to our Best Online Bookmaker for UFC & MMA Betting guide so you know who to have that bet with!

UFC Men's Rankings & Champions

The Pound-for-Pound rankings are considered to be the best rankings, these are the best fighters in the world according to the rankings, you can find the full rankings for each of the men's divisions on the UFC Official site.

Rank Fighter Record Win Streak Weight Class
1 Islam Makhachev 25–1 13 Lightweight
2 Jon Jones 27–1 (1 NC) 5 Heavyweight
3 Leon Edwards 22–3 (1 NC) 4 Welterweight
4 Alex Pereira 10–2 3 Light heavyweight
5 Ilia Topuria 15–0 15 Featherweight
6 Sean O'Malley 18–1 (1 NC) 3 Bantamweight
7 Alexander Volkanovski 26–4 0 Featherweight
8 Max Holloway 26–7 3 Lightweight & Featherweight
9 Dricus du Plessis 21–2 9 Middleweight
Share

Here are the current champions for the men's divisions:

Division Champion
Pound-For-Pound Islam Makhachev
Heavyweight Jon Jones
Light Heavyweight Alex Pereira
Middleweight Dricus du Plessis
Welterweight Leon Edwards
Lightweight Islam Makhachev
Featherweight Ilia Topuria
Bantamweight Sean O'Malley
Flyweight Alexandre Pantoja
Share

UFC Women's Rankings & Champions

Again, like the men's, the women's side has pound-for-pound rankings, ranking all of the women fighters no matter their division, to see the ranking for each of the four women's individual divisions head over to the UFC site.

Rank Fighter Record Win Streak Weight Class
1 Alexa Grasso 16–3–1 0 Flyweight
2 Zhang Weili 25–3 4 Strawweight
3 Valentina Shevchenko 23–4–1 0 Flyweight
4 Manon Fiorot 12–1 12 Flyweight
5 Julianna Peña 11–5 0 Bantamweight
6 Raquel Pennington 16–8 6 Bantamweight
7 Rose Namajunas 12–6 1 Flyweight
8 Erin Blanchfield 12–2 0 Flyweight
9 Tatiana Suarez 10–0 10 Strawweight
Share

Here are the current women's champions for each division:

Division Champion
Pound-For-Pound Alexa Grasso
Featherweight Vacant
Bantamweight Raquel Pennington
Flyweight Alexa Grasso
Strawweight Zhang Weili
Share

Author Information

We are proud to have Frank Monkhouse on our expert teams at OLBG, maintaining our relationship since sponsoring him when he was fighting professionally, and now he delivers us top-notch boxing and fighting sport content for the OLBG pages.

Frank Monkhouse

Frank Monkhouse

Boxing editor

Frank Monkhouse is a former professional boxer fighting at middleweight now turned sports betting writer supplying content from knockout-content for a range of outlets including Betfair, Coral, William Hill, World Sports Network and The Racing Post and proudly as the Boxing Betting Expert on OLBG. 

👨‍🏫 Specialist Subjects🔬📚

It is no surprise to find Frankie is our Boxing expert, although he has a deep catalogue of work in regards to football previews as Rangers fan. Frankie has written preview for boxing events as well as working on some deep data driven boxing content for us too.

Other Fight Blogs

Here are some other blogs from the fighting scene that may be of interest to you:

No Comments

There are no comments here. Be the first to comment...

Keep Reading

Tony Pulis

Updated: 24

Tony Pulis

Exclusive Interview with Tony Pulis: Leicester City WILL win promotion despite patchy form, expectation on Leeds players might have hampered their performances, ‘The majority of football’ wanted Sunderland to struggle this season

Continue Reading

Exclusive Markus Babbel Interview

Updated: 14

Exclusive Markus Babbel Interview

Former Liverpool defender, Markus Babbel discusses Jurgen Klopp's potential as a candidate for the next England manager, identifies weaknesses in Trent Alexander-Arnold’s defensive abilities, and reveals Carragher and Fowler as the biggest party animals he's known in his interview with OLBG.

Continue Reading

By using this site you confirm you are 18+ and consent to our use of cookies and processing of personal data as set out in our Privacy Policy
Got it!