Rankings

We mixed martial arts fans are spoiled right now. Of my Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in MMA, seven have fought in the last two months, and the other three have fights scheduled in the next month. I don't believe there's ever been a time in the short history of MMA when we had this many opportunities to see this many great fighters in this short a period of time.

So now seems like a good time to revisit my Top 10 list, where Anderson Silva remains on top, Frankie Edgar is rising, and two heavyweights make the list as they prepare to fight each other in what may be the most significant fight in UFC history.

The full Top 10 is below.

Alistair Overeem has been a wrecking machine for the last few years, winning eight straight MMA fights and five straight kickboxing fights without really even being threatened. Overeem doesn't just win, he wins in dominant fashion.

So after his most recent dominant win, over Brock Lesnar at UFC 141, Overeem has climbed another rung up the ladder of our heavyweight rankings, moving into the No. 2 position, behind only UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos.

There's still a lot we don't know about Overeem: How will he react to fighting dos Santos, an opponent who hits just as hard as he does? How would he do if a good wrestler put him on his back? Does he have a good enough gas tank to last deep into a five-round title fight?

But what we do know about Overeem is that he has just concluded a 2011 in which he beat Fabricio Werdum and Brock Lesnar. Among heavyweights, only dos Santos beat better opponents than that last year, and only dos Santos ranks ahead of Overeem in our newest Top 10, after the jump.

Other than Jon Jones, no light heavyweight in mixed martial arts has been more impressive than Dan Henderson in the last 12 months.

Henderson brutally knocked out Renato "Babalu" Sobral in December, won the Strikeforce light heavyweight title with a TKO over Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante in March, took another TKO victory over Fedor Emelianenko in July as a light heavyweight fighting against a heavyweight, and then beat Shogun Rua in an all-time classic at UFC 139.

So where does that put Henderson? He's certainly in our light heavyweight Top 5, but it's still tough to justify Henderson going higher than fifth. Henderson did, after all, lose to Rampage Jackson, who lost to Rashad Evans, who lost to Lyoto Machida (who also lost to Rampage). The light heavyweight division has been so competitive for so long, with so many of the top fighters picking each other off, that after Jones, any of the next five guys could easily be put in any order. My order is below.

There's plenty of talent in the middleweight division in the UFC. Vitor Belfort is pound-for-pound as hard a puncher as anyone in mixed martial arts. Chael Sonnen's MMA wrestling is first-rate. Demian Maia's Brazilian jiu jitsu is world class.

And yet when we survey the middleweight division, it almost feels like a pointless exercise. Anderson Silva has spent the last five years proving himself to be so far ahead of the rest of the 185-pound class that the rest of the division doesn't seem all that interesting. At UFC 134, Silva spent one round measuring Yushin Okami, then made Okami look like a rank amateur in the second round.

So as we look at the top 10 middleweights in MMA, we're looking at a list of talented fighters, all of whom have either already lost to Silva or would surely lose to Silva. He's head and shoulders above the rest.

Nick Diaz is the top contender for Georges St. Pierre's UFC welterweight title, and he deserves to be.

The reason the UFC decided to reverse course and book Diaz vs. GSP is that it has all the makings of a pay-per-view blockbuster. But it was also the right decision from a competitive standpoint: After Diaz's UFC 137 victory over B.J. Penn, he's demonstrated that he deserves to be considered the No. 2 fighter in mixed martial arts at 170 pounds.

So as we rank the Top 10 welterweights in MMA, GSP stays on top with Diaz on his heels. Find out how we rate the rest of the division below.

Michael Chandler defeated Eddie Alvarez in what may have been the best MMA fight of the year, winning the Bellator lightweight title. Does that make Chandler a Top 10 lightweight?

Not on my list.

I loved the Chandler-Alvarez fight, and I like the 9-0 Chandler a lot. I think he's one of the most talented young lightweights in the sport, and I think it speaks well for Bellator's ability to spot talent that they signed him for their lightweight division. (Chandler fought twice for Strikeforce before Bellator scooped him up, and it was obviously a big mistake for Strikeforce to let him get away.) But while Chandler would be in my Top 20, I just can't put him in my Top 10 yet.

So what could Chandler do to move into the Top 10? I'd love to see Bellator match Chandler up with Shinya Aoki. The previous plan had been to book an Alvarez-Aoki fight, but now that Chandler is the champ in Bellator, Chandler-Aoki would be more appealing. I'd also like to see Chandler take on Kurt Pellegrino, a lightweight who had a winning record in the UFC and is now set to make his Bellator debut against Patricky Freire. Putting Chandler in the cage with a UFC veteran would give us all a good idea how he stacks up against UFC lightweights.

Chandler's win against Alvarez was obviously the biggest of his career so far. I want to see him get another big win before I put him in the Top 10.

The fighters who are in the Top 10 at 155 pounds are below.

One of the things that demonstrates Dominick Cruz's dominance over the bantamweight division in mixed martial arts is also one of the problems that the UFC is going to have promoting him going forward: He has already handily beaten most of the best 135-pound fighters in the world, and there aren't a lot of big fights for him out there.

Cruz's latest conquest was Demetrious Johnson, and that fight went a lot like most of Cruz's other fights: It wasn't a vicious, violent beatdown, but it was a one-sided display of technical dominance, a fight in which we knew within the first minute or two that we were going to see Cruz win a unanimous decision.

As much as MMA fans recognize Cruz's skill, it's going to be hard for the UFC to get the general public excited about his fights because the public likes guys who destroy their opponents better than guys who win through their technical mastery. Still, there's no doubting that Cruz is by far the best in the bantamweight division: He's already beaten most of the other Top 10 bantamweights, as you'll see below.

The No. 1 featherweight in mixed martial arts returned to the cage at UFC 142 and needed less than one round to dispatch an opponent who entered the fight undefeated and widely regarded as the No. 2 featherweight in MMA. So where does Jose Aldo go now after defeating Chad Mendes?

Aldo's camp has indicated he doesn't intend to move up to 155 pounds unless it's to fight for the UFC lightweight title. So that's probably not in the offing. And that raises the question: Are there any challengers left for Aldo at 145 pounds?

For the identity of some potential opponents for Aldo going forward, check out the latest list of the top 10 featherweights in mixed martial arts below.

When we assemble a list of the Top 10 flyweights in MMA, there's a lot of guesswork involved, because the flyweight class really hasn't been established in MMA.

That's about to change, however, thanks to the UFC's announcement this month that it will launch the flyweight division in March. Previously, there just weren't any high-paying fights for 125-pounders, which meant that the best natural flyweights in the world were fighting bigger opponents at bantamweight.

So as I rank the Top 10 flyweights in MMA below, I'm not only ranking the Top 10 guys who have already fought at flyweight. I'm also including former bantamweights who I expect to see at flyweight in 2012. That includes the two UFC fighters who I expect to see win their flyweight debuts in March and fight for the first UFC flyweight belt in the summer.

Ronda Rousey is the next big thing in women's mixed martial arts.

The undefeated Rousey, who beat Julia Budd on the Nov. 18 Strikeforce Challengers card, has been running through her competition like few fighters, male or female, we've ever seen: Rousey is 4-0, and incredibly all four of her wins have come in less than a minute, all by armbar. Before turning pro she had three amateur fights, and she won all three of those by armbar in less than a minute, too.

And so, although she's still new to the sport and still hasn't been tested against the best women Strikeforce has to offer, Rousey makes my Top 5 as we rank the top pound-for-pound fighters in women's MMA. She looks that good.

What we don't know yet is whether Rousey is more than just a one-trick pony: If she faces an opponent who's able to keep the fight standing, will she be able to hold her own exchanging punches? And although she's not going to face anyone who's on her level as a judo player, will she be able to execute more than just her go-to arm bar if she faces an opponent who's sophisticated enough on the ground not to let Rousey get her arm?

It remains to be seen. But I think she's a future champion, and I think she deserves her place on the list of the top women in the sport, which is below.