| Rank | Fighter | Points | Promotion | Last Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mauricio Rua | 375 | UFC | 2 |
| 2 | Lyoto Machida | 358 | UFC | 1 |
| 3 | Rashad Evans | 340 | UFC | 3 |
| 4 | Quinton Jackson | 327 | UFC | 4 |
| 5 | Anderson Silva | 316 | UFC | 6 |
| 6 | Forrest Griffin | 292 | UFC | 5 |
| 7 | Antonio Rogerio Nogueira | 284 | UFC | 7 |
| 8 | Muhammed Lawal | 257 | Strikeforce | 8 |
| 9 | Thiago Silva | 202 | UFC | 10 |
| 10 | Gegard Mousasi | 191 | Strikeforce | 9 |
| 11 | Dan Henderson | 171 | Strikeforce | 14 |
| 12 | Jon Jones | 163 | UFC | 11 |
| 13 | Rich Franklin | 153 | UFC | 12 |
| 14 | Randy Couture | 141 | UFC | 13 |
| 15 | Luis Arthur Cane | 123 | UFC | 15 |
| 16 | Vitor Belfort | 116 | UFC | 19 |
| 17 | Ryan Bader | 104 | UFC | 16 |
| 18 | Keith Jardine | 99 | UFC | 17 |
| 19 | Chuck Liddell | 94 | UFC | 18 |
| 20 | Renato Sobral | 84 | Strikeforce | 20 |
| 21 | Brandon Vera | 80 | UFC | 21 |
| 22 | Tito Ortiz | 59 | UFC | 22 |
| 23 | Matt Hamill | 56 | UFC | 22 |
| 24 | Vladimir Matyushenko | 51 | UFC | 25 |
| 25 | Paulo Filho | 49 | DREAM | 24 |
Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.
The king is dead. Long live the king. #1 Mauricio “Shogun” Rua definitively established himself as the new king of the division with his first round finish of #2 Lyoto Machida to take the UFC 205lb title.
This weekend’s UFC 114 headliner between #3 Rashad Evans and #4 Quinton “Rampage” Jackson will determine who will be the first challenger to Rua’s title. The loser will likely plunge out of title contention for the foreseeable future.
No word on when or if #5 Anderson Silva will move up to make a run at the title but now that his dear friend Lyoto Machida no longer holds the title, it would seem that the UFC middleweight champ has a clear path to contend for another belt. Kevin Iole told Zak Woods that based on his conversations with Dana White, he expects Silva to have to win at least one fight against a top contender before he gets to challenge for the belt at light heavyweight.
#6 Forrest Griffin had to bow out of his UFC 114 bout with #7 Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Griffin is getting shoulder surgery and likely will return in the fall. Nogueira will instead face the unranked but formidable Jason Brilz. After Little Nog’s utter demolition of #15 Luis Arthur Cane, fans will be clamoring for a rematch against Rua if he does anything comparable to Brilz.
#10 Gegard Mousasi is expected to fight in the DREAM light heavyweight tournament. He hopes to rematch #8 Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal in Japan on New Year’s Eve if he wins.
Based on the premise that all MMA rankings are subjective but that it’s still useful and informative to know who the online MMA community as a whole ranks as the best fighters in MMA, we collect and average the rankings of the top MMA websites to produce our consensus rankings. We compile the top MMA rankings from each of our sources and award 25 points for a first place ranking, 16 for a 10th place ranking, 1 for a 25th place ranking. A formula is used to “normalize” the data so all fighters are awarded points from those lists that do not include a full 25 fighters. This formula ensures that each ranking site awards the same number of total points regardless of how many fighters they choose to rank. Each fighter’s total is divided by the number of possible points to determine their standing in the Consensus Rankings.
We are now moving to what JCS of Fight Matrix has described as assumed rankings in an attempt to rank fighters who move between weight classes. This has been the biggest problem with the consensus rankings and we believe this new methodology will rectify that.
Let’s take Anderson Silva for instance. 87% (13 of 15) of our panelists have him at Light Heavyweight and 100% (15 of 15) at Middleweight. On the 13 ballots that ranked Silva at 205, we took the average (21.2). We then reduced that number by half the percentage of Light Heavyweight ballots that he was not included on. Say he’s not on 30% of them, then we do a 15% penalty on the average that we found in the previous step. That number is then used instead of the usual “normalization number” to provide points from those not ranking the fighter in the weight class in question. This avoids fighters being excessively penalized by confusion about which weight class they belong.
About the author
