It appears fitting with UFC 77 right around the corner, with Rich Franklin fighting current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva to give my UFC middleweight top 5 rankings now.
The UFC middleweight division is believably the weakest in all of the UFC. By weakest I mean that there’s one clear cut champion, a clear cut second and then everybody else is way below. Mixed Martial Arts has come a long way in a very short period of time, so things could change overnight. Let’s get started with my rankings.
1. Chris Leben; I believe most MMA lovers wouldn’t include Chris Leben in the top 5 of the UFC middleweight division, but Leben is coming off an brilliant come from behind win over a real tough Terry Martin and fought a close decision loss with Kalib Starnes. I in person believed that the Starnes fight was a draw or even a narrow Leben victory.
2. Jason MacDonald had an actual streak going before he met Rich “Ace” Franklin. He had consecutive wins over ultimate fighters Ed Herman and Chris Leben winning both bouts by submission. MacDonald had a bit of a set back when he faced recently de-throned champion Rich Franklin. This fight demonstrated exactly how big of a gap there is in the UFC middleweight division, but MacDonald is taking it all in stride and a recent victory at UFC 72 over Rory Singer shows that “The Athlete” is back on track.
3. Yushin Okami and Jason MacDonald have both faced Rich Franklin, but neither has faced middleweight champion Anderson Silva. Since Okami got less beaten up by Franklin than MacDonald did, I give him the #3 spot.
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