Navajo Stirling Crashes the Top 10 as Blachowicz Slides to No. 10

Navajo Stirling took a co-main event fight against a former UFC light heavyweight champion on less than three weeks' notice and wrecked him in under three minutes. That's how you announce yourself. The undefeated 28-year-old finished Jan Blachowicz at UFC Belgrade on Saturday and, as of the latest rankings, debuts at No. 6 — tied with PFL champ Corey Anderson and already knocking on the door of the top five.

Blachowicz, meanwhile, goes the other way. The 43-year-old Pole tumbles four spots to No. 10, one bad night from falling off the board entirely. This is a career-worst stretch: two losses and two draws before Saturday, and now a fifth winless outing. His last hand-raise came in May 2022, and that only happened because Aleksandar Rakic went down with an injury. For a truly definitive Blachowicz win you have to rewind to March 2021, when he defended the belt and handed Israel Adesanya the first loss of his MMA career.

Why This Was No Gimme

It's easy to look at the finish and call it easy pickings now. It wasn't when Stirling signed on. Blachowicz stepped in after the original card fell apart — Bogdan Guskov replaced an injured Khalil Rountree and got stopped by Magomed Ankalaev in the fifth round at UFC Abu Dhabi the week before. And even in his slump, Blachowicz had pushed Carlos Ulberg, Alex Pereira and Ankalaev to tough nights. All three went on to hold the 205-pound title. Beating that version of the veteran, on short notice, is a real scalp.

There was a tell, though. On Blachowicz's walkout, Jon Anik mentioned the veteran can no longer lift weights because it causes him too much discomfort. In hindsight, that's not the profile of a man about to turn back the clock against a hungry unbeaten prospect.

The Traffic Jam at the Top

Stirling's rise comes with a wrinkle: his friend and teammate Ulberg is currently wearing the belt. Awkward. But at 28 and still short of his physical peak, Stirling has time on his side and momentum that says a title shot is coming sooner rather than later — friendship or not.

Elsewhere in the division, former middleweight champ Robert Whittaker cracks the light heavyweight rankings after a successful 205-pound debut over Nikita Krylov at UFC 329. Krylov drops out, and Rakic — now 15-6 with a decision win over Marcin Tybura on his ledger — exits the picture after moving up to heavyweight. For Blachowicz, the math is simpler and grimmer: he's now closer to retirement than to the No. 1 spot he once owned outright.