MMA Fighter Rankings

There's another change at the top of my pound-for-pound rankings.

A month ago I dropped Fedor Emelianenko from the top of the list to all the way off the list following his loss to Fabricio Werdum. When Fedor dropped out I moved Anderson Silva to the top. But on Saturday night we watched the worst performance of Anderson Silva's UFC career, and although Silva pulled off a brilliant submission to win the fight, he struggled enough through the first four and a half rounds that he deserves to drop in the rankings.

Find out who's No. 1 now, and how far Silva fell, below.

The UFC heavyweight champion is now the undisputed heavyweight champion of mixed martial arts.

Zuffa's belt already signified the best fighter in every weight class from bantamweight through light heavyweight, and now the two big heavyweight fights of the last two weekends -- Fabricio Werdum's shocking upset over Fedor Emelianenko and Brock Lesnar's comeback win over Shane Carwin -- have resulted in a changing of the guard in the heavyweight division as well.

Lesnar is undeniably the sport's No. 1 heavyweight, but how does the rest of the top 10 shake out? Find out below.

Everyone knows the light heavyweight division is the marquee weight class in the UFC, but I don't know if everyone realizes the extent to which that's true. Consider this: When Jon Jones and Vladimir Matyushenko step into the Octagon on August 1, in the main event of the next UFC show on Versus, it will be the 12th time in just over 10 months that the UFC has put on a light heavyweight main event. The UFC's other four weight classes will have combined for just seven main events during that time.

But of all those light heavyweight fights, none had the mainstream media appeal or the pay-per-view prowess of the one we got on Saturday night, when Rashad Evans beat Rampage Jackson in the main event at UFC 114. I thought it was an exciting fight and that Evans clearly deserved the unanimous decision victory, and that's why it's so surprising to me that so many fans are still so down on Evans.

Evans is fighting in the biggest fights, in the UFC's top weight division, and he just keeps on winning: He's 5-1 since he became a main eventer, losing only to Lyoto Machida. I think Evans is one of the sport's truly elite athletes, and I think he absolutely deserves the title fight he'll get later this year against Shogun Rua -- a fight that, if he wins, will move him all the way up to the top of my list of the Top 10 light heavyweights in MMA, which is below.

I didn't think Chael Sonnen was a serious threat to Anderson Silva, didn't think their fight would get out of the first round and didn't think Sonnen could even come close to backing up all that ridiculous trash talk he spewed in the run-up to their UFC 117 fight on Saturday night.

But while Silva did manage to pull off a fifth-round submission victory, I now believe Sonnen has to be considered the No. 2 middleweight in the world, and I also believe the next middleweight title fight should be Silva-Sonnen 2. No one had ever even come close to beating Silva in the UFC, and Sonnen had victory within his grasp on Saturday night. He deserves another chance.

You know Silva and Sonnen are the top two middleweights in the world. Find out about the rest of the Top 10 below.

If there was any doubt that Jon Fitch is the second-best welterweight in the world, he erased that doubt on Saturday night. By thoroughly dominating Thiago Alves at UFC 117, Fitch firmly established himself as MMA's best welterweight not named Georges St. Pierre.

Unfortunately for Fitch, he was beaten so badly by St. Pierre in their previous fight that there aren't a lot of fans clamoring for a rematch. And if St. Pierre loses to Josh Koscheck in December, it's an open question whether Fitch will even accept a title fight if it's offered to him, since he and Koscheck are friends and training partners.

And so while UFC President Dana White has said Fitch earned the No. 1 contender position with his victory, I'm not so sure that Fitch's next fight will be for the title. I think it's more likely that we're going to see Fitch put into the Octagon with someone else (maybe the Jake Shields-Martin Kampmann winner) as he continues his role as the welterweight division's permanent gatekeeper. Fitch is a great fighter, but I view him less as a No. 1 contender than as a guy who's stuck at No. 2.

Find out how I rank the rest of the welterweight division below.

It's been a long road to the top for Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. He was one of the UFC's most celebrated acquisitions in 2007, but he lost his only fight in the Octagon that year, to Forrest Griffin. Then he sat out all of 2008 with a knee injury, and his 2009 started with a victory over Mark Coleman that was derided by many fans because he ran out of steam late in the fight, and ended with a controversial loss to Lyoto Machida.

Now, in 2010, he has knocked Machida out, earning the UFC light heavyweight belt in his fifth fight in the Octagon. He has also earned the top spot in our latest ranking of the Top 10 light heavyweights in MMA, which is below.