Commentary by Kid Nate: This whole division is basically on hold. #1 Anderson Silva is supposedly signed to fight #10 Thales Leites at UFC 97 but most seem to view that as an afterthought to the more interesting chatter about what 205lb fights Anderson may eventually sign. It would be pretty ironic if Leites goes ahead and pulls out the submission win.

Meanwhile #2 Yushin Okami continues to creep up the rankings and has been promised a title shot by Dana White even after his three round snoozer against #41 Dean Lister at UFC 92.

#3 Dan Henderson and #8 Rich Franklin are headlining UFC 93 but at 205lbs instead of 185. Compounding the confusion, the winner will move back down to middleweight to coach The Ultimate Fighter opposite #12 Michael Bisping. Franklin has been pretty vocal about not viewing that as much of an incentive. I don't blame him since it was the UFC's idea for him to move up to Light Heavy in the first place.

#3 Robbie Lawler is trapped in  EliteXC limbo. At least Dana White is making noises about being interested in bringing Lawler back to the UFC when all that mess gets resolved.

#5 Nathan Marquardt is set to take on former Light Heavyweight #22 Wilson Gouveia at UFC 95. Nate's got to overcome a lot of hurdles to get a rematch for the title. Blowing his fight against Leites cost him a title shot.

#6 Gegard Mousasi impressed in his K-1 rules debut on NYE but I still view that as a waste of his time. Will be interesting to see what the K-1/DREAM organization decides to do in 2009.

#7 Matt Lindland is scheduled to face #26 Vitor Belfort on the 24th if that show actually takes place. Cross your fingers fight fans.

And saving the best news for last #9 Jorge Santiago wrapped up a great 2009 by finishing #15 Kazuo Misaki and taking the Sengoku middleweight title. Here's hoping Santiago returns to Strikeforce or maybe even the UFC sometime soon.

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.

Based on the premise that opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink. instead of putting up our own subjective fighter rankings, we compile and average the rankings of every source we could find online.

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.

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. Fuller explanation below.

Rankings were compiled from the following sites: 

The normalization scheme as explained by JCS of FightMatrix  is here:

The "normalization number" (new name) would be:

120
divided by
(Total Fighters Found in Any List minus 10)

Every fighter found somewhere else, but on a Top 10 list would be assigned this number.

The "normalization" number would not apply to a fighter not found on a Top 25 list. They would simply get 0.

So the process would be:

Do all of the Top 25 lists first, #1 = 25, #2 = 24…. #24 = 2, #25 = 1
Do all of the Top 10 lists, same scoring structure.. stops at #10 = 16

Figure out that normalization variable.

Fill in the normalization variable to all fighters not found in the Top 10 lists, but found elsewhere.

Do your totals and rank.