Rankings? Fuck yes, rankings!

Well, since I have some time on my hands before they foreclose on me or whatever they do when your mortgage is 100k more than your house is worth, I decided to do my own rankings. I'll take into account any commenters' rankings as well. If I like them, I'll change mine. If it's any fun, I'll do it again. For now let's talk light heavyweights.
UFC's light heavyweight division is just as turbulent as most of the rest of the weight classes outside middles. However, with their absorption of the WEC's LHW division, they are pretty much the only game in town, nowadays.

1. Forrest Griffin


2. Lyoto Machida


3. Quinton Jackson


4. Rashad Evans


5. Wanderlei Silva


6. Chuck Liddell


7. Vladimir Matyushenko


8. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira


9. Mauricio Rua


10. Keith Jardine


11. Luis Arthur Cane


12. Thiago Silva


13. Dan Henderson


14. Renato Sobral


15. Tito Ortiz


16. Rich Franklin


17. Stephan Bonnar


18. Ricardo Arona


19. Steve Cantwell


20. Goran Reljic

The vast majority of LHW's are in the UFC...a couple exceptions are Lil' Nog, The Janitor Matyushenko, Tito Ortiz and Babalu Sobral. While those are some quality fighters, the UFC has more than enough men under contract to be far and away the number one promotion for the division. The title picture is a bit murky as well, with some of what would have been considered elite fighters suffering losses, such as Shogun Rua's loss to current UFC Chanp Forrest Griffin, and Judo Thierry's losses to Machida and Cane (sandwiching a convincing victory over Kaz Nakamura, who needs to jog).
Forrest Griffin has a defense against Rashad Evans coming up due to his upset of Rampage and Evan's upset of Chuck Liddell. I figure on Forrest keeping his title in a hard-fought decision, and matching up, I hope, against a very deserving Lyoto Machida.

Image property Sherdog.com, used without permission.

Tito Ortiz

I've been thinking about Tito Ortiz^Sherdog and his history a bit. I've never been a huge fan of his, mostly because of his incessant trash talk. If he couldn't talk shit he'd be silent. Still, thanks to UFC Unleashed on Spike, and my brother's almost encyclopedic knowledge of UFC fighters, I've come to appreciate just what the guy's done in his career, even in his losses. I've seen him get beat twice by Chuck Liddell, pretty much whupped both times. The second fight I still believe should have been stopped in the first round. I've seen him win as well. Twice over Ken Shamrock, in fights that were more hype than substance, but against Forrest Griffin he dominated. That fight was odd because of the constant nuthugging going on from the announcer's booth. Stephen Bonnar was about the biggest cheerleader I've ever heard. The sad part is that what I saw was Forrest Griffin getting dominated. He was beaten all three rounds. Even though all the judges gave at least one round to Griffin (what fight was the other judge, who scored it for Forrest watching?!), I didn't think he did much of anything at all in that second round. Some punches, sure, but why not punish the chicken legs? One judge gave round one to Ortiz 10-8! Sheesh. Anyways, numbers:
In a 21 fight professional career, Ortiz is 15-5-1. The fight against Rashad Evans at UFC 73 Stacked was his only draw, after losing a point for grabbing the cage. I thought he frankly dominated Rashad as well, even into the third, before turning passive from what I can only believe was fatigue.

Notable Wins:
Ken Shamrock three times
Guy Mezger
Wanderlei Silva
Yuki Kondo
Elvis Sinosic (back when that counted in '01)
Vladimir Matsyushenko
Evan Tanner
Vitor Belfort

Notable losses:
Chuck Liddell twice
Randy Couture
Frank Shamrock
Guy Mezger

That's a pretty damn good resume. He's fought the top tier his whole career. The first UFC he entered, according to his wikipedia page, was for no pay, and he won his first match before later falling to Guy Mezger for in their first fight. He's had controversy, yes, appearing in general to be a complete dick to opponents at every opportunity, especially in victory, with his "famous" insulting t-shirt sayings. But he's still gotten in the ring with the best, and taken beatings when they were coming to him. So Tito Ortiz is still in my top ten light heavyweight (205lb) fighters list, at #10, til someone shows me something impressive.