The Second Bananas

St Pierre, Silva, Emelianenko, Penn, and Machida. These names are synonymous with the best MMA has to offer. So dominant are these individuals, there are very few if any men in their weight classes that pose much of a challenge to their rule. Many an article, blurb, interview and blog have been constructed in reference to these MMA monarchs.

This is not one of those aformentioned references.

This blog is in regards to the guys that would be THOSE guys if THOSE guys were not who THEY were.

Confused yet?

Basically what all that confusion above is about are the fighters who are second best in the world within their respective divisions. Each division has a fighter that is just waiting for the top guy in his division to retire, die, or be beamed up by aliens. Who are the would be number one fighters in the world? Read ahead and see true believer.....

Heavyweight: Brock Lesnar

Some may scoff at my choice for declaring Lesnar as the second best heavyweight in the world. A lot of pundits and fans alike will still tell you that Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is still the pentultimate heavyweight in MMA. Despite any of that, Lesnar is the heir to the Last Emperor's throne. Lesnar's natural power, speed, stamina and size makes him a nightmare oppponent as is, throw in the fact that he is a stifling wrestler and you have a walking tank wearing four ounce gloves. What puts Brock over the top in my book is how quickly he has adapted to MMA. While his striking is still rudimentary, he has the chin and punching power to make up for most of his deficiencies on the feet. His ground and pound just ruins his opponents faces, and the fact that he moves like a welterweight seals the deal. While his run against Couture and Mir are the only fights that are relevant on his resume, his potential, at least on paper, more than gives him a better than average shot at dethroning the beast that is Fedor.

Light Heavyweight: Rampage Jackson

RaNkInGs: Decenber

While rankings tend to be severely subjective and in may cases altogether without merit, there are also instances that the rank of a fighter is justified. Unfortunately, it all comes back to opinion when determining who the top 10 fighters in the world are and how they line up sequentially. And we all know the old saying when it comes to opinions, just like assholes, everyone has one.

Well, here's this asshole's opinion on who ranks where, when, and how. Flame away my friends....

Heavyweight:
1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Brock Lesnar
3. Frank Mir
4. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
5. Josh Barnett
6. Brett Rogers
7. Andre Arlovski
8. Cain Velasquez
9. Junior Dos Santos
10. Shane Carwin

Light Heavyweight
1. Lyoto Machida
2. Rashad Evans
3. Quentin Jackson
4. Forrest Griffin
5. Mauricio Rua
6. Thiago Silva
7. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
8. Luis Arthur Cane
09. Kieth Jardine
10. Rich Franklin

Middleweight
1. Anderson Silva
2. Dan Henderson
3. Nate Marquardt
4. Vitor Belfort
5. Demian Maia
6. Chael Sonnen
7. Jake Shields
8. Yoshiro Akiyama
9. Yushin Okami
10. Ronaldo Jacare Souza

Welterweight
1. George St Pierre
2. Jon Fitch
3. Thiago Alves
4. Paulo Thiago
5. Josh Koscheck
6. Dan Hardy
7. Matt Hughes
8. Mike Swick
9. Carlos Condit
10. Jay Hieron

Lightweight
1. BJ Penn
2. Shinya Aoki
3. Eddie Alvarez
4. Kenny Florian
5. Tatsuya Kawajiri
i6. Gray Maynard
7. Frankie Edgar
8. Sean Sherk
9. Gilbert Melendez
10. Joachim Hansen

Featherweight
1. Jose Aldo
2. Mike Brown
3. Urijah Faber
4. Raphael Assuncao
5. Bibiano Fernandez
6. Hatsu Hioki
7. Michihiro Omigawa
8. Mackens Semerzier
9. Wagney Fabiano
10. Manny Gamburyan

Bantamweight
1. Brian Bowles
2. Miguel Torres
3. Masakatsu Ueda
4. Dominick Cruz
5. Joseph Benavidez
6. Akitoshi Tamura
7. Antonio Banuelos
8. Scott Jorgenson
9. Takeya Mizugaki
10. Damacio Page

Divisional Dilemma

With BJ Penn's facial reconstruction of Diego Sanchez this passed Saturday, It appears that Dana White's comment on BJ being one fight away from clearing out the division is an understatement, as it appears to me that the division is thoroughly cleared of credible challengers as of Saturday. Gray Maynard aside, the fighters in the UFC's lightweight division are either not anywhere near ready for the nightmare that is BJ Penn, or have not really strung together a consistent run of wins that make them a clear cut contender.

For example, Sean Sherk just lost to Frankie Edgar, so no dice. Tyson Griffin is a quality fighter and just had a very impressive win against Hermes Franca, but he just dropped a decision to Sherk 2 fights ago. Even Frankie Edgar, who is Maynard's closest rival in contendership, just dropped a fight to Maynard himself 3 fights ago. This leaves Gray as the only lightweight that has put together some semblance of a contendership run towards a title shot with a 6 fight streak inside the confines of the octagon. It can be more than assumed then that should Maynard "bully" has way passed Nate Diaz in their upcoming fight, Maynard will be the man to face off with the Prodigy. The caveat being that Diaz has actually already defeated Maynard, given that it was on the TUF show, but he was defeated and finished in that fight by submission.

While a 7th octagon win against Nate Diaz will more than give Maynard a proper resume for a title shot, the fight certainly does not have the appeal of the Florian or Sanchez fights promotionally. Not to mention that stylistcally, it is not a great match up for Gray, as Penn' ability to stuff take downs like pizza crust and his marked striking and grappling advantage make this fight appear to be a severely one sided affair.

Unfortunately, this problem does not get any better the higher up you go in weight. Looking at the welterweight and middleweight divisions is like looking at a mirror of 155. Lots of rematches and pseudo-contenders that really are not ready for the kind of terror that awaits them at the top of the mountain. George St Pierre is possibly the most well rounded fighter in the world. He has a fight scheduled against Dan Hardy, who, while a good fighter in his own right, matches up to GSP about as well as Maynard to Penn. As in not very. Then we come to the consensus number 1 fighter in the world in Anderson Silva. Silva has shown the kind of dominance that legends are made of. No fighter in the world would be a betting favorite against him save heavyweights that outweigh him by anywhere from 20 to 60 pounds.

All things considered, things could be worse for the UFC than having champions who are supremely dominant (UFC 108 would one of those problems, yeesh!). The solution to this issue has more or less presented itself in the form of these champions moving up in weight and challenging themselves at a higher weight class. BJ fought St Pierre earlier this year, and Silva has made 2 treks up to 205 to test the waters. BJ still regularly talks about his desire to move back up to welterweight and make a run at St Pierre. Should he dispose of Maynard or whoever the next title challenger is at 155 lbs, a run at welterweight would be an interesting proposition. However, Penn must concede that he needs to put on some quality mass and keep his conditioing program at full bore to really make an impact. Carb loading and hoarking down spam moco is not going to get him passed the welterweight elite, much less GSP.

For St Pierre, after Hardy and a possible match up against Josh Koscheck, The Anderson Silva superfight cannot be that far off, as he'll have then beaten the majority of deserving contenders. On the Silva tip, Anderson's manager Ed Soares has already spoken to Dana White about possibly having the Spider vacate the middleweight title and make his way to 205 permanently. I would personally advocate for this as a fight with Vitor Belfort and a rematch against Nate Marquardt are less than appetizing at this point.

-R

The Lyoto Conundrum

Watching the fallout on the internet from the Lyoto Machida vs Shogun Rua fight was a bit difficult for me as I fall into the minority that agreed with the decision. Watching the fight again immediately after it was over with the sound muted, showed me that despite the crowd and the incessant shouting from Joe Rogan, Machida outstruck Shogun through the first 3 rounds. Machida's strikes landed cleaner and more often. You can argue that Shogun hit harder with his leg kicks and body kicks, but he wiffed several of those kick attempts and his takedowns were about as effective as the Obama stimulus package.

Let's see how the rematch goes.

Aoki Calls Out the Prodigy.....'Kay.

Shinya Aoki is now the newly minted Dream lightweight champion. After he defeated Joachim Hansen for the title, he once again called out the consensus #1 lightweight in the world, BJ Penn. My only comment can be, what?!

Never mind the fact that Aoki does not like fighting outside of the land of the rising sun and he has no interest in going to the UFC, but his chances against BJ Penn are about as likely as North Korea disarming themselves of nuclear weapons. As in not likely.

On the feet, Penn can be argued as the best boxer in the division. His ability to get in and out and slip and strike is unparalleled. Mix in his uncanny power and Aoki has about as good a chance staying upright of his own free will as the aformention nuclear disarmament. The stand up is not a friend to our resident Japanese human pretzel maker.

The wrestling is also a contest that favors Penn. While he isn't Kurt Angle, Penn is a severely underrated wrestler. His ability to avoid the takedown and put the fight where he wants is exceptional. See the Kenny Florian fight for how the takedown battle would play out against Aoki.

And finally, the jiu jitsu. The most evenly matched portion of the fight, and mostly a wash as either guy would likely cancel out the other. Although Aoki's defense on the ground is not spectacular, so there is a chance Penn would just pound him out on the ground. Overall, not a great night for the newly crowned Dream champion.

Any argument for Dream's light weight division being better than the UFC's is a farce. As good as guys like Calvancante, Hansen, Ishida and Aoki are, none of these men would beat a Sean Sherk, Frank Edgar, Kenny Florian or a BJ Penn. Natch.

TUF Week of 10/07/09

Kudos to Rashad Evans for being there for Demico Rogers after he lost on TUF. A fighter needs to know that his team supports him and helps pick him up off the ground after a loss. Rampage showed that all he cares about is himself and no one else. The show is supposed to be about the fighters and their goal of making it as a fighter in the greatest fight organization in the world. Not about some egomaniac who cares more about how he looks on tv than the guys around him.

I know Quentin claims that he was strong armed into being on the show, but all he really needed to say was "no" to being on the show. No one put a gun to his head. Rampage needs to pull his head out of his ass and forget about acting as he cannot act his way out of a paper bag.

I supported Jackson after his loss to Forrest as I thought he took it well and accepted it like a man. I stood behind him after his unhinged "rampage" through the streets of L.A. I thought he deserved a title shot after the Jardine fight even though he looked less than impressive. For him to pull this crap now, I think I've lost my patience for his bullshit.

WEC....No More? Let's Hope

It is difficult to argue that any organization, including the UFC, puts on more exciting fights than the WEC. Yes, I understand they are both Zuffa owned brands, however, the WEC consistently offers better fights if not more meaningful ones. The recent talk of Zuffa transitioning the remaining WEC divisions into the UFC and dissolving the WEC brand has been a hot button topic within MMA over the last few weeks. And I for one am all for it as I feel that it can only bolster the UFC brand and offer the smaller weight divisions more notoriety that they clearly deserve.

My argument begins with the clear fact that Zuffa does not have enough headliners to drive all their cards. Adding 2 or 3 additional divisions with strong champions can only help bolster pay per views as you have more champions to headline shows. We can already see the turmoil the lack of headliners has caused for the UFC over the next few months. Especially UFC 105, which sticks out like a tourist at Rocky Point. The headliner of that show is Randy Couture v Brandon Vera. I dare you to find a more random fight. Then with the dissolution of the Rampage Jackson/UFC relationship, the Tennessee card is left without it's main draw. These kind of things would and could be avoided by having a stronger roster with more exciting fighters and additional headlining draws such as Urijah Faber, Mike Brown, and Miguel Torres.

Another reason for the permeation of WEC into the UFC, WEC does not really make a whole lot of money. Which in turn does not make the fighters much money. Guys on the undercard of a UFC will often times make 2 to 3 times more than some WEC main eventers. Guys like Torres, Brown and Faber should be making the kind of money they deserve, as they draw eyeballs much better than many UFC fighters who make much more.

Dana White has stated that the WEC will stay intact for the near future, but an integration is inevitable. For this blogger, that moment cannot come soon enough.