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.
- Forrest Griffin
- Lyoto Machida
- Quinton Jackson
- Rashad Evans
- Wanderlei Silva
- Chuck Liddell
- Vladimir Matyushenko
- Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
- Mauricio Rua
- Keith Jardine
- Luis Arthur Cane
- Thiago Silva
- Dan Henderson
- Renato Sobral
- Tito Ortiz
- Rich Franklin
- Stephan Bonnar
- Ricardo Arona
- Steve Cantwell
- 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.
1 comment:
you don't think jardine's body of work is a little less solid than rua's? his career losses are all recent but one, wanderlei, alexander, stephan bonnar (and an 02 loss to travis "ignore the letters in my name" wiuff). his only high-profile non-decision win was over forrest, and it was cool as hell. five of his seven ufc wins are via decision, as well.
rua's fought at the highest levels for a while, but in the roid and yakuza infested PRIDE...his losses are that fight with griffin (on common opponents jardine seems the winner), a loss to babalu in 03, and the broken arm loss to coleman. his wins are pretty ferocious....
http://sherdog.com/fighter/Mauricio-Rua-5707
you know, i can see where jardine and rua may flipflop. let me cogitate on it. or you can yell at me. i'll probably do it then
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