I’ve been slacking off with the updates here, and now I’ve got a bunch of stuff to cover.
First things first, I forgot to even preview the UFC and Shooto cards from this past weekend. So here’s what would have been the preview, plus the actual results:
UFC 129:
- #5 light-heavyweight Lyoto Machida vs. Randy Couture. Machida won via 2nd round KO with an amazing skipping front kick (folks are calling it a crane kick, to which I cannot object).
- #1 welterweight Georges St-Pierre vs. #5 Jake Shields. St-Pierre scored his sixth title defense with a fairly lackluster unanimous decision. In fairness, St-Pierre was poked in his left and reportedly could not see out it for most of the bout.
- #1 featherweight Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick. Aldo defended his UFC featherweight title for the first time in a pretty exciting five-round fight, which saw a battered Hominick pour it on in the last round, only for Aldo to survive and escape with a well-deserved unanimous decision.
- #7 bantamweight Charlie Valencia vs. Ivan Menjivar. Menjivar, an absurdly well-traveled veteran at 28, won with a 1st round TKO (via nose-crushing standing elbow) in what I’m pretty sure is his second bantamweight bout ever. Interesting note: Menjivar was Georges St-Pierre’s opponent in the latter’s professional debut.
Plus, at Shooto Tradition 2011, Koetsu Okazaki won the Shooto “featherweight” (132 lb., i.e. bantamweight in this rankings) title from #10-ranked Shuichiro Katsumura via 2nd round TKO.
In addition to all this, it’s the beginning of a new month, which means it’s time to check to see if anyone has gone unranked. And indeed, two top-15 fighters have: at light-heavyweight, Thiago Silva has officially failed to compete since January 2010, now that his January 2011 bout with Brandon Vera has been ruled a no-contest due to Silva’s failing the post-fight urine test. (I could have removed him earlier, but I actually didn’t know the official athletic commission decision was already in.)
And at middleweight, a year (to the end of the month) has passed since this past weekend’s UFC welterweight title contender Jake Shields competed at middleweight. He upset Dan Henderson to defend his Strikeforce middleweight title back April 17th, 2010. Amazingly, Shields is now back at welterweight (170 lbs.), while Henderson is once again competing at light-heavyweight (205 lbs.), currently holding the #9 spot in these rankings. What a weird sport.
As a result, Alexander Gustafsson and Michael Bisping join the top 15 at light-heavyweight and middleweight, respectively.
With all that said, here are the updated rankings at light-heavyweight, middleweight, and bantamweight:
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT (205 lbs.) TOP 15
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at LHW | Notes |
| 1 | Jon Jones | 13-1 | 13-1 (1 DQ) | UFC light-heavyweight champion |
| 2 | Rashad Evans | 15-1-1 | 4-1-1 | |
| 3 | Mauricio Rua | 19-4 | 3-2 (one loss avenged) | |
| 4 | Quinton Jackson | 31-8 | 3-2 | |
| 5 | Lyoto Machida | 17-2 | 5-2 | |
| 6 | Ryan Bader | 12-1 | 6-1 | |
| 7 | Forrest Griffin | 18-6 | 3-2 | |
| 8 | Phil Davis | 9-0 | 9-0 | Moved to #8 following a win over then-#8 Antonio Rogerio Nogueira at UFC Ultimate Fight Night 14 on 3/26/11. |
| 9 | Dan Henderson | 27-8 | 3-0 | |
| 10 | Rich Franklin | 28-6 | 2-2 | |
| 11 | Antonio Rogerio Nogueira | 18-4 | 6-1 | |
| 12 | Rafael Cavalcante | 10-3 | 6-2 | |
| 13 | Muhammed Lawal | 7-0 | 7-0 | |
| 14 | Gegard Mousasi | 29-3-1 | 4-1 | |
| 15 | Alexander Gustafsson | 11-1 | 9-1 |
MIDDLEWEIGHT (183-185 lbs.) TOP 15
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at MW | Notes |
| 1 | Anderson Silva | 28-4 | 5-0 | UFC middleweight champion (8 defenses) |
| 2 | Chael Sonnen | 25-11-1 | 4-2 | |
| 3 | Yushin Okami | 26-5 | 4-1 | |
| 4 | Nate Marquardt | 31-10-2 | 5-3 | |
| 5 | Demian Maia | 13-2 | 6-2 | |
| 15 | Michael Bisping | 21-3 | 6-2 | |
| 7 | Alessio Sakara | 15-7 | 4-1 | |
| 8 | Jorge Santiago | 23-8 | 7-1 (loss avenged) | Sengoku middleweight champion (2 defenses) |
| 9 | Ronaldo Souza | 13-2 | 6-1 | |
| 10 | Paulo Filho | 19-2-1 | 4-1-1 | |
| 11 | Wanderlei Silva | 33-10-1 | 1-0 | |
| 12 | Brian Stann | 10-3 | 2-0 | |
| 13 | Nick Ring | 11-0 | 4-0 | Moved to #13 following a win (via widely criticized judge’s decision) over then-#13 Riki Fukuda at UFC 127 on 2/26/11. |
| 14 | Mamed Khalidov | 21-4-2 | 3-1-1 | |
| 15 | Michael Bisping | 21-3 | 7-2 |
BANTAMWEIGHT (132-139 lbs.) TOP 10
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at BW | Notes |
| 1 | Dominick Cruz | 17-1 | 8-0 | WEC bantamweight champion (2 defenses) / UFC bantamweight champion |
| 2 | Brian Bowles | 8-1 | 3-1 | |
| 3 | Joseph Benavidez | 14-2 | 8-2 | |
| 4 | Miguel Torres | 39-3 | 5-2 | |
| 5 | Hiroyuki Takaya | 15-8-1 | 6-1 (loss avenged) | DREAM featherweight (63kg/139 lb.) champion |
| 6 | Demetrious Johnson | 8-1 | 7-1 | |
| 7 | Ivan Menjivar | 22-8 | 1-1 | Moved to #7 following a win over then-#7 Charlie Valencia at UFC 129 on 4/30/11. |
| 8 | Koetsu Okazaki | 8-1-1 | 3-0 | Shooto 132 lb. champion; moved to #8 following a win over then-#10 Shuichiro Katsumura at Shooto Tradition 2011 on 5/1/11. |
| 9 | Charlie Valencia | 12-7 | 3-3 | |
| 10 | Masakatsu Ueda | 11-1-2 | 4-1-1 |
