It was announced last week that the UFC had partnered with FightMetric to do their own official rankings. The rankings were voted on by a select group of media members and are now available for viewing at UFC.com/rankings.
Rankings were generated by a voting panel made up of media members. The media members were asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters in the UFC by weight-class and pound-for-pound. A fighter is only eligible to be voted on if they are in active status in the UFC and a fighter can only appear in one weight division at a time. The champion and interim champion are considered to be in the top positions of their respective divisions and therefore are not eligible for voting by weight-class. However, the champions can be voted on for the pound-for-pound rankings.
The panelists for the first set of rankings include Neil Springer (Sun Media), Chris Palmquist (MixedMartialArts.com), James Koh (FOX 11 Los Angeles), Bob Emanuel (Scripps Howard News Service), Mark Daniels (Boston Herald), Steve Feiti (Asbury Park Press), Grant Gordan (Burbank Leader), Jeremy Botter (Houston Chronicle), Case Keefer (Las Vegas Sun), Ana Hissa (Mundo da Lut), Jeff Wagenheim (SI.com), Paulo Favero (O Estado de S Paulo), Anthony Springer Jr. (FightNews), Andreas Hale (FightNews), Marc Raimondi (NY Post), Joe Ferraro (Sportsnet), Marcelo Russio (Canal Combate), Brett Okamoto (ESPN.com), Franklin McNeil (ESPN.com), Guga Noblat (O Globo), Ken Pishna (MMAWeekly.com), Mike Johnston (Sportsnet), Marcelo Alonso (Portal do Vale-Tudo), John Silver (Chicago Sun-Times), Mario Filho (OSS TV), Claudia Lima (VIP), Damon Martin (MMAWeekly.com) and Steve Cofield (ESPN Radio).
Check out the initial pound-for-pound rankings below.
1. Anderson Silva
2. Jon Jones
3. Georges St-Pierre
4. Jose Aldo
5. Benson Henderson
6. Cain Velasquez
7. Dominick Cruz
8. Demetrious Johnson
9. Frankie Edgar
10. Dan Henderson
Media members will vote and rankings will be updated on the Monday following every major UFC event.
If you want to see how each of the media members chose for their official rankings click here.
