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By Matt Pelkey, MMATorch Columnist My Middleweight Rankings...
1. Anderson Silva: Moving on...
2. Nate Marquardt: I thought he fought a dirty fight, but he destroyed Thales Leites in their fight. Same for Martin Kampmann (minus the dirty part). He takes over Rich Franklin's role as guy who can would beat everyone below, but can't get over the Anderson Silva 'hump.'
3. Robbie Lawler: Yeah he looks great throwing power shots with fellow sluggers, and he can take a mean punch, but how would he fair against some of the top grapplers in the division like a Demian Maia? I'm not sure.
4. Demian Maia: Hey, we were just talking about you. He looked fantastic against Nate Quarry. He's a lot closer to being ready for a title shot than I thought.
5. Dan Henderson: I'm hoping he has another run left in him. He fought a good, smart fight against a very game Rousimar Palhares. Now he gets a fight with Rich Franklin to see who coaches against Michael Bisping on the next season of TUF. I'm pulling for Hendo in that one for various reasons.
6. Michael Bisping: I've been driving this bandwagon since TUF 2. He has fantastic striking and one of the best, and most relentless, top games in all of MMA. His weaknesses are his submission defense and his chin. One of those he can work on. I'm assuming he's been doing that.
7. Gegard Mousasi: He ran through some pretty good competition to win that Dream middleweight tournament. He's 6-0 in 2008 including wins over Cyborg Santos, Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef, and Jacare. Impressive.
8. Thales Leites: His fight against Nate Marquardt, despite the W in the win column, showed he might not be as close as some of us thought. He's still young and has a very bright future, but he'll need a couple solid wins to be built back up.
9. Yushin Okami: Begrudgingly. I just don't like to watch this guy fight. Why is everyone so convinced that he deserves a title shot? Until I see him beat someone above him on this list I won't be convinced.
10. Matt Lindland: Again, begrudgingly. His style leaves a lot to be desired, but you can't deny his ability to grind opponents down and out. He's like the Randy Couture of the middleweight division but without the lovable personality and years of built up goodwill with the fans.
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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