"The Half-Guarded Truth"
By: Mike Coughlin
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For the week of 08/17/08
RIP Nilton: we all still miss you

"August MMA Rankings"

Another month's gone by so we're back with another look at the Five Star Radio/Half-Guarded Truth MMA Rankings.  There weren't a great number of shows lately, limited mostly to UFC 87 from Minneapolis and WEC 35 from Las Vegas, so there aren't too many changes.  But, changes are found in the heavyweight and pound for pound rankings.  Enjoy!

HEAVYWEIGHT

1) Fedor Emelianenko

2) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

3) Randy Couture

4) Josh Barnett

5) Andrei Arlovski

6) Tim Sylvia

7) Fabricio Werdum

8 ) Gabriel Gonzaga

9) Cain Velasquez

10) Frank Mir

CHANGES:  Herring drops out of the top 10 with his loss to Lesnar.  Cain moves up to 9.  I've slotted Frank Mir at #10.  I don't think Mir is the 10th best heavyweight on the planet, far from it.  However, in light of how Lesnar manhandled Herring, Mir's kneebar victory looks more impressive.  Everyone is marveling at how amazing Lesnar looked against Heath, but Mir made the big man tap in less than 2 minutes.  It's a bit of MMAth, I admit, but Herring was top 10, Lesnar mauled him, and Mir owned Lesnar.  Honestly, I really considered leaving the 10th spot open because I don't think any heavyweight has done anything to separate themselves from the malaise that is the division below 9.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT

1) Forrest Griffin

2) Quinton “Rampage” Jackson

3) Chuck Liddell

4) Mauricio “Shogun” Rua

5) Lyoto Machida

6) Wanderlei Silva

7) Keith Jardine

8 ) Rameau Sokoudjou

9) Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

10) Rashad Evans


CHANGES: NO CHANGES.  The next big light heavyweight match is Liddell squaring off against Rashad Evans in September.


MIDDLEWEIGHT

1) Anderson Silva

2) Dan Henderson

3) Paulo Filho

4) Matt Lindland

5) Robbie Lawler

6) Yushin Okami

7) Rich Franklin

8 ) Thales Leites

9) Nathan Marquardt

10) Frank Trigg

CHANGES: NO CHANGES.  Filho is in an odd do or die spot when he rematches Chael Sonnen next month.  A win means he's legit, a loss means that perhaps the non-drug testing Japan was more favorable to him than was once thought.  Oh, and Anderson Silva is still awesome.

WELTERWEIGHT

1) Georges St. Pierre

2) Jon Fitch

3) Jake Shields

4) Josh Koscheck

5) Thiago Alves

6) Matt Hughes

7) Diego Sanchez

8 ) Carlos Condit

9) Karo Parisyan

10) Matt Serra

CHANGES: NO CHANGES.  Fitch lost to St. Pierre, but I'm not going to drop/penalize a guy because he got dominated by the greatest welterweight on earth.  The next real big welterweight fight is probably the Diego Sanchez v. Thiago Alves fight, featured on the undercard of the UFC's Chicago debut.  Like Anderson Silva, Georges St. Pierre rocks. 

LIGHTWEIGHT

1) BJ Penn

2) Takanori Gomi

3) Eddie Alvarez

4) Shinya Aoki

5) Joachim Hansen

6) Tatsuya Kawajiri

7) Gesius “JZ” Calvancanti

8 ) Vitor “Shaolin” Riberio

9) Caol Uno

10) Tyson Griffin

CHANGES: NO CHANGES.  This is probably the longest period of time the lightweight division will go without SOME sort of change.


POUND FOR POUND

1) BJ Penn

2) Anderson Silva

3) KID Yamamoto

4) Fedor Emelianenko

5) Georges St. Pierre

6) Urijah Faber

7) Miguel Torres

8 ) Shinya Aoki

9) Lyoto Machida

10) Dan Henderson

CHANGES: I move St. Pierre into the rankings, slotting him at #5.  St. Pierre is one of the biggest guys in his division, and I normally hold that against someone, but Fitch was every bit his size and St. Pierre made him look like a child for 25 minutes.  Diego Sanchez drops from the top 10.  However, I want to defend Diego a bit.  I want folks to look at how good Kenny Florian has been lately.  He's been on a great run, beating one good lightweight after another, recently proving himself superior in basically every facet of the game to Roger Huerta.  Now, with all that in mind, realize that Diego Sanchez (who could easily cut to lightweight) ran through Florian like it wasn't even a challenge.  I think that's how good Sanchez would be at lightweight, yet he continues to fight successfully at welterweight, showing me that the guy is an undeniable talent.  That said, I think Alves is going to kill him.

Mike Coughlin is the host of Five Star Radio, found right here at the new f4wonline.com.  A weekly look at all things MMA, 5SR~! is your one-stop for non-stop MMA.  He never taps.

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