Others receiving votes: Jake Shields (6), Jason Miller (6), Michael Bisping (4), Kazuo Misaki (2)
Welterweight
1. Georges St. Pierre (70)
2. Jon Fitch (61)
3. Thiago Alves (54)
4. Jake Shields (44)
5. Josh Koscheck (42)
6. Mike Swick (28)
7. Paul Daley (17)
8. Carlos Condit (14.5)
9. Martin Kampmann (13.5)
10. Matt Hughes (13)
Others receiving votes: Nick Diaz (9), Anthony Johnson (6), Paulo Thiago (5), Dan Hardy (3), Jay Hieron (2), Marius Zaromskis (2), Mike Pierce (1)
Lightweight
1. BJ Penn (70)
2. Shinya Aoki (57)
3. Eddie Alvarez (44)
4. Kenny Florian (38)
5. Gray Maynard (32)
6. (tie) Diego Sanchez (29)
6. (tie) Frankie Edgar (29)
8. Tatsuya Kawajiri (26)
9. Jaochim Hansen (19)
10. (tie) Gilbert Melendez (8)
10. (tie) Sean Sherk (8)
Voters: Rich Boles, Josh Patten, Sam Berkenbile, Alex Williams, Bjorn Hansen, Jamie Penick, Matt Pelkey
Pelkey's Analysis: Well the streak is finally broken. After several months of having five unanimous #1's (basically since Machida won the title), someone else got a first place vote. Going against the grain, Bjorn Hansen ignored the judge's mandate and put Shogun at #1 and Machida at #2. We all know the lightweight division is one of the deepest, but how about the welterweights. They tied the lightweights with 17 fighters receiving votes. And that doesn't even include an up-and-comer like Dan Hornbuckle, who's still on the outside looking in. I like the love for the WEC lightweights, even if it did come from a single voter. I don't have any of the WEC's "big three" lightweights in my top ten, but I think they're all top 20. Big movers of the month were obviously Shogun and Chael Sonnen, while the losers were Yushin Okami and Lyoto Machida (hey, even losing a single vote has to be considered a chink in the aura of invincibility). Despite having consensus #1's for months, we'd yet to have a consensus top 10 in one of the divisions until now. Every voter had the same ten light-heavyweights in one order or another.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
