USA TODAY/MMA Nation December 2011 Consensus Rankings: Featherweight

by Richard Wade on Dec 29, 2011 7:00 PM EST in MMA Rankings

Rank	Fighter	Points	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Jose Aldo	425	UFC	1
2	Chad Mendes	394	UFC	2
3	Hatsu Hioki	385	UFC	3
4	Pat Curran	339	Bellator	4
5	Marlon Sandro	287	Bellator	5
6	Diego Nunes	254	UFC	6
7	Dustin Poirier	249	UFC	9
8	Kenny Florian	241	UFC	7
9	Erik Koch	225	UFC	10
10	Bart Palaszewski	203	UFC	11
11	Mark Hominick	199	UFC	8
12	Chan Sung Jung	191	UFC	38
13	Manny Gamburyan	157	UFC	12
14	Hiroyuki Takaya	149	DREAM	14
15	Patricio Freire	142	Bellator	15
16	Tatsuya Kawajiri	136	DREAM	16
17	Tyson Griffin	130	UFC	13
18	Joe Warren	124	Bellator	17
19	Darren Elkins	102	UFC	18
20	Michihiro Omigawa	101	UFC	19
21	Bibiano Fernandes	98	DREAM	21
22	Robert Peralta	98	UFC	20
23	Rani Yahya	90	UFC	22
24	Ricardo Lamas	75	UFC	23
25	Masanori Kanehara	73	XPlode Fight Series	24

Upcoming Bouts:

#1 Jose Aldo vs. #2 Chad Mendes at UFC 142

#3 Hatsu Hioki vs. #10 Bart Palaszewski at UFC 144

#13 Manny Gamburyan vs. #6 Diego Nunes at UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem

#14 Hiroyuki Takaya vs Takeshi Inoue at DREAM: New Year! 2011

#16 Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Kazuyuki Miyata at DREAM: New Year! 2011

#20 Michihiro Omigawa vs. Yuri Alcantara at UFC 142

#23 Rani Yahya vs. Jonathan Brookins at UFC on Fuel TV 1

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.