Official UFC rankings updated following UFC 159 'Jones vs Sonnen' event

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 (April 27, 2013) UFC 159 show in Newark, New Jersey.

The biggest movers and shakers this week were in the lightweight division, which saw Jim Miller take a huge fall and former Strikeforce lightweight champion Josh Thomson take a huge leap despite not fighting. Pat Healy also makes his debut in the top 10 after a very successful return to the Octagon.

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 as well as MMAmania's own George Halvatzis Jr. You can check how our rankings stack up compared to the overall consensus by selecting either "Brian Hemminger (MMAmania.com)" or "George Halvatzis Jr. (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 John Lineker
9 Darren Uyenoyama
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 Erik Koch
10: Nik Lentz

Lightweight
Champion: Benson Henderson
1 Gilbert Melendez
2 Anthony Pettis
3 Gray Maynard
4 Josh Thomson +4
5 Donald Cerrone
6 T.J. Grant +1
7 Nate Diaz -1
8 Jim Miller -4
9 Pat Healy NR
10 Rafael dos Anjos -1

Welterweight
Champion: Georges St-Pierre
1 Johny Hendricks
2 Carlos Condit
3 Rory MacDonald
4. Jake Ellenberger
5 Demian Maia
6 Nick Diaz
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. Luke Rockhold
6. Constantinos Philippou
7 Mark Munoz
8 Ronaldo Souza
9 Chael Sonnen
10 Tim Boetsch NR

Light Heavyweight
Champion: Jon Jones
1 Lyoto Machida
2 Alexander Gustafsson
3 Dan Henderson
4 Glover Teixeira
5 Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
6 Rashad Evans
7 Mauricio Rua
8 Phil Davis
9 Gegard Mousasi
10 Ryan Bader

Heavyweight
Champion: Cain Velasquez
1 Junior dos Santos
2 Daniel Cormier
3 Fabrecio Werdum
4 Antonio Silva
5 Alistair Overeem
5 Roy Nelson +1
7 Frank Mir
8 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
9 Mark Hunt
10 Travis Browne

Women's Bantamweight
Champion: Ronda Rousey
1 Cat Zingano
2 Sarah Kaufman
3 Miesha Tate
4 Sara McMann +2
5 Liz Carmouche -1
6 Alexis Davis -1
7 Amanda Nunes
8 Julie Kedzie
9 Germaine de Randamie +1
10 Sheila Gaff -1

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.