Tapology has launched a new feature that displays an opposition level rating in UFC fighter profiles. The metric is calculated using a proprietary formula and ranges from 1 to 99, taking into account only the last six UFC fights while excluding bouts in other organizations. At UFC 328, the top five highest-rated fighters are Sean Strickland (74), Khamzat Chimaev (69), Alexander Volkov (67), Joaquin Buckley (55), and Sean Brady (54). The lowest-rated fighters on the card include Baysangur Susurkaev (4), Ozzy Diaz (4), Jorden Santos (6), Yaroslav Amosov (7), and Ateba Gautier (7). This new system provides fans and analysts with a quantifiable measure of the difficulty of competition each fighter has faced in their recent UFC career.
Tapology has rolled out a new opposition quality rating system for UFC fighter profiles, giving fans and analysts a numerical snapshot of how difficult a fighter's recent competition has been.
The feature assigns each fighter a score between 1 and 99, calculated through a proprietary formula that considers only their last six UFC bouts. Fights outside the UFC are excluded entirely from the calculation. At UFC 328, the metric reveals a wide spread across the card.
Middleweight champion Sean Strickland leads all fighters at the event with a rating of 74. The 35-year-old from the United States carries a 31-7-0 professional record and fights out of Xtreme Couture. Standing six-foot-one with a 76-inch reach, Strickland is one of the most active strikers in the UFC, landing 6.04 significant strikes per minute, though the measure of his opposition quality now comes with a concrete number attached.
Russian heavyweight Alexander Volkov, nicknamed Drago, holds the second-highest rating among the top five at 67. The number-one ranked heavyweight is 37 years old, stands six-foot-seven with an 80-inch reach, and carries a 40-11-0 record. His 57 percent striking accuracy ranks among the better marks in his division.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Ateba Gautier, known as The Silent Assassin, sits at 7. The 24-year-old holds a promising 11-1-0 record, stands six-foot-four with an 81-inch reach, and switches stances, but his limited UFC tenure means his recent opposition simply has not generated the same score as more established names on the card.
Why it matters
- The system offers a standardized, comparable measure of schedule difficulty across all UFC fighter profiles
- Fighters near the top of the ratings, like Strickland, gain added context around their championship credentials
- Newer or lower-ranked fighters with low scores may use the metric to track progress as their opposition level rises over time
Saturday, May 9, 2026
