MMA Fighter Rankings for August 2012

Last month saw little change to the MMA Fighter Rankings, while this month balanced things out with plenty of changes. The month on July saw most of the top middleweights in the world in action and the results have re-worked the division rankings

With his 2^nd round win over Chael Sonnen and UFC 148, Anderson Silva obviously stayed as the #1 middleweight in the world. Surprisingly Sonnen remains in the #2 spot for now as the rest of the division didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. Hector Lombard (#3) and Mark Munoz (#4) both lost in July and now find themselves on the outside looking in at the top five. Michael Bisping made the biggest move this month, going from the #5 spot up to #3 and he didn’t even fight this month. With two fighters out of the ranks the Strikeforce middleweight champion Luke Rockhold (#4) makes his first appearance in the top five as does Chris Weidman (#5) who brutally knocked out Munoz at UFC on FUEL TV 4.

The UFC interim bantamweight title was on the line at UFC 149 and Renan Barao defeated Urijah Faber by unanimous decision. The win by Barao moved him ahead of Faber into the #2 spot behind the injured UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.

A look ahead at August has light heavyweight Mauricio Rua (#4) and Lyoto Machida (#5) in action at Saturday’s UFC on FOX 4 event. Lightweight champion Ben Henderson (#1) will make his first title defense against the man he beat to win the title, Frankie Edgar (#3). The #2 featherweight Pat Curran will also be in action as he’ll defend his Bellator title against Patricio Freire (#5) at Bellator 73.

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 MMA fighter Rankings:

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

Heavyweight (205lbs. – 265lbs.)

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

Knocking on the door: Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett, Shane Carwin, Travis Browne, Stipe Miocic

Light Heavyweight (205lbs.)

1. Jon Jones
2. Dan Henderson
3. Rashad Evans
4. Mauricio Rua
5. Lyoto Machida

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

Anderson Silva defeated Chael Sonnen to remain #1

Middleweight (185lbs.)

1. Anderson Silva
2. Chael Sonnen
3. Michael Bisping [↑]
4. Luke Rockhold [•]
5. Chris Weidman [•]

Knocking on the door: Brian Stann, Vitor Belfort, Ronaldo Souza, Tim Boetsch, Alan Belcher, hector Lombard, Mark Munoz

Welterweight (170lbs.)

1. Georges St. Pierre
2. Carlos Condit
3. Nick Diaz
4. Ben Askren
5. Johny Hendricks

Knocking on the door: Rory MacDonald, Martin Kampmann, Josh Koscheck, John Hathaway, Jake Ellenberger, Erick Silva

Lightweight (155lbs.)

1. Ben Henderson
2. Gilbert Melendez
3. Frankie Edgar
4. Gray Maynard
5. Nate Diaz

Knocking on the door: Michael Chandler, Jim Miller, Donald Cerrone, Eddie Alvarez, Anthony Pettis, Pat Healy

Featherweight (145lbs.)

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

Knocking on the door:  Joe Warren, Chan Sung Jung, Dustin Poirier, Erik Koch

Bantamweight (135lbs.)

1. Dominik Cruz
2. Renan Barao [↑]
3. Urijah Faber [↓]
4. Michael McDonald
5. Brian Bowles

Knocking on the door: Mike Easton, Brad Pickett, Eduardo Dantas, Zach Makovsky, Scott Jorgenson

Flyweight (125lbs.)

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

Knocking on the door: John Dodson, Louis Gaudinot

MMA Fighter Rankings as of 8/1/2012