Dana White consulting Mark Zuckerberg on using AI to fix UFC rankings
Dana White reached out to a friend in a high place to address his latest grievance.
In recent weeks, White has made it no secret that he’s not happy with the current UFC rankings system, which is voted on by members of the media (though several of the outlets involved are obscure or appear to have been inactive for years). His aggravation peaked following Khalil Rountree’s valiant loss at UFC 307 to light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, who knocked out Rountree in the fourth round after trailing on the scorecards.
White told TNT Sports that he and his team have gone as far as to reach out to Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for advice.
“We literally had meetings this week to work on it,” White said. “I actually talked to Mark Zuckerberg, too, about AI. So I’m totally going to fix the rankings. We’re going to make a lot of strong moves here coming in to ‘25.”
It’s not clear whether White plans to use AI to completely replace the current rankings panel, or use some mixture of human voting and AI-generated input, to create a new system.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, following White’s most recent rankings rant, two fighter evaluations that he was most displeased with were changed in the latest update (h/t Eurosport).
Looks like some of the voters sh*t their pants Dana indeed stops the current rankings and starts AI on UFC rankings.
— Marcel Dorff (@BigMarcel24) October 22, 2024
Dana White not happy with Max & Khalil's ranking and without fighting one week later they move up in rankings. Are you that easily swayed?
Or is there an… pic.twitter.com/fAgrAsiz9Z
White continued to use Rountree and Holloway as his most frustrating examples when it comes to the rankings.
“We’re working on it right now,” White said. “We’ve literally been working on it all last week and I will have some answers on that soon, but the rankings system drives me crazy. From the pound-for-pound to each division, there’s huge mistakes.
“First of all, Khalil Rountree, let’s start there. He fights the fight that he fought, if you look at Alex Pereira’s destroyed everybody that he’s faced. Going into the fourth round, Khalil was ahead on the scorecards and then he gets beat and he stays at No. 8. I’m not saying he should be in the top 3 or whatever, but he should definitely move up, for me. He might not be 2 or 3, but he’s definitely not 8.”
“Then you look at Max Holloway,” White added. “It just changed this last Tuesday, but he knocked out—If you really think about it, he beat Justin Gaethje twice that night. He beat him on the scorecards and he knocked him out with one second left. How is he ranked 13 or something [at lightweight]? How is he ranked that low when he beat Gaethje?”
Zuckerberg, one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in the world, is an avid fan of combat sports, having attended several UFC events as a guest of White’s. He has also participated in amateur grappling competitions.