The hosts of The Hammer MMA Radio have been contributing to the UFC’s Official Fighter Rankings since its inception earlier this year. While the UFC themselves have confirmed that these rankings may not necessarily impact their matchmaking, the three of us still put a lot of thought into our selection process at the conclusion of each event. Following each event we will be breaking down our thought process on a few of the relevant divisions right here at Last Word On Sports.

You can find our updated Rankings, as well as the overall UFC Rankings at http://www.ufc.com/rankings, both updated on the Monday immediately following every UFC event.



UFC 160: Velasquez vs. Bigfoot

Steve Jeffery: UFC 160 featured the two top-ranked Heavyweights in the world fighting, but not against each other. Champion Cain Velasquez re-matched Bigfoot Silva (Ranked #4) in the main event, and finished him in the first round yet again. Bigfoot originally earned the title shot and his high place in the rankings based on upsetting Alistair Overeem a few months back, and no one really expected him to actually beat the champion this time. As a result it really doesn’t make sense to drop Bigfoot any lower down the ranks at this time, no matter how savage of a beating that he took.

Meanwhile, former champion Junior Dos Santos (Ranked #1) was also heavily favored to win his fight against Mark Hunt (Ranked #8), and despite a few close calls early in the the fight, Dos Santos easily proved why he is the rightful number one contender. Much like Bigfoot, Mark Hunt doesn’t lose any group in the rankings by losing to a much higher-ranked opponent.

Fabricio Werdum and Roy Nelson each have fights coming up in June so there still may be a lot of shuffling coming in the next few weeks.

Steve Jeffery: The Lightweight division had a high profile on-paper mismatch between a top contender Gray Maynard and up-and-coming TJ Grant. Unlike the Heavyweight mismatches from this past weekend, in this case the underdog won, and Grant did so with an incredible TKO. As a result, Grant has taken Maynard’s spot in the top three, and is likely to ride his five fight winning streak right into the next shot against champion Ben Henderson.

Also, Khabib Nurmagomedov won yet another fight and has re-entered a troublesome Lightweight top ten list that needed some solid new blood with definitive wins. Evan Dunham (who was robbed in his last fight), Raphael Dos Anjos (who did the robbing), and Pat Healy (had his amazing win overturned due to drug test failure) all just do not quite make sense at the moment as top ten Lightweights due to recent controversies. Khabib may not have made weight this past Saturday night, but he’s still on a four fight winning streak against decent opposition, and he completely dominated Abel Trujillo. Now it’s time for a step up in competition.

Steve Jeffery: We’ve had former WEC Bantamweight champion Brian Bowles ranked #6 for a while even though a lot of the other Official UFC Rankings Panelists did not. Even though he has been inactive for a year and a half, it really wasn’t that long ago that he was the best in the world in his weight class and his most recent losses to Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber were far from shameful. We just kept giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately for him, a decisive loss to the talented but inconsistent Georges Roop may just say a lot about Brian Bowles and his current place in the Bantamweight division. George Roop now moves ahead of Bowles, but we had to drag both of them below the still-streaking Assuncao.

TJ Dillashaw still hangs in our list with a solid win streak, but he will really need to beat someone on his level or above to maintain it.

The Hammer MMA Radio has featured interviews with some of the biggest names in MMA over the years, including Georges St. Pierre, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Sean Sherk, Mark Coleman, Rory MacDonald, Brendan Schaub, Mark Bocek, Nate Diaz, Mark Hominick, Martin Kampmann, Johny Hendricks, and many more, all of which are archived at http://www.thehammermma.com.

The Hammer MMA Radio continues to bring unparalleled, independent coverage of all things MMA to fans of the sport and they always bring you straight goods and the last word, and we at LWOS are pleased to be partners with them.

You can follow Steve Jeffery on twitter @SteveJeffery and the site @lastwordonsport.

Interested in writing for LastWordOnSports? Find more info at our “Join Our Team” page.

photo credit: teamleaks.com, CC