MMA RANKINGS Heavyweight

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Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.

November was supposed to be the most epic month in heavyweight MMA since August. Both #1 Fedor Emelianenko and #2 Brock Lesnar were set to fight. But just as in August, fate intervened and only one of the two titans of the division actually competed.

In August it was the failure of #6 Josh Barnett to meet the licensing requirements of the CSAC and the resulting collapse of Affliction as a fight promotion that prevented Fedor from fighting.

In November, Fedor fought spectacularly, TKO'ing #8 Brett Rogers on the fan pleasing Strikeforce: Fedor vs Rogers card.

But sadly, Lesnar fell ill and his title defense against #9 Shane Carwin was first postponed and then canceled.

Piling on more bad news, #3 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira had to cancel his UFC 108 fight with #7 Cain Velasquez due to a nasty staph infection.

There are rumors that Velasquez and Carwin will fight for an interim title, but that won't happen until 2010 at the earliest.

#4 Frank Mir will try to return to contention by beating #17 Cheick Kongo at UFC 107.

#5 Junior Dos Santos will be tested by #16 Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 108.  If Dos Santos can beat Gonzaga he will be well placed for a title shot, pending the resolution of the title situation.

#10 Fabricio Werdum took a hard-fought decision over #18 Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva at Strikeforce: Fedor vs Rogers and seems to be next in line for a crack at the mighty Fedor. It would be fun to see Bigfoot vs Brett Rogers on a future Strikeforce card. The winner would immediately return to contention.  

Nominal Strikeforce champ #11 Alistair Overeem is expected to return to Strikeforce in 2010 to defend his belt against Fedor. Cross your fingers.

We compile the top MMA rankings from each of our sources and award 25 points for a first place ranking, 16 for a 10th place ranking, 1 for a 25th place ranking. A formula is used to "normalize" the data so all fighters are awarded points from those lists that do not include a full 25 fighters. This formula ensures that each ranking site awards the same number of total points regardless of how many fighters they choose to rank. Each fighter’s total is divided by the number of possible points to determine their standing in the Consensus Rankings.

NOTE: The Meta-Rankings are not the subjective opinion of the BloodyElbow team, but rather a compilation of the rankings of over twenty leading MMA web sites. It is our opinion that these are the most informative MMA rankings anywhere.

Ranking explanation

The goal is to show how the MMA community rates the fighters, not to bore you with our opinions. Be sure and look at the points, they're a much more telling number than the ranking. A total of 39 fighters were ranked in the top 25 by one source or another, for reasons of sanity I only track the top 25 most highly rated fighters. 25 points are awarded for a first place ranking, 16 for a 10th place ranking, 1 for a 25th place ranking. A formula is used to "normalize" the data so all fighters are awarded points from those lists that do not include a full 25 fighters.

Rankings were compiled from 23 following sites: 411 Mania (1/6), Brawl Sports (1/6), Cage Potato (1/1), Fight Matrix (1/4), Fight! Magazine, Five Ounces of Pain (1/4), Full Contact Fighter, Inside Fighting, Inside MMA, MMA 4 Real (1/7), MMA Blog, MMA ELO (1/5), MMA Fighting (1/4), MMA Playground (1/10), MMA Rocks (1/4), MMA Torch (11/17), MMA Weekly (1/7), MMA/VT, Sherdog (1/7), Sports Illustrated (1/6), TAGG Radio, Total MMA (1/4), WAMMA (12/17).

Read more here: bloodyelbow.com