MMA Fighter Rankings for March 2012

Last month’s rankings saw little movement within the ranks but that was more than made up for this by all the movement this month. The March MMA fighter rankings saw two new fighters crowned #1, two fighters move up into the #2 spot and a total of 16 changes overall.

Two fighters made the biggest jumps in the rankings after capturing UFC gold last month.

Lightweight Ben Henderson defeated former #1 ranked Frankie Edgar at UFC 144 to capture the lightweight title and move up two spots in the ranks from #4 to #2. The loss by Edgar dropped him down to the #3 spot and opened the door for the Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez to take over the #1 position.

With the welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre of the shelf, Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit fought at UFC 143 for the interim crown. Condit took a unanimous decision victory and vaulted up from the #4 spot into the #2 spot and now waits for the return of GSP. Diaz on the other hand fell from the #2 position to #4 and with the possible suspension coming from the positive marijuana test, which might start a free fall.

March will see the start of the sixth season from Bellator with several title fights happening this month. That good news though as the UFC only has one event this month as the 15^th season of the Ultimate Fighter begins.

As always the goal here is to give you the best rankings that we can provide you with and of course a spot below for you to disagree and complain. So without further ado here is the latest MMAValor.com fighter Rankings:

Key – [↑] = Moved up, [↓] = Moved Down, [•] = New to the list

Heavyweight (205lbs. – 265lbs.)

1. Junior Dos Santos
2. Cain Velasquez
3. Alistair Overeem
4. Fabricio Werdum
5. Frank Mir

Knocking on the door: Josh Barnett, Shane Carwin, Daniel Cormier, Antonio Silva

Light Heavyweight (205lbs.)

1. Jon Jones
2. Rashad Evans
3. Mauricio Rua
4. Dan Henderson
5. Rampage Jackson

Knocking on the door: Phil Davis, Ryan Jimmo, Alexander Gustafsson

Middleweight (185lbs.)

1. Anderson Silva
2. Chael Sonnen
3. Hector Lombard [↑]
4. Mark Munoz [↑]
5. Yushin Okami [↓]

Knocking on the door: Brian Stann, Michael Bisping, Vitor Belfort, Luke Rockhold, Ronaldo Souza, Demian Maia, Tim Boetsch

Welterweight (170lbs.)

1. Georges St. Pierre
2. Carlos Condit [↑]
3. Josh Koscheck
4. Nick Diaz [↓]
5. Jake Ellenberger

Knocking on the door: Ben Askren, Rory MacDonald, Johny Hendricks, Martin Kampmann

Lightweight (155lbs.)

1. Gilbert Melendez [↑]
2. Ben Henderson [↑]
3. Frankie Edgar [↓]
4. Gray Maynard [↓]
5. Michael Chandler

Knocking on the door: Nate Diaz, Shinya Aoki, Jim Miller, Donald Cerrone, Eddie Alvarez, Anthony Pettis

Featherweight (145lbs.)

1. Jose Aldo
2. Hatsu Hioki
3. Chad Mendes
4. Pat Curran
5. Patricio Freire

Knocking on the door:  Joe Warren, Chan Sung Jung, Diego Nunes

Bantamweight (135lbs.)

1. Dominik Cruz
2. Urijah Faber
3. Zach Makovsky [↑]
4. Renan Barao [↑]
5. Scott Jorgenson [↓]

Knocking on the door: Ivan Menjivar, Brian Bowles

Flyweight (125lbs.)

1. Joseph Benavides [↑]
2. Ian McCall [↓]
3. Demetrious Johnson [↑]
4. Jussier Da Silva
5. Yasuhiro Urushitani [↓]

Knocking on the door: 

Ranks as of 3/5/2012

Tags: Alistair Overeem, Bellator, Ben Henderson, Cain Velasquez, Carlos Condit, Dominick Cruz, Frankie Edgar, Georges St. Pierre, Gilbert Melendez, Hatsu Hioki, Ian McCall, Jon Jones, Jose Aldo, joseph Benavidez, junior Dos Santos, Mixed Martial Arts, MMA, MMA Rankings, Nick Diaz, Rankings, Rashad Evans, Strikeforce, UFC, UFC 143, UFC 144, Urijah Faber

Category: Bellator, Exclusive, Featured, MMA, Rankings, Strikeforce, UFC