The Official Bleacher Report MMA Rankings: Third Edition

Welcome, fight fans, to the third edition of the B/R MMA rankings. This is a collaboration of 20 of the top MMA writers on this site. First let me give thanks to Brian Oswald for once again helping me gather the votes, and also a big thank you to all that voted. If you didn't cats your vote, make sure you do next time.

It has been a wild month of fights, and the rankings definitely reflect that, so without further ado, here are the rankings that this community put together.

P4P

1. Fedor Emelianenko (3)
2. Anderson Silva (1)
3. GSP (2)
4. Miguel Torres (5)
5. BJ Penn (4)
6. Lyoto Machida (T-10)
7. Rashad Evans  (6)
8. Rampage Jackson (7)
9. Thiago Alves (8)
9. Shinya Aoki (NR)

Drop-Offs: Frank Mir, Gegard Mousasi

A lot of major changes here, but we'll start with the biggest. Fedor Emelianenko topples Anderson Silva to retake his spot atop the B/R pound-for-pound MMA rankings. GSP slides down one spot (not a Vaseline joke), as does Anderson Silva. Miguel Torres takes BJ Penn's spot at number four, while Lyoto Machida jumps four spots to take the six spot.

Shinya Aoki also makes his first-ever appearance on these rankings, taking the spot of Gegard Mousasi. Frank Mir falls out after being tied for 10th last month.



Heavyweight

1. Fedor (1)
2. Barnett  (4)
3. Mir (3)
4. Arlovski (2)
5. Lesnar (5)

Absolutely no new faces to the heavyweight rankings, but there were some pretty big shakeups. Josh Barnett jumps two spots and may be on his way to fighting the number one man Fedor. Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar stayed put, while Andrei Arlovski face plants onto the fourth spot.

LHW

1. Rashad Evans (1)
2. Lyoto Machida (3)
3. Rampage Jackson (2)
4. Forrest Griffin (4)
5. Renato Sobral (NR)

Drop-Offs: Rich Franklin

No big surprises here, although if you were to look at the P4P rankings, you may think something got screwed up. Apparently, you all believe that although Rashad Evans is the champion of Machida's weight class, Machida is the better P4P fighter. I'm not disagreeing, but I do find that odd.

Anyway, Rampage drops back one, while Renato Sobral puts a choke hold on the five spot and doesn't want to ever let go.

MW

1. Anderson Silva (1)
2. Gegard Mousasi (2)
3. Dan Henderson (3)
4. Yushin Okami (4)
5. Nate Marquardt (NR)

Drop-Offs: Rich Franklin

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. After being on two separate lists last moth, Rich Franklin is booted out of the top five in both the LHW and MW division. Albeit Brian and I changed the rule, allowing a fighter to only be voted for in one weight class, we did not anticipate him dropping off of both lists.

And after getting the biggest snub in MMA ranking history, Nate Marquardt re-appears at number five. I knew this community would come around.

WW

1. GSP (1)
2. Thiago Alves (2)
3. Jon Fitch (3)
4. Jake Shields (5)
5. Josh Koscheck (4)

No big changes here. All fighters hold on to a spot, while Jake Shields and Josh Koscheck swap spots in the closest race I've seen so far. It literally took until about 15 minutes ago for the final spots to be determined.

LW

1. BJ Penn (1)
2. Shinya Aoki (2)
3. Kenny Florian (3)
4. Eddie Alvarez (4)
5. Joachim Hansen (NR)

Drop-Offs: Sean Sherk

To the naked eye it probably looks as though there were no big changes. The naked eye is wrong. BJ Penn was very close to losing his top spot to Shinya Aoki for a while. It wasn't until receiving the second half of the votes that BJ solidified his spot, but not by much. The only change here is the addition of Joachim Hansen into the top five while Sean Sherk falls out.