 Red Belt
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Post-PRIDE 33 Rankings, All Weight Classes
There've been at least two or three new threads made on light heavyweight rankings alone since PRIDE 33, and we've also seen some middleweight rankings threads. I thought it'd be wise to try and consolidate all of our rankings into one thread, so the discussion can be as focused in one thread as possible. If you disagree with something, then make your own lists and explain why. I've seen some good rankings across Sherdog but they've been spread out across multiple threads, so don't be afraid to re-post your rankings if need be.
My rankings aren't just based on a fighter's last performance; my rankings measure a fighter's recent career outlook, which eliminates the possibility of giving a fighter with one big win but some questionable losses an unfair advantage of being placed above all the other ranked fighters who have accomplished more in their careers.
(Number in parenthesis indicates fighter's previous ranking.)
HEAVYWEIGHT (over 205 lb):
1. Fedor Emelianenko (1)
2. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic (2)
3. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (3)
4. Josh Barnett (4)
5. Tim Sylvia (5)
6. Fabricio Werdum (6)
7. Andrei Arlovski (7)
8. Mark Hunt (8)
9. Aleksander Emelianenko (9)
10. Brandon Vera (10)
No changes here. F. Emelianenko remains on top, with Filipovic just below at No. 2 after winning the PRIDE Openweight Grand Prix. Rodrigo Nogueira and Barnett battled for the No. 3 position; the fighters are 1-1 with each other, now. Sylvia, UFC champion, remains in the top five. Werdum, a new UFC acquisition, has a recent victory over A. Emelienenko, which merits a ranking above Arlovski for now. Interestingly, this is exactly how my list looked before Arlovski-Werdum was signed for UFC 70. Now these two heavyweights are going to battle it out in the UFC, and it'll be interesting to see how comes out on top! Hunt, A. Emelianenko, and Vera round out the bottom of the list. It bears notice that Hunt is not a heavyweight, according to the Unified Rules; he is a super heavyweight until he can make 265 lb. Call it glitch in the system, because I'm ranking him at heavyweight, anyway.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT (limit(s): 205 lb):
1. Chuck Liddell (1)
2. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (3)
3. Wanderlei Silva (2)
4. Ricardo Arona (4)
5. Dan Henderson (--)
6. Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (6)
7. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (5)
8. Renato "Babalu" Sobral (7)
9. Tito Ortiz (8)
10. Kazuhiro Nakamura (9)
Liddell and Rua could contend for the No. 1 spot; I think Liddell has been more consistent with his victories lately. Both fighters have lost to a fighter that the other has beaten (Rua lost to Sobral, Liddell to Jackson). Liddell's victory over top-two Randy Couture in 2005 propelled him to the top of this list, and he has done nothing but dominate since. Rua has only fought two top ten light heavyweights since 2005; Liddell has fought three top ten light heavyweights since 2005. Silva drops in ranking after his loss to Henderson, and Arona stays at No. 4. I think Henderson's victory over Silva should at least put him in the top five, but not yet above Silva. Reason being, the fighters are 1-1 with each other and Silva has done much more at 205 lb than Henderson. After all, Arona is 1-1 with Silva, too. Jackson sneaks past Rogerio Nogueira after Nogueira was KO'd at PRIDE 33, although Ortiz and Sobral remain below Nogueira. Nakamura is consistent in his performances and earns the last slot.
MIDDLEWEIGHT (limit(s): 181 to 187 lb):
1. Anderson Silva (1)
2. Paulo Filho (2)
3. Dan Henderson (6)
4. Matt Lindland (3)
5. Rich Franklin (5)
6. Nathan Marquardt (7)
7. Frank Trigg (--)
8. Kazuo Misaki (4)
9. Denis Kang (8)
10. Mike Swick (10)
Silva and Filho are locked for No. 1, and you could make a strong argument for either. I think Silva's win over Franklin is more substantial than Filho's win over Misaki (probably Filho's best victory), but Silva has lost in the past to mid-level fighters, whereas Filho is still undefeated in his campaign. So, I guess it depends on how you look at the ranking. Personally, I think Silva's wins since the loss have put him past the two losses in question. Who we "think" would win in a fight between the two is inconsequential; I bet none of us thought Sokoudjou would defeat Rogerio Nogueira, but did that help anything? No. And Nogueira's ranking suffered for it, too. Henderson is at No. 3 after defeating Wanderlei Silva. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? He just beat Silva, and he's not ranked at No. 1. That's because Henderson has been largely inconsistent for the past year or two - particularly at middleweight. At middleweight, Henderson was going to split decisions with Murilo Bustamante and winning or losing close decisions to Kazuo Misaki. Nonetheless, the win over W. Silva does put Henderson into the top three of the middleweight division; he's simply too inconsistent to rank at No. 1, considering his last fight at 183 lb was a loss to Misaki. Lindland is bumped below Henderson; I never bought into the notion that he was the top middleweight in the world. I think a lot of people were putting him there because he was the neutral 185 lb representative, and he was associated with neither PRIDE or the UFC. Truth be told, Lindland's split decision loss to Quinton Jackson is probably the defining point of his career; certainly, a win over Jeremy Horn itself wouldn't merit such a high ranking. Franklin was recognized as a top middleweight prior to losing to Silva, but his loss didn't propel him out of the top five; a former UFC champion, and a former No. 1 ranked middleweight fighter, Franklin has yet to suffer a loss that would merit his ejection from the upper echelon of the division. Marquardt recently scored a victory over Dean Lister in UFC Fight Night, and is now 4-0 in the UFC. His accomplishments speak for itself; seven-time King of Pancrase (1st, 3rd, and 5th Middleweight KOP). Marquardt is the most dominant champion Pancrase has ever known, and is arguably the best thing under 200 lb to come out of Pancrase since Frank Shamrock. Trigg is back in the top ten after defeating Misaki at PRIDE 33. Kang is ultra-talented, but is at No. 9 because he is automatically stuck next to Misaki (split decision loss). Swick has a recent win over David Loiseau and is undefeated since 2004 with another good win over Joe Riggs (I would consider that a good win considering Riggs' win over Joe Doerksen).
WELTERWEIGHT (limit(s): 165 to 175 lb):
1. Georges St. Pierre (1)
2. Matt Hughes (2)
3. B.J. Penn (3)
4. Diego Sanchez (4)
5. Shinya Aoki (--)
6. Karo Parisyan (5)
7. Akira Kikuchi (7)
8. Jake Shields (6)
9. Jon Fitch (8)
10. Josh Koscheck (10)
The top three of my division is unchanged. St. Pierre, Hughes, and Penn are the Big Three; Penn has lost his last two, but he took St. Pierre to a split decision and was looking good against Hughes. Sanchez continues to impress; is undefeated, and recently beat Parisyan and Joe Riggs. Aoki is back on the list after I decided to rank fighters across two divisions or more. Aoki defeated Kikuchi by split decision in Shooto earlier in February, and solidifies himself as a top five welterweight. Due to the closeness of that fight - Kikuchi fending off submissions and landing some ground n' pound and clinchwork of his own - I've ranked the two fighters relatively close together. Parisyan is at No. 6 now, and Kikuchi is at No. 7. Shields has a loss to Kikuchi, but is the ROTR 175-pound champion; he stays at No. 8 in the rankings. Fitch is the best up-and-comer in the UFC welterweight division, but he remains untested against the highest echelon of the division; a win over former top ten-ranked Kuniyoshi Hironaka does cement Fitch's place in the top ten. Fitch's teammate, Koscheck, sits just below at No. 10.
LIGHTWEIGHT (limit(s): 152 to 160 lb):
1. Takanori Gomi (1)
2. Hayato "Mach" Sakurai (2)
3. Sean Sherk (8)
4. Nick Diaz (--)
5. Gilbert Melendez (3)
6. Tatsuya Kawajiri (4)
7. Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro (5)
8. Shinya Aoki (6)
9. Joachim Hansen (7)
10. Joe Stevenson (9)
Now here's a rankings crisis. Diaz is fresh off a victory over Gomi, but to rank Diaz at No. 1 would automatically place him above someone who has defeated him already (Sean Sherk). If we're going to allow cross-divisional rankings, then Sherk's wins at 170 lb will automatically carry over to his lightweight ranking, which means his win over Diaz also carries over. See how that works? I've decided to keep Gomi at No. 1 for now; he's got a knockout victory over No. 2 Sakurai (who looked fantastic at PRIDE 33), and he's avenged the loss to Marcus Aurelio. The loss to Diaz did more to boost Diaz' ranking than it did to squash Gomi's. Gomi is simply so accomplished at lightweight that a loss or two wouldn't be enough to budge his ranking; if you rank him lower, then you could be putting him underneath the people that he's defeated already. It's a tangled web, but Sherk (at No. 3) and Diaz (at No. 4) have also found themselves inside the top five. Cross-rankings considered, Sherk now holds a victory over top-five lightweight Diaz. Considering that Sherk has not dwindled since his victory over Diaz, it would be unfair to assume that Sherk's ranking should be lower than a guy that he's already defeated. Who knows? If Ryo Chonan didn't get knocked out by Phil Baroni and Dan Henderson while winning close decisions over Joey Villasenor and Ryuta Sakurai, he might still be ranked over Anderson Silva. Melendez is ranked just below his teammate at No. 5, still fresh off a victory over Kawajiri. Ribeiro (at No. 7) has a perfect style to defeat Gomi, but he hasn't faced a real top ten lightweight since 2004 (loss to Kawajiri). Aoki (No. 8) has a submission over Hansen (No. 9). Stevenson, with victories over Yves Edwards and Dokonjonosuke Mishima, holds the No. 10 ranking.
FEATHERWEIGHT (limit(s): 141 to 145 lb):
1. Takeshi Inoue (1)
2. Urijah Faber (2)
3. Hatsu Hioki (3)
4. Mark Hominick (6)
5. Masakazu Imanari (4)
6. Jeff Curran (5)
7. Antonio Carvalho (7)
8. Akitoshi Tamura (--)
9. Tenkei Fujimiya (8)
10. Yoshiro Maeda (9)
This was tough to rank because a lot of organizations are represented. Inoue was expected to run right through Hiroyuki Abe in February's Shooto card, but the bout proved to be much more competitive, with Abe dropping Inoue two times before getting knocked out himself. Regardless, Inoue has fought the best competition at 143 lb, and holds his ranking at the top. Faber, the WEC Featherweight Champion, has been a dominant competitor since losing to Tyson Griffin. Faber had a close fight with Ivan Menjivar in TKO before actually winning by disqualification; I'd say that's Faber's best opponent, other than maybe Joe Pearson. Hioki is coming off a title defense at TKO, but it wasn't a very convincing victory; in my mind, the fight was at least a draw, with Hominick winning two rounds, Hioki winning two, and one of the later rounds being close enough to call a draw. This is my opinion of the fight, however, and Hioki is still the champion; however, the close fight brought Hominick up in the rankings, and he is now at No. 5, just below the DEEP Featherweight Champion, Imanari. Curran recently lost to Hioki in PRIDE, but he has a semi-recent win over Carvalho. Tamura became the Shooto Pacific Rim 143-pound champion in February, defeating undefeated Fujimiya (No. 9). Maeda is the Pancrase Featherweight Champion (as of August 2006), and recently beat Daiki Hata; although Maeda recently lost to Joe Pearson, I still have Maeda above Pearson due to the overall career outlook of both fighters. The loss to Pearson did, however, drop Maeda to No. 10 in the list.
__________________
-Ryan
"Zombies? Who ever said anything about zombies?
I'm only here for the beer and the bitches!"
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