I originally did not have Dan Henderson in my middleweight top 15, on the grounds that his only wins at that weight in the past three years have been Michael Bisping and Rousimar Palhares, neither of which was a very high-ranked at the time.
In thinking about it recently, probably because Dan’s been in the news, I’ve realized that I failed to take into account what Henderson’s P3Y middleweight record was at the time he returned to MW competition in March of 2008. Though Henderson lost that bout, to Anderson Silva, his P3Y MW record–which included his wins over Ryo Chonan, Akihiro Gono, Murilo Bustamante, and Kazuo Misaki, plus his rematch loss to Misaki–would have come into play for ranking purposes. And given the value of those wins (Misaki in particular) he would have netted himself a higher place than I’m giving him now. And since he has remained active and gone undefeated at MW since then, he should not have dropped very much, if at all.
In light of these considerations, I’ve opted to place Dan Henderson at #11 in the middleweight division, just below Frank Trigg. Why Trigg? The short answer is because Trigg beat Kazuo Misaki after Henderson lost to him. So did Jorge Santiago, of course, but Santiago has that recent loss to Mamed Khalidov complicating things.
At this point, all of Henderson’s PRIDE-era middleweight wins are past the P3Y mark. If Henderson loses to someone lower ranked than himself at this point, there will not be much to prevent a considerable slide.
So here is the new Middleweight Top 15:
| # | Name | Pro MMA Record | P3Y Record at HW | Notes |
| 1 | Anderson Silva | 25-4 | 6-0 | UFC middleweight champion (5 defenses) |
| 2 | Nate Marquardt | 29-8-2 | 5-2 | |
| 3 | Demian Maia | 10-1 | 6-1 | |
| 4 | Chael Sonnen | 24-10-1 | 6-2 | |
| 5 | Yushin Okami | 23-5 | 5-2 | |
| 6 | Jake Shields | 24-4-1 | 2-0 | |
| 7 | Paulo Filho | 18-1 | 3-1 | |
| 8 | Alessio Sakara | 14-7 | 3-1 | |
| 9 | Thales Leites | 14-3 | 6-3 | |
| 10 | Frank Trigg | 19-7 | 6-1 | |
| 11 | Dan Henderson | 25-7 | 2-1 | |
| 12 | Mamed Khalidov | 20-3 | 2-0 | Moved to #11 after his non-title victory over Jorge Santiago at Sengoku 11 on 11/7/09 |
| 13 | Jorge Santiago | 21-8 | 9-2 | Sengoku middleweight champion |
| 14 | Robbie Lawler | 16-5 | 4-1 | |
| 15 | Kazuo Misaki | 22-9-2 | 4-2 |
Ranking MMA 