Bloody Elbow Meta-Rankings: Middleweight Division

We haven't seen many notable middleweight fights since last month's Meta-Rankings, Nate Marquardt's demolition of Jeremy Horn is the only fight involving a ranked middleweight I can think of from the past month. You can see that that win over a name, if not ranked opponent has boosted Marquardt's standing.

We won't have a lack of middleweight action in March though. March will start with a bang with UFC 82 on the 2nd. Consensus #1 Anderson Silva will put his UFC belt on the line against PRIDE 183lb champ Dan Henderson. Henderson's #5 rating is a bit deceptive since he's been fighting at 205lbs for the last year or so. There's no doubt he's as dangerous as anyone at 185lbs. I expect his standing to rise dramatically after this fight, win or lose. #9 Yushin Okami will also be on that card, facing an unranked Evan Tanner.

But like I've said before this is one of UFC/Zuffa's weakest divisions. They've only got 5 of these top 15 fighters (6 with Filho in the Zuffa-owned WEC). EliteXC/Strikeforce have 2 (Lawler and Santiago). HDNet has Trigg and Miller . But the real contender Zuffa has to worry about in this division is the brand new DREAM promotion out of Japan. They've already got Akiyama and Kang committed to their 183lb Grand Prix which kicks off in April, but its rumored they'll be adding Matt Lindland as well. Misaki will be fighting Shooto champ Siyar Bahadurzada at World Victory Road's Sengoku event in March but he's only signed to one fight and could very well jump ship to DREAMS. By September when the DREAMS GP concludes, I expect the winner to be at or near the top of this chart.

March will also see Frank Shamrock, making his first appearance on the Meta-Rankings, return to action against san shou kung fu sensation Cung Le. I expect that fight to draw a good deal of attention and if Shamrock wins like he should, he'll be climbing the charts even though he's openly admitted that he's only interested in big money, low competition matches at this point in his career. I expect Frank will continue to rise even as he avoids fighting other top talent -- his rumored matches against brother Ken and Tito Ortiz will keep fans buzzing. Too bad Renzo Gracie doesn't want a rematch.

Rankings are based on an average of 7 Media Rankings (MMA Weekly, Sherdog, Irish Whip, Cage Potato, Inside MMA, MMA on Tap, and 5 oz of Pain), Fan Rankings (represented by MMA HQ and MMA Playground) and Computer Rankings (represented by Fight Matrix). If we missed a good ranking someone is doing let us know, we'll add them to the mix. Particularly other computerized or fan vote rankings.

A #1 vote is worth 10 points, #2 is 9 points and so on. Media rankings are totaled and divided by 6 to represent the average media ranking, this is then added to the computer and fan ranking points to create the total (perfect score is 30 points). Thanks to Brent Brookhouse for doing all the math work on this.