It’s hard to remember a time when Georges St. Pierre and Jon Fitch weren’t the #1 and #2 ranked welterweights on the planet. Yesterday at UFC 141, Jon Fitch was knocked out in under fifteen seconds, making for the end of his time as the second best 170 pounder in the world.
GSP will have not fought for a year in April which is the point where he should be removed from rankings (standard method for Ring Magazine or any other respectable ranking organization in combat sports). So after such a long-established pattern at the top of 170, we’re looking at a new world with Nick Diaz, Carlos Condit and Johny Hendricks on top of the rankings.
If that weren’t enough, long time top heavyweight Brock Lesnar announced his retirement after being trounced by Alistair Overeem in the 141 main event. In September of 2010 the top two heavyweights in the world were Lesnar (at #1) and Fedor Emelianenko (at #2). Current UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos was at #6 while Alistair Overeem was #8. Things have changed very quickly for the sport with Lesnar retiring and Fedor being reduced (or returned, depending on your view of the Russian legend) to fighting an overmatched Japanese light heavyweight that same evening for DREAM.
Even Donald Cerrone who was unranked as recently as June, worked his way up to #8 coming in to last night. It seemed Cerrone was poised to challenge for the title in 2012, but then Nate Diaz busted him up for 15 minutes and derailed the hype train while likely starting one of his own. The Penns, Florians, Sherks, Gomis that ran lightweight for so long are suddenly nowhere near the top ten.
As we head in to the start of 2012, UFC 141 serves as a good reminder of how quickly things can change and only makes me wonder where we’ll be a year from now.