What's going on, guys. Muck Fondays. Got alot of feedback on the Heavyweight portion of this series. 28 (valid) responses later, and without further ado, here is the consensus list that you guys came up with for who the world's top ten Heavyweight MMA fighers are...
2. Junior Dos Santos
4. Brock Lesnar
7. Shane Carwin
9. Frank Mir
10. Roy Nelson
Others Receiving Votes: Josh Barnett, Sergei Kharitonov, Minotauro Nogueira, Brendan Schaub, Mirko Cro Cop (fuck you, Ulf, I shouldn't have asked), Stefan Struve (danago at its finest)
Some interesting notes about the Heavyweight voting:
- Cain Velasquez finished first in all but 3 ballots; he finished second to Fedor, Overeem, and JDS one time apiece
- Alistair Overeem finished 5th in the consensus voting, even though only one person voted him in 5th place
- Fedor Emelianenko had the largest range of results, being voted as high as first (once) to being unranked (also, once)
- Through the first 18 ballots, Josh Barnett's name appeared only once. Barnett was voted in the top ten in 8 of the last 10 ballots.
- Only 9 points separated 3rd and 4th place, 18 points separated 4th and 5th, and 11 points separated 5th and 6th
All in all, I'd say that the heavyweight voting went very well. I don't agree with some of the results, and I'm sure you guys won't either, but all things considered, they're not too bad. Now on to the 205ers.
A lot has changed in the past year in this weight class. We've seen Shogun take the belt that was rightfully his thus ending the Machida era, the meteoric rise of Jon "Bones" Jones, the Shad-Page beef get (anticlimactically) settled, and this past weekend Hollywood Hendo put the stamp on Feijao to be the 4th man to hold the SF LHW strap in the past 365 days. So let's get to it, here's what my rankings look like...
1. Shogun Rua
2. Jon Jones
3. Rashad Evans
4. Rampage Jackson
8. Ryan Bader
9. Phil Davis
10. Rich Franklin
I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but sometimes I feel the need to explain mine. This is one of those times. I've got a couple of omissions and inclusions in my list this time that I'd like to clarify. My bottom 4 was originally Henderson, Bader, Thiago Silva, and Davis. I took Thiago off because of the steroid issue; I don't think he's THAT much better than Brandon Vera, so I do believe the juice helped him win that fight. I also included Phil Davis on the list because I believe he will beat Lil Nog in a couple weeks. Finally, I put Rich Franklin in the 10 spot because I believe that he would also beat Lil Nog, and that while he did get pretty easily handled by Forrest, size was a huge factor in that fight, and Forrest is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in the division.
(I'm fully aware that Ace PROBABLY doesn't deserve to be in the top 10, but he's my favorite fighter of all time, so fuck off lol.)
Finally, before you guys get to your ballots, one little rule I'd like to include. As you can see, I did not include Anderson Silva on my list. For the purpose of this series, I'd like you guys to only include fighters in their PRIMARY or CURRENT division of competition. So, Andy at 185, BJ and Shields at 170, etc. Alright, I've taken up way too much of your time, your turn now. Let's hear your votes...


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