Top 10 Rankings?

[Ke?poFist]

Well after reading Sherdogs take on the top 10 fighters, as well as MMA Weekly's jacked up ranking system, I decided to write a list of who I feel are the top 10 fighters in each weight class. Flame away :)

Heavyweight
Fedor Emelianenko
Randy Couture
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Josh Barnett
Tim Sylvia
Andrei Arlovski
Fabricio Werdum
Gabriel Gonzaga
Mirko Filipovic
Aleksander Emelianenko


Light-Heavyweight
Quinton Jackson
Mauricio Rua
Dan Henderson
Wanderlei Silva
Chuck Liddell
Rameau Sokoudjou
Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Renato Sobral
Tito Ortiz
Houston Alexander


Middleweight
Anderson Silva
Dan Henderson
Rich Franklin
Matt Lindland
Paulo Filho
Nathan Marquardt
Frank Trigg
Denis Kang
Yushin Okami
Kazuo Misaki


Welterweight
Matt Serra
Georges St. Pierre
Matt Hughes
Karo Parisyan
Josh Koscheck
Diego Sanchez
Drew Ficket
Jon Fitch
Chris Lytle
Thiago Alves


Lightweight
Sean Sherk
BJ Penn
Hayato Sakurai
Hermes Franca
Shinya Aoki
Joe Stevenson
Spencer Fisher
Takanori Gomi
Kenny Florian
Nick Diaz

[maurice]

"Ahem."

[Vince Tortelli]

No Mark Hunt?

[Ke?poFist]

Editing the OP. I hashed this thread out pretty extensively on Sherdog. I originally didn't have Barnett up there because of roiding and no real big win in the last year beyond subbing Hunt, but it's a bit hypocritical because I left sherk and Franca up there, so I put him back in.

[cyrijl]

Your light heavyweight looks much better. I don't follow MMA events close enough. I haven't seen Renato do well in a while though. And even though i am a newly offciated member of the houston alexander nutriding club, I still think he needs a little more to be on the list.

[T3hJudoChop]

No Joachim Hansen? Kawajiri? Ishida? Shaolin? Why did you put Gomi over Diaz? Not being an ass, just curious.

[Vince Tortelli]

Should Sokoudjou be on the list with just 4 fights on his record? I get that 2 of those are KTFOing bad ass members of Brazilian Top Team, but still...

[Lampa]

I was one of the bigger Cropcop fans out there when he was in Pride. But the sudden difference in his aggression coming from Pride to UFC makes me think he was able to get away with a great deal of roiding in Japan that he simply never got caught for.

I see this in a couple of Pride fighters who simply can't get it together in the UFC.

That might be too big a conjecture for you, but as long as I have that doubt in my head I wouldn't put him on any top ten.

Incidentally, I certainly wouldn't put anyone actually caught juicing in a top ten, either. I don't care how good they are, they weren't playing on the level, they don't get into the hall of fame.

[jsampras3]

Rampage over Shogun? I know Rampage is looking much better than before, but Shogun absolutely dominated him/broke his ribs.

I also would probably put GSP over Serra even though GSP got KOed by Serra. GSP was overconfident and he got caught. I give credit to Serra but i think if they fought tomorrow GSP would win.

Also I like how you have Sakurai up there in the LW's. He's one of my favorite fighters and i think he's totally underrated by a lot of the people doing top 10's. What ever happened to him btw? They showed him ringside at UFC 73 I think, so i thought maybe they would sign him, but i haven't heard anything. Anyone know anything about that?

[the yellow dart]

Lightweight
Sean Sherk
BJ Penn
Hayato Sakurai
Hermes Franca
Shinya Aoki
Joe Stevenson
Spencer Fisher
Takanori Gomi
Kenny Florian
Nick Diaz

Fisher, and Florian should not be on that list. Florian and Fisher haven't fought the level of competition they need to if we're even going to begin to put them up there, much less top 5. Penn hasn't fought at LW for a long time, and while a great fighter we haven't seen enough of him at that weight-class outside of beating a dead horse in Jens Pulver to rank him #2 in the LW division. Top-5 WW definitely, but I can't argue for #2 in the LW division. Franca just hasn't beaten top-10 competition. Fisher is good, but I would rank Mishima above him. The fact that you have Gomi and Diaz so low is almost abhorrent, especially since Diaz has put up so many good fights and Gomi is pretty good outside of his losses to Penn and Hansen. My rankings would look like this:

Sherk
Gomi
Penn
Sakurai
Aoki
Shaolin
Hansen
Diaz
Franca
Kawajiri

Significant mention: Uno, Stevenson.

Edit: LWs need to stop losing fights to one another and making this so fucking difficult. Be consistent, dammit!

[GoldenJonas]

LW is a VERY deep division. If you are going to include Florian you need to consider Din Thomas as well, although Din lost twice to Uno. You are also forgetting Gilbert Melendez and Ron McCullough, and Marcus Aurilio. Regardless, Melendez and Aurilio should definitely be in the top 10 in my opinion.

Also, love him or hate him, boring fights and all Rashad Evens should get some consideration in the LHW division and so should Vladimir Matyushenko.

Regardless, your list is pretty good Kempo.