| Rank | Fighter | % | Promotion | Last Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frankie Edgar | 100 | UFC | 1 |
| 2 | Gray Maynard | 95 | UFC | 2 |
| 3 | Gilbert Melendez | 92 | Strikeforce | 3 |
| 4 | Shinya Aoki | 80 | Bellator | 4 |
| 5 | Eddie Alvarez | 73 | Bellator | 5 |
| 6 | Clay Guida | 73 | UFC | 7 |
| 7 | Ben Henderson | 69 | UFC | 14 |
| 8 | Jim Miller | 67 | UFC | 6 |
| 9 | Melvin Guillard | 62 | UFC | 8 |
| 10 | Anthony Pettis | 46 | UFC | 10 |
| 11 | B.J. Penn | 40 | UFC | 13 |
| 12 | Tatsuya Kawajiri | 40 | DREAM | 9 |
| 13 | Sean Sherk | 38 | UFC | 11 |
| 14 | Dennis Siver | 36 | UFC | 12 |
| 15 | Rafael dos Anjos | 24 | UFC | 16 |
| 16 | Evan Dunham | 23 | UFC | 18 |
| 17 | Gleison Tibau | 23 | UFC | 17 |
| 18 | Donald Cerrone | 21 | UFC | 23 |
| 19 | Takanori Gomi | 21 | UFC | 15 |
| 20 | Jorge Masvidal | 19 | Strikeforce | 21 |
| 21 | Kenny Florian | 19 | UFC | 19 |
| 22 | Josh Thomson | 18 | Strikeforce | 20 |
| 23 | Sam Stout | 18 | UFC | 22 |
| 24 | George Sotiropoulos | 15 | UFC | 24 |
| 25 | Matt Wiman | 14 | UFC | 27 |
UFC Fight Night: Shields vs. Ellenberger will feature #16 Evan Dunham coming off two losses trying to get back in the Win column against Shamar Bailey.
#19 Takanori Gomi will look to bounce back from his submission loss to #6 Clay Guida at UFC 135 against Nate Diaz who is riding a two fight loss streak of his own.
Those two fights are currently the only scheduled bouts featuring top 25 lightweights in September.
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.
