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Rich Hansen's Take
HANSEN: Transparency in MMA Rankings - My Top 15 Middleweight Fighters (April 2014)
Apr 14, 2014 - 9:35:16 PM
HANSEN: Transparency in MMA Rankings - My Top 15 Middleweight Fighters (April 2014)
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By: Rich Hansen, MMATorch Guest Columnist

(Note to iPhone Safari users: To return to main menu listing, do a quick downswipe to make the back button visible on the bottom of your screen.)

Despite my hiatus from this site, both writing and audio, I'm still keeping up with the sport and with the site. On top of that, I'm still in charge of compiling the monthly rankings. And since I'm going through the effort to compile the rankings, I still put together my own rankings in each division as well. My breakdown continues today with the light heavyweight ranks.

1.) Chris Weidman: The undefeated 29 year old New Yorker has fought Anderson Silva for 17 minutes and 26 seconds in the last year. He has finished him twice. If you need more evidence than that, then you're predisposed to sell Weidman short, and there's nothing I can write that will get through to you.

Significant victories: Demian Maia, Mark Munoz, Anderson Silva (2x)


2.) Anderson Silva: Look, either you rank the guy as if he's never going to be himself again due to the broken leg, or you rank him whilst consciously ignoring the leg. Clearly, I choose the latter. Had his leg not snapped, there's just no way you can put Lyoto Machida, Vitor Belfort, Jacare, or anyone else ahead of him. He's done too much. We now know for sure Chris Weidman is the antidote to his success. What we don't know for sure is if Weidman blew his ass up because Weidman is one of the great fighters of all time, or if because Silva is in the oven at 450 for 45 minutes. We'll know more around this time next year.

Significant victories: Hayato Sakurai, Carlos Newton, Jeremy Horn, Lee Murray, Chris Leben, Rich Franklin (2x), Travis Lutter, Nathan Marquardt, Dan Henderson, Patrick Cote, Thales Leites, Forrest Griffin, Demian Maia, Chael Sonnen (2x), Vitor Belfort, Yushin Okami, UFC Hall of Famer Stephan Bonnar

Notable losses: Yushin Okami (DQ loss), Chris Weidman (2x)


3.) Lyoto Machida: Machida gets a bad rap for being unique, yet many fans of the sport bitch about how so many fighters are interchangeable. Nobody fights like Machida, nobody frustrates like Machida, and nobody sticks to a gameplan like Machida. If an opponent of Machida gets impatient and frustrated, they get knocked out with one punch like Ryan Bader. Thiago Silva, Randy Couture, and Mark Munoz have all been KO'd by one touch of a Lyoto Machida limb, so let's not call him a point-striker, Mkayyyy? Add to his resume the fact that his fight with Rampage Jackson should have been ruled a draw, and that he got robbed by weird judging against Phil Davis, and you have one of the great resume of victories in fight history.

Significant victories: Stephan Bonnar, Rich Franklin, BJ Penn, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Tito Ortiz, Thiago Silva, Rashad Evans, Shogun Rua, Randy Couture, Ryan Bader, Dan Henderson, Mark Munoz, Gegard Mousasi

Notable losses: Shogun Rua, Quinton Jackson, Jon Jones, Phil Davis


4.) Vitor Belfort: I wish I knew how much impact TRT actually has on a fighter's body. It's just as easy to credit his headkick murder spree entirely to the testosterone as it is to totally dismiss it in its entirety. What I do know is that Belfort has been fantastic since 1997, so odds are he would have been capable of defeating Bisping, Rockhold, and Henderson in succession with or without the juice. On the other hand, he was pulled out of a title fight in order to prepare for life without excessive testosterone, so who really knows.

Significant victories: Tank Abbott, Wanderlei Silva, Heath Herring, Randy Couture, five years of entropy then Matt Lindland, Rich Franklin, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Anthony Johnson, Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold, Dan Henderson

Notable losses: Randy Couture (2x), Kazushi Sakuraba, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Alistair Overeem (2x), Dan Henderson, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones


5.) Jacare Souza: The most underrated high-ranked fighter in the UFC, Jacare also happens to be improving by leaps and bounds every time he steps in the cage. He's exciting as hell with a high level of athleticism to go along with his top of the line jiu-jitsu abilities. Since being KO'd three minutes into his debut professional fight in 2003, Jacare has but two losses: an upkick from Gegardi Mousasi and a decision to the very solid Luke Rockhold. Jacare is probably the biggest threat to Chris Weidman's title reign.

Significant victories: Alexander Shlemenko (I bet you didn't know that), Jason Miller, Matt Lindland, Tim Kennedy, Robbie Lawler, Yushin Okami, Francis Carmont

Notable losses: Gegard Mousasi, Luke Rockhold


6.) Luke Rockhold: Wait a minute. If Rockhold beat Jacare, then why is Jacare ahead of Rockhold? Well, smart ass, in my eyes Jacare has done enough in the intervening years to surpass Rockhold. Rockhold had beaten no one of note before he upset Jacare, and has only won three fights since. That said, his win over Costa Philippou was a real eye-opener, and his future is bright.

Significant victories: Jacare Souza, Tim Kennedy, Costa Philippou

Notable loss: Vitor Belfort


7.) Michael Bisping: It's really easy to make the case that Bisping > Rockhold, due to the sheer volume of activity Bisping has over the years. But a long string of decision victories over mediocre fighters has the opposite effect on me. I'm more convinced now than ever that Bisping is a limited fighter with a ceiling, a ceiling that is lower than Rockhold's ceiling. You know why everyone in the division wants to fight him? It's not because Bisping hurts their itty bitty feewings. Rather, the rest of the division sees a vulnerable fighter who can't finish a glass of water in the Sahara.

Significant victories: Chris Leben, Denis Kang, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Jason Miller, Brian Stann, Alan Belcher

Notable losses: Rashad Evans, Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, Chael Sonnen, Vitor Belfort

Every time he gets a good fighter, he loses.


8.) Yushin Okami: Unless he makes it back to the UFC, this is the highest he's ever going to be ranked. Beating Dave Branch, or Jesse Taylor, or whomever else is fighting in the WSOF's middleweight division just isn't going to prove anything to anyone. No big loss, as he's one of the least compelling fighters in the sport. Which means of course he'll fit in very well in a division led by Dave Branch.

Significant victories: Anderso Silva, Alan Belcher (2x), Evan Tanner, Mark Munoz, Nathan Marquardt, Hector Lombard

Notable losses: Jake Shields, Rich Franklin, Chael Sonnen, Anderson Silva, Tim Boetsch, Jacare Souza


9.) Tim Kennedy: Since joining Strikeforce in 2009, Kennedy has only lost twice (to Rockhold and Jacare), and has never been finished. Of his eight victories, six are finishes. I'm not sure if he's vastly underrated, if I'm overrating the way he knocked out Rafael Natal his last time out. If he loses to Michael Bisping on Wednesday, we'll know where his ceiling is based on the guys who have beaten him in the last five years. If he beats Bisping, then it's easier to believe that he's much-improved from the fighter who had little to offer Jacare and Rockhold. That said, as discussed above, Bisping hasn't beaten anyone in his career, so it'll take one more impressive win to be fully on board with Kennedy.

Significant victories: Mayhem Miller, Nick Thompson, Melvin Manhoef, Robbie Lawler, Roger Gracie, Rafael Natal

Notable losses: Scott Smith, Mayhem Miller, Jacare Souza, Luke Rockhold


10.) Gegard Mousasi: It'd be so easy to move Mousasi up a few slots from here. He's fun to watch, been fighting forever, has big wins, so on so forth. But he looked So. Damn. Slow. against Lyoto Machida a couple months back that I'm treading with caution here. Back in the day I went out on a limb with Mousasi, prematurely anointing him as the second best 205 pounder in the world. Until, you know, Muhammed Lawal took him down a quintillion times. I really want to see what he does against Mark Munoz, because a solid victory there will surely blast his performance against Machida from my brain.

Significant victories: Hector Lombard, Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef, Jacare Souza, Mark Hunt, Babalu Sobral, Sokoudjou (all of these are 2009 or earlier), Ovince St. Preux

Pretty interesting to see the list of names not so long ago.

Notable losses: Akihiro Gono, Muhammed Lawal, Lyoto Machida


11.) Alexander Shlemenko: The de facto Bellator Middleweight Champion will never fully get the respect that title should provide him because he's only their champion because Bellator didn't pony up to pay their former champion Hector Lombard. Shlemenko's fun to watch, and hasn't lost since Lombard beat him three and a half years back. But it's easy to look impressive and fun when you're facing guys who will fight a hundred years without cracking the top-50.

Significant victories: Bubba McDaniel (there's nothing significant about beating Bubba, but this is my favorite fight finish of all time. Go find it online), Brett Cooper (2x), Um… Minowa-Man?, Rhino Marshall? Ick.

Notable losses: Jose Landi-Jons (2x), Jacare Souza, Hector Lombard


12.) Mark Munoz: Reputation surpasses results, thy poster boy be Mark Munoz. A dominant college wrestler, those skills don't translate to the MMA game as well as some other similar college wrestlers. The Yushin Okami loss permanently kicked me off of the idea of Mark Munoz as a great fighter. At least not a fighter with great MMA-wrestling. Fortunately for Munoz, he's beloved by everybody attached to the sport. And since he occasionally beats the hell out of guys every couple of years, his job will be safe much longer than the aforementioned Yushin Okami's.

Significant victories: Mike Pierce, CB Dollaway, Demian Maia, Chris Leben, Tim Boetsch

Notable losses: Matt Hamill, Yushin Okami, Chris Weidman, Lyoto Machida


13.) Francis Carmont: If Jake Shields, Yushin Okami, and Ben Askren can't fight for the UFC, Francis Carmont had better work on his s***ty kickboxing skills pretty fast.

Significant victories: Tom Lawlor, Lorenz Larkin, Costa Philippou

Notable losses: A whole buttload of guys you've never heard of, one or two you have heard of, and Jacare Souza


14.) CB Dollaway: Hear me out here. First, put aside your misconception that he's a colossal douche (I've never understood where that started). Forget the fact that Amir Sadollah took his arm home not once but twice. Forget that face (see? That part I get). He's athletic, has solid grappling, good power, can finish with strikes or submissions, and slapped a Peruvian necktie on Jesse Taylor. And I think he deserves to be ahead of Tim Boetsch; he won that fight.

Significant victories: Jesse Taylor, Mayhem Miller, Cezar Ferreira

Notable losses: Amir Sadollah (2x, although one was on TUF), Tom Lawlor, Mark Munoz, Jared Hamman, Tim Boetsch (robbery)


15.) Cung Le: Is he really the 15th best middleweight in the world? Probably not. But it's not like anyone's going to bat for Tim Boetsch or Costa Philippou, dig? Le's fights are spectacular, and there's something to be said for that.

Significant victories: Frank Shamrock, Scott Smith, Patrick Cote, Rich Franklin

Notable losses: Scott Smith, Wanderlei Silva

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