Jon Jones Dan Henderson Shogun Machida Evans Jackson Cavalcante King Mo Phil Davis Gustafsson Jones is clearly the champ. Henderson had a couple of big wins over Cavalcante and Fedor before rejoining the UFC with a huge win over Shogun. Shogun has done more than enought to have his position.
1. jon jones - freak 2. dan henderson - H-bomb, concrete chin 3. machida - elusive, fast, unorthodox striking 4. rashad evans - wrestling, and improving his striking 5. shogun - heart, chin, good striking 6. jackson - great chin, strong hands, needs his old school wrestling style back 7. king mo - great wrestling, okay striking 8. phil davis - very good wrestling, good submissions, striking is dodgy tho 9. gustaffsson - young and hungry prospect looking for more experience tho and dont know about his chin 10. calvalcante - great bjj, okay hands
Since you are following me around, which I don't mind, I am naming a champ and 10 contenders. That is 11 fighters total. I think it makes for a better comparison if we are ranking the same number of fighters.
Champion: Jon Jones 1. Dan Henderson 2. Shogun Rua 3. Lyoto Machida 4. Rashad Evans 5. Rampage Jackson 6. Phil Davis 7. Rafael Cavalcante 8. Muhammed Lawal 9. Forrest Griffin 10. Alexander Gustafsson I'd like to see the UFC start matching up the established stars (1-5) with the rest of the division, especially now they have access to Strikeforce fighters. It's becoming a bit of a merry-go-round, and spots 7 to 10 are quite fluid. It's not out of the question that someone like Stanislav Nedkov could enter the top ten with a couple of solid wins.
Very glad to see Shogun and Machida placed higher than Rashad, who hasn't had one impressive performance against a fit, top opponent in years, and seems to have talked his way into being thought of as the undisputed #2 in the division. My only gripe would be that Rampage is too high. The guy is shot and hasn't impressed in a long, long time.