Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez & the MMA Rankings
By Ben Bieker
Here you go you ranking nuts the new edition of RSR’s MMA top ten rankings of each division. We saw a new number one crowned in the Light-Heavyweight division which caused considerable movement throughout the rest of the top ten 205’ers. There was no movement in either of the Heavyweight, Middleweight, or Featherweight divisions. There were quite a few championship matches that happened since the last rankings, but most of the movement happened in the lower end of the divisions.
HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (over 205 pounds)*
1. Cain Velasquez
2. Junior Dos Santos
3. Fabricio Werdum
4. Brock Lesnar
5. Antonia Silva
6. Shane Carwin
7. Frank Mir
8. Fedor Emelianenko
9. Josh Barnett
10. Alistair Overeem
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)
1. Jon Jones delivered another near flawless performance to advance to the top of the heap at 205. At 23 years old that spells doom for a lot of fighters in the division.
2. Rashad Evans
3. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua with his loss to Jon Jones moves down two spots in the division. This only happened because he himself has never fought Rashad Evans and the traded loss and wins between common opponents is hard to follow. Also, Shogun had nothing in that fight, but people need to realize he came off knee surgery. The last time he did that he looked horrible against Mark Coleman but came back with three strong fights until he got hurt again.
4. Forrest Griffin moves down on with Jon moving into the top spot.
5. Quinton Jackson moves down 1 also with Jon moving up.
6. Lyoto Machida
7. Dan Henderson
8. Ryan Bader
9. Matt Hamill moves up one with Lis’ Nog’s recent loss.
10. Phil Davis debuts after he was able to take a decision win over Lil’ Nog.
MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185-pound limit)
1. Anderson Silva
2. Chael Sonnen
3. Yushin Okami
4. Nathan Marquardt
5. Demian Maia
6. Ronaldo “Jacare” de Souza
7. Hector Lombard
8. Jorge Santiago
9. Robbie Lawler
10. Mamed Khalidov
WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170-pound limit)
1. Georges St-Pierre
2. Jon Fitch
3. Thiago Alves
4. Josh Koscheck
5. Jake Shields
6. B.J. Penn
7. Nick Diaz moves up to number seven with his win over Paul Daley. He would have moved up higher if he would have put Daley away without getting dropped himself.
8. Carlos Condit down one with Nick’s advance.
9. Diego Sanchez moves up one with Paul’s fall to the bottom of the rankings.
10. Paul Daley drops tot he bottom, and he will need a good performance over a quality opponent if he wants to stay in the top ten. There are a lot of Welterweight fights coming up that could affect the rankings.
LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (160-pound limit)
1. Frankie Edgar
2. Gilbert Melendez didn’t move up after his win over Kawajiri, but is essentially tied for first with Frankie.
3. Gray Maynard
4. Eddie Alvarez moves up one after defending his belt.
5. Jim Miller moves down one spot even though he has beaten quality opposition consistently. The problem is none of them are ranked and Eddie is the champion who had a dominant went over a legitimate opponent.
6. Shinya Aoki looked good in his win over Berrbohm, but will need to have a top ten win to move up over the extremely active Jim Miller.
7. Anthony Pettis
8. Dennis Siver moves up to eighth after the failure of Kawajiri.
9. Taytsu Kawajiri drops one after such an embarrassing loss. He had nothing for the fighter he professes to have beaten six years ago.
10. Benson Henderson
FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 pound-limit)
1. Jose Aldo
2. Diego Nunes
3. Chad Mendes
4. Dustin Poierer
5. Michihiro Omigawa
6. Manny Gamburyan
7. Hatsu Hioki
8. Josh Grispi
9. Joe Warren
10. Mark Hominick
BANTAMWEIGHT DIVISION (135 pounds or less)
1. Dominick Cruz
2. Joseph Benavidez
3. Brian Bowles
4. Scott Jorgensen
5. Miguel Torres
6. Uriah Faber beat a former champ at his own game. He set himself up for a title shot and a chance to be considered a number one ranked fighter once again.
7. Brad Pickett moves down with Uriah’s gain.
8. Demetrious Johnson moves down with Uriah’s gain.
9. Eddie Wineland stays the same after a valiant effort against Uriah.
10. Antonio Banuelos down two with because Eddie’s performance indicated that he had a better game than anyone though he would.
The next rankings will come out after UFC 130 Edgar vs. Maynard 3. There are two UFC events in that span and some decent Bellator fights that could skew the rankings.
Remember two unranked fighters that fight could be on the cusp of the top ten and a good performance could knock-off a recent loser of a fight or someone who barely just got on the list.
Bellator
41
Joe Warren (#9 Featherweight) vs. Marcos Galvao
43
Hector Lombard (#& Middleweight) vs. Flaniko Vitale
UFC
129
Georges St-Pierre (#1 Welterweight) vs. Jake Shields (#5 Welterweight)
Jose Aldo (#1 Featherweight) vs. Mark Hominick (#10 Featherweight)
Jason Brilz vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
Randy Couture vs. Lyoto Machida (#6 Light-Heavyweight)
Mark Bocek vs. Benson Henderson (#10 Lightweight)
130
Frankie Edgar (#! Lightweight) vs. Gray Maynard (#3 Lightweight)
Matt Hamill (#5 Light-Heavyweight) vs. Quinton Jackson (#9 light-Heavyweight)
Frank Mir (#& Heavyweight) vs. Roy Nelson
Jorge Santiago (#* Middleweight) vs. Brian Stann
Thiago Alves (#3 Welterweight) vs. Rick Story
Brad Pickett (#7 Bantamweight) vs. Miguel Torres (#5 Bantamweight)
Demetrious Johnson (#8 Bantamweight) vs. Renan Barao