Last updated: 3/21/11 following UFC 128.
HEAVYWEIGHT (265 lbs. limit) TOP 15
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at HW | Notes |
| 1 | Cain Velasquez | 8-0 | 9-0 | UFC heavyweight champion |
| 2 | Brock Lesnar | 5-2 | 4-1 | |
| 3 | Fabricio Werdum | 14-4-1 | 4-1 | |
| 4 | Antonio Silva | 15-2 | 7-1 | |
| 5 | Shane Carwin | 12-1 | 5-1 | |
| 6 | Fedor Emelianenko | 31-3 | 3-2 | |
| 7 | Frank Mir | 14-5 | 3-2 | |
| 8 | Alistair Overeem | 34-11 | 8-0 | Strikeforce heavyweight champion (1 defense). |
| 9 | Junior Dos Santos | 12-1 | 7-0 | |
| 10 | Brett Rogers | 11-2 | 5-2 | |
| 11 | Brendan Schaub | 8-1 | 8-1 | |
| 12 | Cheick Kongo | 15-6-2 | 4-2-1 | |
| 13 | Ben Rothwell | 31-7 | 9-2 | |
| 14 | Mike Russow | 13-1 | 5-0 | Moved to #14 following a win over then-#14 Jon Madsen at UFC Ultimate Fight Night 14 on 3/26/11. |
| 15 | Josh Barnett | 29-5 | 6-0 |
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 | 16-1 | 4-1 | |
| 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 | Thiago Silva | 15-2 | 2-2 | |
| 11 | Rich Franklin | 28-6 | 2-2 | |
| 12 | Antonio Rogerio Nogueira | 18-4 | 6-1 | |
| 13 | Rafael Cavalcante | 10-3 | 6-2 | |
| 14 | Muhammed Lawal | 7-0 | 7-0 | |
| 15 | Gegard Mousasi | 29-3-1 | 4-1 |
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 | 7-2 | |
| 6 | Jake Shields | 26-4-1 | 3-0 | |
| 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 | 7-1 | |
| 10 | Paulo Filho | 19-3-1 | 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 Riki Fukuda at UFC 127 on 2/26/11. |
| 14 | Mamed Khalidov | 22-4-2 | 4-1-1 | |
| 15 | Michael Bisping | 21-3 | 7-2 |
WELTERWEIGHT (168-170 lbs.) TOP 15
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at WW | Notes |
| 1 | Georges St-Pierre | 21-2 | 6-0 | UFC welterweight champion (5 defenses) |
| 2 | Jon Fitch | 23-3-1 | 5-1-1 | |
| 3 | B.J. Penn | 16-7-2 | 1-1-1 | |
| 4 | Thiago Alves | 17-7 | 4-2 | |
| 5 | Jake Shields | 26-4-1 | 4-0 | |
| 6 | Martin Kampmann | 17-3 | 4-1 | |
| 7 | Josh Koscheck | 15-5 | 5-3 | |
| 8 | Carlos Condit | 26-5 | 5-1 | |
| 9 | Diego Sanchez | 22-4 | 2-1 | |
| 10 | Matt Hughes | 45-7 | 3-1 | |
| 11 | Paulo Thiago | 13-3 | 7-3 | |
| 12 | Anthony Johnson | 9-3 | 5-2 (one loss avenged) | Moved to #12 following a win over then-#12 Dan Hardy at UFC Ultimate Fight Night 14 on 3/26/11. |
| 13 | Brian Ebersole | 47-14-1 | 2-0 | |
| 14 | Nick Diaz | 24-7 | 9-0 | Moved to #14 following a win over then-#14 Paul Daley at Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley on 4/9/11. |
| 15 | Mike Pierce | 12-3 | 9-2 |
LIGHTWEIGHT (154-155 lbs.) TOP 15
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at LW | Notes |
| 1 | Frank Edgar | 13-1-1 | 5-1-1 | UFC lightweight champion (2 defenses) |
| 2 | Gilbert Melendez | 17-2 | 4-1 (loss avenged) | Strikeforce lightweight champion (1 defense) |
| 3 | B.J. Penn | 16-7-2 | 3-2 | |
| 4 | Shinya Aoki | 26-5 | 11-2 (one loss avenged) | DREAM lightweight champion (1 defense) |
| 5 | Gray Maynard | 10-0-1 | 6-0-1 | |
| 6 | Eddie Alvarez | 21-2 | 9-1 | Bellator lightweight champion |
| 7 | Kenny Florian | 13-4 | 6-1 | |
| 8 | Tatsuya Kawajiri | 27-6-2 | 6-2 | |
| 9 | Dennis Siver | 17-7 | 7-2 | Moved to #9 following a win over George Sotiropoulos at UFC 127 on 2/26/11. |
| 10 | George Sotiropoulos | 14-3 | 7-1 | |
| 11 | Josh Thomson | 18-4 | 4-2 | |
| 12 | Pat Curran | 13-4 | 12-4 | |
| 13 | Roger Huerta | 21-5-1 | 1-4 | |
| 14 | Sean Sherk | 33-4-1 | 2-2 | |
| 15 | Melvin Guillard | 27-8-2 | 7-1 |
FEATHERWEIGHT (143-145 lbs.) TOP 10
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at FW | Notes |
| 1 | Jose Aldo | 18-1 | 9-0 | WEC featherweight champion (2 defenses) |
| 2 | Manvel Gamburyan | 11-5 | 3-1 | |
| 3 | Diego Nunes | 16-1 | 6-1 | |
| 4 | Rani Yahya | 16-6 | 1-0 | |
| 5 | Urijah Faber | 24-4 | 4-3 | |
| 6 | Dustin Poirier | 9-1 | 1-0 | |
| 7 | Mike Thomas Brown | 24-8 | 6-4 | |
| 8 | Josh Grispi | 14-2 | 5-1 | |
| 9 | L.C. Davis | 16-3 | 7-3 | |
| 10 | Chad Mendes | 10-0 | 10-0 |
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 | Charlie Valencia | 12-6 | 3-2 | |
| 7 | Demetrious Johnson | 8-1 | 7-1 | |
| 8 | Masakatsu Ueda | 11-1-2 | 4-1-1 | |
| 9 | Darren Uyenoyama | 6-3 | 2-2 | |
| 10 | Shuichiro Katsumura | 11-8-3 | 3-1 | Shooto 132 lb. champion |
Jake Shields is ranked 7th in the consensus P4P rankings, and 3rd at MW. (along with Anderson Silva, Shields is the only other fighter ranked in 2 weight classes)
None of the 3 fighters you have directly ahead of Shields is in the P4P rankings and Shields owns a win over Okami from 06 or 07.
Is this some kind of hasn’t been in the UFC long enough poll, or something personal?
Hi mixmaster2669, thanks for commenting. Let me see if I can explain why I’ve got Shields where I’ve got him.
I don’t put much stock in pound-for-pound rankings. I consider the those things pretty nebulous, which is why I don’t keep them myself.
I also don’t put much stock in the consensus rankings (by which I assume you mean the B.E. rankings). Those are full of all kinds of absurd results, of the kind that you’d expect given their methodology of aggregating rankings from all kinds of people with different aims and approaches. They’re fine for what they are–a sort of snapshot of public opinion–but they’re no model for what I’m doing.
I do have my own methodology, laid out in some detail at the “guidelines” link above, a look at which should clear some things up.
First, I un-rank people who haven’t competed in a given weight class after roughly a year, meaning I don’t have Shields ranked at WW at all right now. So I can’t really give him credit for being ranked in two weight classes (nor would I if he were, but that’s another issue).
Second, I only count (for ranking purposes) fights that took place in a three-year window. The fight with Yushin Okami that you refer to took place in 2006, so I don’t consider it at all.
Third, the Okami fight took place at welterweight, not middleweight. So even if it had taken place since September 2007, I still wouldn’t factor it into Shields’s middleweight ranking.
To sum up: neither other people’s P4P rankings nor the consensus rankings carry any weight with me, and neither does a fight that took place in a different weight class over three years ago.
I do, however, consider who Jake Shields has beaten and when within the past three years. If I remember correctly, he got his #6 spot from Robbie Lawler in his middleweight debut (with no MW losses working against him he simply took Lawler’s place), and solidified it by beating Henderson.
Given my willingness to grant a top-10 ranking to a non-UFC fighter on the basis of a single bout, I think it’s safe to say that “some kind of hasn’t been in the UFC long enough poll” isn’t at work here, don’t you?
Thanks again for your interest!
PS: If I ranked based on how I personally felt about people, Hideo Tokoro would be #1 in every weight class!
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