UFC releases its first official fighter rankings

The Ultimate Fighting Championship released its first ever official fighter rankings on Monday night and middleweight champion Anderson Silva was named the top pound-for-pound fighter in the organization.

The UFC Fighter Rankings were generated by a select voting panel comprised of media members from around the world. The media members were asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters in the in each UFC division as well as pound-for-pound.

A fighter was 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. For example, Chael Sonnen and Brian Stann were both only eligible for the light-heavyweight division, even though they normally compete at middleweight, because they have upcoming fights in the 205-pound division.

The champion and interim champion are considered to be in the top positions of their respective divisions and therefore were not eligible for voting by weight-class. However, the champions were eligible to be voted on for the pound-for-pound rankings.

Several Canadians were added to their individual weight classes. In addition to being the top welterweight, Georges St-Pierre was voted No. on the pound-for-pound list. Rory MacDonald was voted in as the No. 4 welterweight, TJ Grant came in as the No. 7 lightweight, and Ivan Menjivar is the No. 10 bantamweight.

UFC CENTRAL host Showdown Joe Ferraro and Sportsnet.ca’s Mike Johnston were selected as two of the voting panelists.

Here are the current UFC Fighter Rankings:

POUND-FOR-POUND

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

HEAVYWEIGHT

(c) Cain Velasquez

1. Junior dos Santos

2. Fabricio Werdum

3. Daniel Cormier

4. Antonio Silva

5. Frank Mir

6. Alistair Overeem

7. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

8. Roy Nelson

9. Stefan Struve

10. Shane Carwin

LIGHT- HEAVYWEIGHT

(c) Jon Jones

1. Dan Henderson

2. Lyoto Machida

3. Alexander Gustafsson

4. Glover Teixeira

5. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

6. Rashad Evans

7. Mauricio Rua

8. Phil Davis

9. Ryan Bader

10. Gegard Mousasi

MIDDLEWEIGHT

(c) Anderson Silva

1. Chris Weidman

2. Vitor Belfort

3. Michael Bisping

4. Yushin Okami

5. Mark Munoz

6. Constantinos Philippou

7. Luke Rockhold

8. Hector Lombard

9. Alan Belcher

10. Tim Boetsch

WELTERWEIGHT

(c) Georges St-Pierre

1. Johny Hendricks

2. Carlos Condit

3. Nick Diaz

4. Rory MacDonald

5. Demian Maia

6. Jake Ellenberger

7. Martin Kampmann

8. Josh Koscheck

9. Jon Fitch

10. Tarec Saffiedine

LIGHTWEIGHT

(c) Benson Henderson

1. Gilbert Melendez

2. Anthony Pettis

3. Gray Maynard

4. Nate Diaz

5. Jim Miller

6. Donald Cerrone

7. TJ Grant

8. Rafael dos Anjos

9. Joe Lauzon

10. Khabib Nurmagomedov

FEATHERWEIGHT

(c) Jose Aldo

1. Chad Mendes

2. Ricardo Lamas

3. Chan Sung Jung

4. Frankie Edgar

5. Dennis Siver

6. Cub Swanson

7. Dustin Poirier

8. Nik Lentz

9. Erik Koch

10. Clay Guida

BANTAMWEIGHT

(c) Dominick Cruz

1. Renan Barao (Interim Champion)

2. Michael McDonald

3. Urijah Faber

4. Eddie Wineland

5. Brad Pickett

6. Brian Bowles

7. Rafael Assuncao

8. Scott Jorgensen

9. Mike Easton

10. Ivan Menjivar

FLYWEIGHT

(c) Demetirous Johnson

1. Joseph Benavidez

2. John Dodson

3. Ian McCall

4. John Moraga

5. Jussier Da Silva

6. Louis Gaudinot

7. Chris Cariaso

8. John Lineker

9. Darren Uyenoyama

10. Ulysses Gomez

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