By far December's biggest lightweight fight scheduled is #2 Gilbert Melendez vs. #24 Jorge Masvidal at Strikeforce's 12/17 event.

The next biggest event is debatable as #5 Shinya Aoki will face #37 Satoru Kitaoka at DREAM's New Year's Eve show while #8 Donald Cerrone is scheduled to to take on #13 Nate Diaz at UFC 141.

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.