In the past week, a major change of guard occurred in the UFC’s storied welterweight division, as the long time former champion Matt Hughes was dismantled and knocked out by Thiago ‘Pitbull’ Alves. With Alves establishing himself as the top contender to the winner of the upcoming title bout between the seemingly unstoppable champion Georges St. Pierre and the challenger Jon Fitch (currently on a record-tying eight win streak in the UFC), it’s a good time to take a step back and look at the current state of the 170 lbs weight class.

Between stars like St. Pierre, veterans such as Hughes & Matt Serra, top contenders like Alves and Fitch, and newcomers such as Dan Hardy & David Baron, UFC has a tight lock on the welterweight division. According to the latest Fightmatrix.com ranking, all of the Top 5, 8 of the Top 10, and 14 of the Top 20 welterweights in the world are currently under UFC contract. The division is so deep that there are over 30 ranked welterweights competing in the UFC today! Here’s a look at the top echelon of the 170 division:

The Champion: [#1] Georges St. Pierre

MMA Record: 16-2 (10-2 UFC)

Last bout: Defeated Matt Serra by TKO at UFC 83

Next bout: A title defense against Jon Fitch at UFC 87

The Canadian superstar has come a long way since earning a decision victory over Karo Parisyan in his Octagon debut. After losing his first title shot to then-champion Matt Hughes, St.Pierre steamrolled his opponents, stopping most in the first or second round. Georges finally received another shot at Hughes, and stopped him in the second round to win his first UFC title. He suffered a setback with an upset loss to Matt Serra in the following bout, but avenged his loss and regained the belt in UFC 83 (the first UFC event held in Canada). St. Pierre will look toward making his first title defense when he takes on Jon Fitch at UFC 87.

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Notable Info

• Effects from UFC 85, Sengoku 3, TKO 34, and other recent events.

Notable Info

• Effects from WEC 34 and Pancrase 6/1.

Miguel Torres and Urijah Faber both rocketed up the Division Dominance list due to their quality title defenses.  Torres now sits at #4 and Faber at #6.  Mike Thomas Brown took the moderately high point total he accumulated at Lightweight back down to a much weaker Featherweight division and ranks as 2nd to Faber.  Could we see this match-up in the near future?

Notable Info

• Effects from newly added historical shows and recent shows such as EliteXC, AFL, PrimetimeFC, etc.

I just realized that I totally forgot about the WEC show tonight!  There will be another update in the early part of the upcoming week.

I just had to share this one.

In Saturday’s match against Corey Wethey, Mitchell struck his opponent so hard that Wethey lost control of his bowels. The incident required a 10-minute intermission while officials scrubbed down the ring. Mitchell went on to win the fight by Wethey’s disqualification.

The fight — the seventh of the night – began like any other. Mitchell and Wethey left their corners, tapped gloves and traded punches. After landing a knee to Wethey’s body, Mitchell said he began to smell something foul.

As the fight prolonged, Mitchell said the smell continued to worsen. Eventually, he removed his mouth piece and expressed his concerns to the ring official.

“He s— himself,” Mitchell said repeatedly.

It was at that point Wethey gained the advantage and locked Mitchell’s head between his thighs.

As the round progressed, news about Wethey’s intestinal difficulties slowly made its way to the ring officials, who were at a loss of what to do.

Once the round ended, Wethey told his corner what happened and quickly was evacuated from the ring.

After Mitchell’s win was announced, he took the microphone and proclaimed to the crowd, “You can say I beat the crap out of him.”

Story

MMA Rankings to be updated today, 5/25/08 @ 12PM EDT

Notable Info

• Effects from newly added historical shows and recent shows such as UFC 84, DEEP 35.
• Bugfix for situations in which a huge upset occurs.  This affects a core dynamic of the system and will cause minor fluctuations in various places.

Overall, the system performed well with UFC 84.  In only 3 of the 11 matches, the lower ranked fighter won.  In 2 of those, the winner was a relatively unknown up-and-comer who took a step up in class, with 1 of those being a toss-up in the rankings.  The other 1 of the 3 mentioned was Jardine/Silva, in which a true FightMatrix upset occurred.

In other notable news, BJ Penn takes the #1 Lightweight spot and enters the Division Dominance list at #10.

What a card!!

UFC Lightweight Championship
[#3] BJ Penn vs. [#4] Sean Sherk

Light Heavyweight
[#2] Lyoto Machida vs. [#9] Tito Ortiz

Light Heavyweight
[#4] Keith Jardine vs. [#12] Wanderlei Silva

Light Heavyweight
[#13] Thiago Silva vs. [#40] Antonio Mendes

Light Heavyweight
[#18] Wilson Gouveia vs. [#200] Goran Reljic

Light Heavyweight
[#7] Sokoudjou vs. [#17] Kazuhiro Nakamura

Welterweight
[#16] Yoshiyuki Yoshida vs. [#209] Jon Koppenhaver

Lightweight
[#26] Rich Clementi vs. [#130] Terry Etim

Middleweight
[#42] Rosimar Palhares vs. [#64] Ivan Salaverry

Welterweight
[#59] Dong Hyun Kim vs. [#105] Jason Tan

Heavyweight
[#54] Christian Wellisch vs. [#57] Shane Carwin

Ranking Note: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

 Notable Info

• A plethora of recent shows from organizations such as WVR, Shooto, GFS, NAAFS, IFL, and KOTC have been added and changes can be observed in nearly all of the divisions.

Just for fun, I put together a list of the ten fighters with the highest overall point totals in our ranking system. As expected, most of the fighters on the list are heavyweights or light-heavyweights; the only fighters below 205 to make the Top 10 are Anderson Silva & Georges St. Pierre.

Rank	Fighter	Record	Points
1	Fedor Emelianenko Last Fight: 12/31/2007 [Yarennoka]	27-1-0	667
2	Quinton Jackson Last Fight: 9/8/2007 [UFC]	28-6-0	526
3	Anderson Silva Last Fight: 3/1/2008 [UFC]	21-4-0	504
4	Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira Last Fight: 2/2/2008 [UFC]	31-4-1	495
5	Randy Couture Last Fight: 8/25/2007 [UFC]	16-8-0	491
6	Georges St. Pierre Last Fight: 4/19/2008 [UFC]	16-2-0	430
7	Lyoto Machida Last Fight: 12/29/2007 [UFC]	12-0-0	317
8/	Fabricio Werdum Last Fight: 1/19/2008 [UFC]	10-3-1	311
8/	Chuck Liddell Last Fight: 12/29/2007 [UFC]	21-5-0	311
10	Keith Jardine Last Fight: 9/22/2007 [UFC]	13-4-1	302

What did you think of this list?  Let us know in our forum!

Notable Info

• Effects from recent and newly added shows.  Notable changes stem from DREAM, PalaceFC, Cage Rage, and other shows.

Shinya Aoki officially takes the #1 Lightweight spot from Takanori Gomi.

Last week, I examined the progress made by fighters who competed in the light heavyweight division on the Season 1 of The Ultimate Fighter reality series. Let’s now look at the other half of the picture: the middleweight contestants from Season 1.

The middleweights turned out to be a talented group of fighters: five out of eight are still competing in the UFC, and hold a .700 or better record in the Octagon. Most of them were also a bit undersized for their weight division: only Chris Leben and Nate Quarry still compete at 185 lbs; the rest dropped one or more weight classes. Also, while the fighter with most prior experience went on to win the contest, the two fighters with the highest current rankings both only had 2 wins in professional MMA bouts prior to the show.

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Notable Info

• The usual.  Added some recent and old shows.
• Two very minor bug fixes.  Will cause some fluctuations low in the divisions where points are more scarce.

There is no question that the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series – better known as ‘TUF’ – has been the most influential vehicle for promoting the success of UFC, and to a lesser extent MMA in general, in North America. The careers of most contestants have been boosted like they could have never imagined. Even the ones who never came close to winning were still given a chance to prove their worth in the UFC, and many of the fighters released from the UFC were instantly picked up by smaller organizations simply because of the newly acquired name recognition.

With the show now in it’s seventh season, let’s take a look back at where it all started. The first season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ took place in 2005, and featured 8 middleweights and 8 lightheavyweights competing for two ‘six figure’ contracts with the UFC. Most of the contestants were virtually unknown in the MMA world at the time, yet all are now very familiar names for most fans. I will start with the light heavyweight division, and examine the middleweights next week.

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Notable Info

• Effects from recent and newly added shows.  Notable changes stem from Shooto 5/3

There is a virtual deadlock at the #1 Lightweight spot between Takanori Gomi and Shinya Aoki.  The recent Shooto show, and some recently added shows caused moderate shakeups in the lower weight divisions.

Notable Info

• Effects from recent shows such as Pancrase, Cage Gladiators, DREAM, and UWC can now be observed.
• Additions and corrections made to historical shows/bouts.

The #1 Lightweight spot is still Takanori Gomi’s, but by less than 1 rating point!  With Gomi’s decaying point total, lack of scheduled bouts, and the upcoming Sherk/Penn title match, it is an absolute certainty that Gomi’s reign at the top will come to an end, very shortly.

The next rankings update is scheduled for May 4th.