Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) now features "official" rankings on its website, UFC.com, covering all eight weight classes (including women) plus a pound-for-pound list. Rankings are updated approximately 36 hours after every UFC event, which means we're back with another installment following this past weekend's (March 16, 2013) UFC 158 show in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
This week, the women's bantamweight section finally has 10 full contenders and the welterweight division saw a pretty big shake-up after four of the top 10 plus the champion were all in action.
If you're wondering how the world's largest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion (in conjunction with FightMetric) compiles its list, here's the criteria:
Rankings were generated by a voting panel made up of media members. The media members were asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters in the UFC by weight-class and pound-for-pound. A fighter is only eligible to be voted on if they are in active status in the UFC and a fighter can only appear in one weight division at a time. The champion and interim champion are considered to be in the top positions of their respective divisions and therefore are not eligible for voting by weight-class. However, the champions can be voted on for the pound-for-pound rankings.
That voting panel now includes yours truly. You can check how my rankings stack up compared to the overall consensus by selecting "Brian Hemminger (MMAmania.com)" in the voting panelists tab at the top of the page.
Below are the updated UFC.com rankings (+/- = movement in rankings, NR = not ranked last week)
Pound-for-Pound
1 Anderson Silva
2 Jon Jones
3 Georges St. Pierre
4 Jose Aldo
5 Benson Henderson
6 Cain Velasquez
7 Demetrious Johnson
8 Renan Barao
9 Dominick Cruz
10 Frankie Edgar
Flyweight
Champion: Demetrious Johnson
1 Joseph Benavidez
2 John Dodson
3 Ian McCall
4 John Moraga
5 Jussier Da Silva
6 Louis Gaudinot
7 Chris Cariaso
8 Darren Uyenoyama
9 John Lineker
10 Timothy Elliott
Bantamweight
Champion: Dominick Cruz
1 Renan Barao (Interim Champion)
2 Urijah Faber
3 Michael McDonald
4 Eddie Wineland
5 Brad Pickett
6 Rafael Assuncao
7 Scott Jorgensen
8. Brian Bowles
9 Mike Easton
10 Ivan Menjivar
Featherweight
Champion: Jose Aldo
1 Chad Mendes
2 Ricardo Lamas
3 Frankie Edgar
4. Chan Sung Jung
5 Cub Swanson
6 Dennis Siver
7 Dustin Poirier
8 Clay Guida
9 Nik Lentz
10: Erik Koch
Lightweight
Champion: Benson Henderson
1 Gilbert Melendez
2 Anthony Pettis
3 Gray Maynard
4 Nate Diaz
5 Jim Miller
6 Donald Cerrone
7 TJ Grant
8 Rafael dos Anjos
9 Khabib Nurmagomedov +1
10 Joe Lauzon -1
Welterweight
Champion: Georges St-Pierre
1 Johny Hendricks
2 Carlos Condit
3 Rory MacDonald +1
4. Jake Ellenberger +2
5 Demian Maia
6 Nick Diaz -3
7 Martin Kampmann
8 Tarec Saffiedine
9 Robbie Lawler
10 Josh Koscheck
Middleweight
Champion: Anderson Silva
1 Chris Weidman
2 Vitor Belfort
3 Yushin Okami
4 Michael Bisping
5. Constantinos Philippou +1
6 Luke Rockhold -1
7 Mark Munoz
8 Chael Sonnen +1
9 Ronaldo Souza -1
10 Alan Belcher NR
Light Heavyweight
Champion: Jon Jones
1 Lyoto Machida
2 Alexander Gustafsson
3 Dan Henderson
4 Glover Teixeira
5 Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
6 Mauricio Rua
7 Rashad Evans
8 Phil Davis
9 Ryan Bader
10 Gegard Mousasi
Heavyweight
Champion: Cain Velasquez
1 Junior dos Santos
2 Fabricio Werdum
3 Daniel Cormier
4 Antonio Silva
5 Frank Mir
6 Alistair Overeem
7 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
8 Roy Nelson
9 Mark Hunt
10 Stefan Struve
Women's Bantamweight
Champion: Ronda Rousey
1 Miesha Tate
2 Sarah Kaufman +1
3 Liz Carmouche -1
4 Cat Zingano +1
5 Alexis Davis -1
6 Sara McMann
7 Amanda Nunes +1
8 Julie Kedzie -1
9 Germaine De Randamie
10 Shiela Gaff NR
See anything that stands out?
Let's get some feedback, Maniacs, then compare this list to the one recently compiled by the SB Nation rankings committee here. To compare these to last week's official UFC rankings, click here. Also, if you want to debate/complain about my personal rankings, I'll be on and off all day to discuss them.