Our partners in crime over at BloodyElbow.com have published their divisional rankings for mixed martial arts in the nation’s largest daily newspaper, USA Today, for the month of April 2009.
In case you missed last month's announcement, here's how it works:
"The rankings, which will offer a definitive perspective of top MMA fighters across all weight-classes, will be released monthly and published in the Sports section of USA TODAY, online at USATODAY.com and on SB Nation’s MMA commentary and community blog, BloodyElbow.com … The USA TODAY/SB Nation Consensus MMA Rankings are compiled each month by Nate Wilcox and Richard Wade of BloodyElbow.com. The rankings utilize each of the top MMA rankings from multiple unique sources. A weighted-formula is applied to normalize and distill the various rankings into one consensus ranking per weight class."
To check out the latest USAT/SBN rankings click here. We’ve also listed their top 10 in each class after the jump for your convenience.
What do you think? Share your ranking rants in the comments section below.
Heavyweight:
1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Josh Barnett
3. Andrei Arlovski
4. Frank Mir
5. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
6. Brock Lesnar
7. Randy Couture
8. Tim Sylvia
9. Alistair Overeem
10. Shane Carwin
Light Heavyweight:
1. Rashad Evans
2. Quinton Jackson
3. Lyoto Machida
4. Forrest Griffin
5. Mauricio Rua
6. Keith Jardine
7. Wanderlei Silva
8. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
9. Renato Sobral
10. Chuck Liddell
Middleweight:
1. Anderson Silva
2. Yushin Okami
3. Nate Marquardt
4. Gegard Mousasi
5. Dan Henderson
6. Robbie Lawler
7. Jorge Santiago
8. Demian Maia
9. Thales Leites
10. Vitor Belfort
Welterweight:
1. Georges St. Pierre
2. Thiago Alves
3. Jon Fitch
4. Jake Shields
5. Matt Hughes
6. Josh Koscheck
7. Carlos Condit
8. Martin Kampmann
9. Mike Swick
10. Karo Parisyan
Lightweight:
1. B.J. Penn
2. Shinya Aoki
3. Kenny Florian
4. Sean Sherk
5. Eddie Alvarez
6. Joachim Hansen
7. Gesias Cavalcante
8. Josh Thomson
9. Satoru Kitaoka
10. Diego Sanchez
Nothing brings MMA fans closer together than a list of divisional rankings. Let's hear it, who belongs and who doesn't? And be sure to say why. "He sucks" is not a valid argument.
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