The hosts of The Hammer MMA Radio have been contributing to the UFC’s Official Fighter Rankings since its inception earlier this year. While the UFC themselves have confirmed that these rankings may not necessarily impact their matchmaking, the three of us still put a lot of thought into our selection process at the conclusion of each event. Following each event we will be breaking down our thought process on a few of the relevant divisions right here at Last Word On Sports.
You can find our updated Rankings, as well as the overall UFC Rankings at http://www.ufc.com/rankings, both updated on the Monday immediately following every UFC event.
UFC on FX 8: Belfort vs. Rockhold
Steve Jeffery: The UFC on FX 8 headlining bout between Vitor Belfort and Luke Rockhold was easily the most anticipated fight on last weekend’s card, and any result was likely to produce the next number one contender to face the winner of Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman.
Well, Belfort went out there and crushed Rockhold with a spinning head kick in the first round. This was a really impressive win, and that’s two Top 10 wins in a row for Belfort (the previously #2 Ranked Middleweight). It’s a toss-up whether this would put him above #1 Chris Weidman, but Weidman also has two Top 10 wins in a row and is undefeated in his career. Belfort definitely earned the next title shot, and we’ll see how Weidman does against the champion next month before reevaluating.
Also, Strikeforce import Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza easily dispatched his last-minute replacement opponent Chris Camozzi. He already had a ton of momentum from his last few crushing Strikeforce victories, and a first win in the Octagon is just enough to push him past the tenuously ranked Tim Boetch and Hector Lombard.
Steve Jeffery: This was a pretty strange week for the Lightweight division. As we went over in our last update, Pat Healy came over from Strikeforce a few weeks ago, and blasted into the Top 10 with a huge upset win over consistently ranked Jim Miller. It was about as impressive of a debut as you can have in the UFC. Then he went and failed the post-fight drug test for marijuana and his win was overturned.
Healy’s No Contest dropped him out of the Top 10, and this past weekend’s Raphael Dos Anjos vs. Evan Dunham fight should have produced a clear replacement. Then things got weird. After a pretty exciting fight where Evan Dunham clearly won two rounds, and arguably won all three, the judges gave the unanimous decision to Raphael Dos Anjos.
While winning such an important fight should likely give Dos Anjos the #10 slot in our Rankings, we just can’t do it. He didn’t win the fight according to us or our contemporaries, and didn’t really prove to be a higher skilled Lightweight than Evan Dunham. After some discussion of just leaving both of them off and re-promoting Khabib Nurmagamedov back into the #10 slot instead, we decided to give the talented Dunham the nod for now, and then wait to see how Nurmagamedov performs this coming Saturday night. This was certainly one of the more difficult ranking decisions yet, and it doesn’t seem as though the rest of the UFC Rankings team agrees. Ah well.
Steve Jeffery: Nik Lentz has had a ton of success in the UFC Featherweight division since dropping from Lightweight. In fact, we are one of the few outlets in the Official UFC Rankings group not to already have him ranked in the Top Ten due to the two fight winning streak he was on prior to last Saturday’s fight with prospect Hacran Dias. This solid win was enough to push The Hammer over the edge for Lentz.
“The Carny” has now beaten two of the best Brazilian UFC Featherweights in Dias and Nunes, and those wins are just more impressive than the men that our former #10 Ranked Darren Elkins had beaten prior to his expected loss to Chad Mendes last month. It seems like it’s time for Lentz to step up against a Top 10 Featherweight, and there are fighters on that list that he would be favored against. The drop to Featherweight seems to be working out for him in a big way.
The Hammer MMA Radio has featured interviews with some of the biggest names in MMA over the years, including Georges St. Pierre, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Sean Sherk, Mark Coleman, Rory MacDonald, Brendan Schaub, Mark Bocek, Nate Diaz, Mark Hominick, Martin Kampmann, Johny Hendricks, and many more, all of which are archived at http://www.thehammermma.com.
The Hammer MMA Radio continues to bring unparalleled, independent coverage of all things MMA to fans of the sport and they always bring you straight goods and the last word, and we at LWOS are pleased to be partners with them.
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