USA TODAY/MMA Nation October 2011 Consensus Rankings: Welterweight

by Richard Wade on Oct 27, 2011 6:00 PM EDT

Rank	Fighter	%	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Georges St. Pierre	100	UFC	1
2	Jon Fitch	95	UFC	2
3	Carlos Condit	84	UFC	3
4	Josh Koscheck	81	UFC	5
5	Nick Diaz	81	UFC	4
6	Jake Ellenberger	80	UFC	8
7	Jake Shields	77	UFC	6
8	B.J. Penn	73	UFC	7
9	Rick Story	48	UFC	10
10	Anthony Johnson	47	UFC	15
11	Thiago Alves	44	UFC	11
12	Diego Sanchez	44	UFC	12
13	Rory MacDonald	40	UFC	13
14	Charlie Brenneman	39	UFC	9
14	Martin Kampmann	39	UFC	14
16	Paulo Thiago	28	UFC	16
17	Tyron Woodley	26	Strikeforce	18
18	Ben Askren	25	Bellator	17
19	Johny Hendricks	25	UFC	20
20	Jay Hieron	24	Bellator	19
21	Brian Ebersole	20	UFC	21
22	John Hathaway	19	UFC	23
23	Mike Pyle	19	UFC	24
24	Dong Hyun Kim	18	UFC	25
25	Matt Hughes	18	UFC	22

UFC 137 despite losing out on two of the best possible welterweight match ups available still features one of the best and most interesting fights possible as #5 Nick Diaz and #8 B.J. Penn headline the pay per view.

UFC 138's most relevant welterweight is #11 Thiago Alves welcoming undefeated Papy Abedi to the UFC.

UFC 139 will feature the very underrated fight of #9 Rick Story vs. #14 Martin Kampmann in a fight that on paper at least looks to be excellent.

Based on the premise that all MMA rankings are subjective but that it’s still useful and informative to know who the online MMA community as a whole ranks as the best fighters in MMA, we collect and average the rankings of the top MMA websites to produce our consensus rankings. 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.