Eleven of the 12 PFL heavyweight bouts in the last 12 months ended inside the distance, and the division now heads to PFL Dubai on 14 Nov 2026 with champion Vadim Nemkov defending against Sergey Bilostenniy. The belt fight sits on top of a card that also puts the second and third spots in the rankings to work.
PFL heavyweight rankings: who is where
Nemkov, 34, holds the title at 19-2-0 with one no contest, with a finish rate of 79 percent. Behind him the top four have not moved since the last ranking update.
| Rank | Fighter | Record | Age |
|---|---|---|---|
| Champion | Vadim Nemkov | 19-2-0, 1 NC | 34 |
| 1 | Oleg Popov | 22-2-0 | 34 |
| 2 | Denis Goltsov | 37-9-0 | 36 |
| 3 | Sergey Bilostenniy | 15-4-0 | 31 |
| 4 | Alexander Romanov | 20-4-0, 1 NC | 35 |
| 5 | Maxwell Djantou Nana | 9-2-0 | 35 |
| 7 | Eduardo Neves | 2-3-0 | 26 |
Maxwell Djantou Nana climbed one place and Eduardo Neves two, which is the only movement on the list. Neves is the outlier: at 26 and 2-3-0 he is the youngest name and the only one with a losing record, though his finish rate is a perfect 100 percent.
How the division has been finishing fights
The heavyweights are not a decision division. Over the last 12 months the PFL logged 12 heavyweight bouts and 11 of them ended by TKO, KO or submission. The one exception was Nana's unanimous decision over Karl Williams on 2 May 2026.
The finishes came in every shape:
- Goltsov needed 0:52 of round one to stop Hasan Mezhiev with a head kick on 7 Aug 2026 at PFL Charlotte.
- Abraham Bably knocked out Justin Clarke in 0:21 of round one at PFL Africa 4.
- Romanov submitted Rodrigo Nascimento with a guillotine choke in round two at PFL Chicago.
- Nemkov took an arm-triangle choke on Renan Ferreira in round one at PFL Champions Series 4.
Finish rate here means the share of a fighter's fights that end by knockout, TKO or submission rather than a decision. By that yardstick Romanov leads the top group at 85 percent, with Goltsov close behind at 84. Nemkov's 79 and Nana's 78 follow, then Bilostenniy at 73. Popov, ranked first, is the lowest of the group at 55 percent.
Bilostenniy's route to the title shot
Bilostenniy arrives off his most recent win. On 2 May 2026 in Sioux Falls he stopped Renan Ferreira with a punch at 1:44 of round three at PFL Sioux Falls. That is the win the PFL Dubai main event is built on. At 31 he is the youngest member of the top five.
Nemkov's last outing was the Ferreira submission in December 2025, so the champion has been out of the cage since the winter. Ferreira has lost to both men within five months.
What else is booked on 14 Nov
The Dubai card does not stop at the title fight. Popov, the number one contender, meets Pouya Rahmani, who beat Karl Williams by arm-triangle choke in round two at PFL Champions Series 5 on 7 Feb 2026. Goltsov faces Nana, a meeting of two heavyweights who both won in August: Goltsov with a first-round head kick, Nana with a round-three TKO of Neves.
For the rankings that makes Dubai a reset. The champion and the fighters ranked first, second, third and fifth are all in action. If the pattern of the last year holds, the new order will be settled before the final bell of most of those fights.
Track the PFL heavyweight rankings, predict Nemkov vs Bilostenniy, and follow live round-by-round results in the free Pugna MMA app — plus a free no-money prediction game in eight languages.
This article was generated with AI and may contain errors.