| Rank | Fighter | % | Promotion | Last Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose Aldo | 100 | UFC | 1 |
| 2 | Mike Brown | 90 | UFC | 3 |
| 2 | Manny Gamburyan | 90 | UFC | 2 |
| 4 | Marlon Sandro | 87 | WVR | 4 |
| 5 | Bibiano Fernandes | 80 | DREAM | 5 |
| 6 | Michihiro Omigawa | 77 | UFC | 6 |
| 7 | Josh Grispi | 73 | UFC | 7 |
| 8 | Hatsu Hioki | 71 | WVR | 8 |
| 9 | Joe Warren | 49 | Bellator | 9 |
| 10 | Masanori Kanehara | 42 | WVR | 11 |
| 11 | Mark Hominick | 41 | UFC | 11 |
| 12 | Chad Mendes | 40 | UFC | 13 |
| 13 | Urijah Faber | 36 | UFC | 10 |
| 14 | Diego Nunes | 35 | UFC | 14 |
| 15 | Hiroyuki Takaya | 29 | DREAM | 15 |
| 16 | Yuji Hoshino | 26 | WVR | 16 |
| 17 | L.C. Davis | 25 | UFC | 17 |
| 17 | Rafael Assuncao | 25 | UFC | 18 |
| 19 | Joachim Hansen | 21 | Superior Challenge | 19 |
| 20 | Kazuyuki Miyata | 20 | DREAM | 21 |
| 20 | Deividas Taurosevicius | 20 | Bellator | 20 |
| 22 | Leonard Garcia | 18 | UFC | 22 |
| 23 | Joe Soto | 17 | Bellator | 23 |
| 24 | Wilson Reis | 15 | Bellator | 24 |
| 25 | George Roop | 13 | UFC | 27 |
Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.
Champ #1 Jose Aldo was supposed to co-headline UFC 125 against #7 Josh Grispi but he injured his back. Now Grispi is fighting the utterly unheralded Dustin Poirier and may not even get a title shot with a win.
Dana White has hinted that Aldo would be returning sooner than expected but no word on who will challenge for his belt.
#4 Marlon Sandro will defend his belt against #8 Hatsu Hioki later today. A win could cement Sandro's status as the top featherweight fighter outside the UFC.
Dream champ #5 Bibiano Fernandes will defend his title at Dynamite!! 2010 against #15 Hiroyuki Takaya. #6 Michihiro Omigawa's return to the UFC was announced immediately following his failure to get a crack at the Dream title.
Bellator champ #9 Joe Warren will be returning to Greco-Roman competition in 2011 so his MMA schedule is unknown.
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.
We are now moving to what JCS of Fight Matrix has described as assumed rankings in an attempt to rank fighters who move between weight classes. This has been the biggest problem with the consensus rankings and we believe this new methodology will rectify that.
Let's take Anderson Silva for instance. 87% (13 of 15) of our panelists have him at Light Heavyweight and 100% (15 of 15) at Middleweight. On the 13 ballots that ranked Silva at 205, we took the average (21.2). We then reduced that number by half the percentage of Light Heavyweight ballots that he was not included on. Say he's not on 30% of them, then we do a 15% penalty on the average that we found in the previous step. That number is then used instead of the usual "normalization number" to provide points from those not ranking the fighter in the weight class in question. This avoids fighters being excessively penalized by confusion about which weight class they belong.
