While much of the talent is under the UFC banner and Bellator and WSOF have seemed to scoop up the best of the rest, there is still plenty of talent yet to be signed by the top promotions of the MMA food chain. These are not necessarily 'free agents' or even prospects, they are top 100 ranked fighters who are navigating the nebulous seas of regional and international fight promotion for whatever reason.
The Middleweight division had a few big match-ups that shook things up in the rankings since February. Ramazan Emeev made a huge jump in the rankings from #78 to #24 with a rematch title win over Vyacheslav Vasilevsky (#31) by first round RNC at M-1 Challenge 56. VV had won the previous bout by 4th round TKO last year.
Maiquel Falcao tapped Jesse Taylor (#78) by guillotine in the first round in April to jump from #50 to #35. Leonardo Leite dropped down from 205 to become a dual-weight champion for Legacy FC with a second round TKO win over Larry Crowe (#209). Anthony Smith put an Inverted Triangle on Tim Williams (#107) in the second round to win the Cage Fury FC title. Ken Hasegawa dropped down from 205 to defeat Japanese legend Ryuta Sakurai (#281) by first round keylock at DEEP Impact 71 to remain undefeated.
In a big upcoming fight in May, Michal Materla (#23) will take on Tomasz Drwal (#42) for the KSW Middleweight title.
Recently signed by a top promotion: Chris Camozzi (#37-UFC)
Middleweights (185lb)
| RANK | NAME | RECORD | AGE | Last Promotion |
| 12 | Mamed Khalidov | 30-4-2 | 34 | KSW (Poland) |
| 23 | Michal Materla | 21-4-0 | 30 | KSW (Poland) |
| 24 | Ramazan Emeev | 11-3-0 | 27 | M-1 (Russia) |
| 31 | Vyacheslav Vasilevsky | 26-3-0 | 26 | M-1 (Russia) |
| 35 | Maiquel Falcao | 34-7-0-1 | 34 | Arena Tour (Argentina) |
| 36 | Michail Tsarev | 29-4-0 | 28 | Baltic Fights (Russia) |
| 42 | Tomasz Drwal | 21-4-1 | 33 | KSW (Poland) |
| 45 | Brett Cooper | 20-11-0 | 27 | KSW (Poland) |
| 46 | Jay Silva | 9-9-1 | 33 | KSW (Poland) |
| 48 | Riki Fukuda | 22-7-0-1 | 34 | Road FC (S. Korea) |
| 49 | Leonardo Leite | 6-0-0 | 37 | Legacy FC (Texas) |
| 53 | Anthony Smith | 21-11-0 | 26 | Cage Fury FC (US) |
| 59 | Ken Hasegawa | 10-0-1 | 28 | DEEP (Japan) |
| 60 | Alberto Pereira Uda | 8-0-0 | ? | XFC (Brazil) |
| 62 | Sam Oropeza | 13-2-0 | 29 | Global Proving Ground |
| 68 | Anatoly Tokov | 19-1-0 | 25 | ACB (Russia) |
| 74 | Igor Svirid | 10-1-0 | 28 | ONE FC (Asia) |
| 77 | Yoshiyuki Nakanishi | 16-3-0-1 | 29 | DEEP (Japan) |
| 78 | Jesse Taylor | 27-12-0 | 31 | Arena Tour (Argentina) |
| 81 | Abu Azaitar | 9-2-1 | 29 | KSW (Poland) |
| 82 | Matt Riddle | 8-3-0-2 | 29 | Titan FC (US) |
| 83 | Karlos Vemola | 14-4-0 | 29 | MMAA Arena (Czech Rep) |
| 82 | Adam Stroup | 8-1-0 | ? | Sparta Combat |
| 85 | Jack Hermansson | 9-2-0 | 26 | Cage Warriors (UK) |
| 86 | Jae-Young Kim | 20-11-0-2 | 31 | Top FC (S. Korea) |
Dropped out of the Top 25: Piotr Strus (#87), Andre Muniz (#89), Tim Williams (#107)
Top 3 promotions in division
| Promotion | # Top 100 fighters | Champ |
| UFC | 51 | Chris Weidman |
| Bellator | 14 | Brandon Halsey |
| KSW | 6 | Michal Materla |
*All Rankings taken from Fight Matrix at time of writing.
