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.
4. Rich Franklin is defintely deserving of his #2 position. He has defeated both the third and fourth best fighters in the class and deserves to get his title rematch against Anderson Silva. Until Silva came on the scene, it appeared like Rich Franklin would stay on top of the middleweight mountain for quite a while.
5. Anderson Silva is the best middleweight in the UFC, maybe the best middleweight in the world. Real MMA lovers would enjoy to see a bout between Matt Lindland and Anderson Silva to decide the best MMA middleweight, but since Lindland doesn’t fight in the UFC we have Anderson Silva ruling. His dominant performances against Chris Leben, Rich Franklin, Travis Lutter and most recently Nate Marquardt indicate true dominance. In fact, in his last 4 fights only one has gone into the second round and they represent only 10 minutes of total fight time.
Anderson Silva is extremely at ease throwing punches from all angles. He Is not afraid of being taken down, so he permits himself to take chances throwing big flying knees and other high profile strikes. It’s that kind of fighting which will both keep Anderson on or near the top of the middleweight division for quite some time.
