Ok, it's time to discuss the various MMA ratings that came out last week. Everyone is trying to process the big events of the Mega-MMA September of 2007.

We'll start with the heavyweights. Everyone still agrees that Fedor is #1. But we'll see how long that holds. Everyone else has Randy or Big Nog at #2, with Josh Barnett at #3. Everyone but MMA Weekly that is, they've got Josh Barnett at #2 and Randy at #3. I think they're stuck in the PRIDE era.

Everyone has Gonzaga at #5 and everyone but Irish Whip has Tim Sylvia at #6. The Whip has a real bad case of PRIDE-itis and is somehow propping up Cro Cop at #6. They've all got Arlovski at #7 save for 411Mania which has Cro Cop there, dropping Arlovski to 8.

They all have Kongo at 9 or 10, except MMA Weekly which refuses to acknowledge the beat down he gave Mirko and doesn't rate Kongo at all. Werdum is 8 on Sherdog, #9 on MMA Weekly, and 411Mania cops out and has him tied at #10 with Vera. The Whip somehow has Sylvia under Arlovski, despite Big Tim's two victories over the Pitbull. They've got Vera at #9 followed by Kongo. Sherdog has the lowest (and most accurate) ranking for Mirko at #10 and MMA Weekly continues to struggle with PRIDE-itis by ranking Alexsander at #10.

Josh Barnett is easily the best free-lance heavyweight out there, except for Fedor of course. But Fedor seems to be circling the Zuffa black hole and I'm still holding out hope for a Fedor/Randy match on SuperBowl saturday. Doesn't look like Josh is destined to get a shot at reclaiming his UFC belt. I hope to see him mopping up in HEROES soon.

Of course just because you're signed with Zuffa doesn't mean you'll find yourself in the Octagon anytime soon. They've got Arlovski and Werdum shelved deep in the same contractual closet they stored Brandon Vera in for the last 10 months. The story is that since Arlovski has only one fight left on his contract they want to make him renegotiate now while he's cold and not let him have a high-profile win in his last fight. Werdum can't even comfort himself with that explanation -- he's being punished for being boring in his loss to Arlovski. Poor bastard.

We've got the Sylvia/Vera match to look forward to at UFC 77. A win could propel Vera to a title shot or revive Sylvia's career.

The other rumored match is Big Nog vs Kongo. That should be a good chance for Big Nog to show off his ground game. Alternatively Kongo will become the PRIDE killer. Doesn't seem likely but anything can happen in MMA.

Kinda lame that the UFC has more than 1/3 of the division's top 10 frozen or frozen out. HERO'S has at least one top 20 heavyweight with Sergei Kharitonov, but there's not really anyone worthy of Josh Barnett out on the market. Maybe Josh could sign with Art of War and get revenge for his 2001 KO loss to Pedro Rizzo.

If Zuffa can't sign Fedor, this division will muddle along but there won't be a consensus #1 for a while.