Two weeks after their abysmal CBS debut, Elite XC returned with another card – this one broadcast on Showtime. The event featured the first defense of the Elite XC’s newly minted 160 lbs title, with champion KJ Noons taking on the challenger Yves Edwards. Other UFC and Pride FC veterans making an appearance on this card were Murilo ‘Ninja’ Rua, Nick Diaz, and Ron Waterman. The commentary was provided by Mauro Ranallo and Stephen Quadros, as well as former pro-wrestler Bill Goldberg.
UFC’s Welterweight Division
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.
Featured Upcoming Bouts (Outside of UFC)
| Saturday, March 14th 2026: Pancrase 361 | |||
 [#4 SW] Yuta Miyazawa | [#9 SW] Kanji Funada | ||
|
| |||
| Last Fight Date: 11/09/2025 [Pancrase] Last Opponent: [#32 SW] Tateo Iino Last 5: W W L W W | Last Fight Date: 4/27/2025 [Pancrase] Last Opponent: [#51 SW] Takafumi Ato Last 5: W W W W W | ||
| Friday, March 6th 2026: RIZIN 52 | |||
| [#5 W105] Saori Oshima (+140) | [#12 W105] Keito Oyama (-180) | ||
|
| |||
| Last Fight Date: 11/02/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [#1 W105] Seika Izawa Last 5: W L L W L | Last Fight Date: 11/02/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [NR] Bo Mi Lee Last 5: L W W W W | ||
| Saturday, March 7th 2026: DEEP Osaka Impact 2026 1st Round | |||
| [#8 W105] Moeri Suda | [#11 W105] Namiko Kawabata | ||
|
| |||
| Last Fight Date: 9/15/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#5 W105] Saori Oshima Last 5: W W W W L | Last Fight Date: 5/25/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#36 W105] Honoka Shigeta Last 5: L L L W W | ||
Featured Fighters
| [#18 W135] |  Regina Tarin | [#260 WW] |  Rustambek Nurzhanov | |
| [#165 BW] | Cristian Quinonez | [#1 LW] |  Ilia Topuria | |
| [#3 LW] |  Charles Oliveira | [#1 WW] |  Islam Makhachev | |
| [#6 FLW] |  Loneer Kavanagh | [#1 MW] |  Khamzat Chimaev | |
| [#2 LW] |  Arman Tsarukyan | [NR] |  Conor McGregor |
Archive Update
Fightmatrix.com MMA ranks archive has been updated with the rankings as of June 1, 2008.
UFC 85 Review
UFC 85 saw a return of Ultimate Fighting Championship to London, England. The event was officially titled ‘Bedlam’, but often referred to as ‘Cursed’ due to all the injuries and mishaps that caused the lineup to change again and again. ‘Bedlam’ was originally scheduled to be headlined by Chuck Liddell taking on Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua in a lightheavyweight bout, but first Rua and then Liddell were forced to withdraw from the card: Rua re-aggravated his knee injury and Liddell tore his hamstring in training. Eventually, the UFC settled on a welterweight main event of Matt Hughes vs. Thiago Alves.
Chris Leben was also scheduled to appear on this card, taking on Michael Bisping, but ran into some legal problems that forced him to withdraw and be replaced by the Canadian fighter Jason Day. With all the last-minute lineup changes, no title bouts or huge matchups, and only two weeks after the spectacular UFC 84, this event was pretty much an afterthought and carried fairly low expectations. Here’s how it went down:
MMA Rankings Updated: 6/8/08
Notable Info
- Effects from UFC 85, Sengoku 3, TKO 34, and other recent events.
UFC 85: How they stack up
Back by popular demand!
There are quite a few tough calls to make this week. FightMatrix was not created to be a prediction-based system, but its accuracy at the elite level is great, so it should be interesting to see how it fares in match-ups where both fighters are highly ranked. Although, in Bisping/Day and Swick/Davis, we have two fighters who are still getting accustomed to their new divisions. For entertainment purposes only, I have colored the betting favorites in GREEN where odds are available. The system’s calls are on the left.
Welterweight
[#4] Thiago Alves vs. [#6] Matt Hughes
Middleweight
[#22] Jason Day vs. [#31] Michael Bisping
Welterweight
[#15] Mike Swick vs. [#17] Marcus Davis
Heavyweight
[#4] Fabricio Werdum vs. [#20] Brandon Vera
Middleweight
[#9] Nathan Marquardt vs. [#25] Thales Leites
Middleweight
[NR] Martin Kampmann vs. [#57] Jorge Rivera
Lightweight
[#47] Thiago Tavares vs. [#66] Matt Wiman
Light Heavyweight
[#19] Jason Lambert vs. [#165] Luis Cane
Welterweight
[#38] Roan Carneiro vs. [#113] Kevin Burns
Welterweight
[#55] Jess Liaudin vs. [#159] Paul Taylor
Heavyweight
[#48] Eddie Sanchez vs. [#56] Antoni Hardonk
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.
MMA Rankings Updated: 6/2/08
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?
Elite XC & WEC Reviews
The past weekend was a important one for the sport of Mixed Martial Arts in the United States. On Saturday, the fledgling Elite XC made history with their CBS debut: the first MMA event broadcast live on a major US television network. And on Sunday, Zuffa-owned WEC held what was their most heavily hyped card to date, with 145-lbs champion Urijah Faber defending his belt against former UFC 155-lbs title holder Jens Pulver, and Miguel Torres defending his 135-lbs title against Yoshiro Maeda.
While both events had several exciting, action-packed bouts, the Elite XC broadcast suffered from one huge problem: all of the televised fights were stopped by either the referee, or the ringside doctor; and the stoppages ranged from mildly questionable to completely mind-boggling. Fights need to be decided by fighters, not the New Jersey Athletic Comission officials! That said, here’s how it all went down:
MMA Rankings Updated: 6/1/08
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.
Fighter DQ’d for losing bowel control!
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.”
Tito Ortiz sets a new record
Though Tito Ortiz lost his UFC 84 bout to Lyoto Machida, he still managed to get a one-up on his long time rival Chuck Liddell. In what Ortiz claimed to be his last UFC fight, he became the only man with 21 bouts inside the Octagon. Liddell is not far behind with 20 bouts, and Matt Hughes will also be at 20 after UFC 85.
Check out more UFC records:
Most Consecutive Wins in the UFC
UFC 84 Review
Headlined by the long-awaited and much hyped lightweight title bout between BJ Penn and Sean Sherk, UFC 84 ‘Ill Will’ was the most anticipated MMA event of the year, to date. Other than the main event, this card was all about the UFC’s elite 205-lbs division, with five lightheavyweight matchups that all made the televised broadcast. Here is how it went down:
Thiago Silva vs Antonio Mendes
Mendes starts out aggressive, and quickly knocks Silva down with a partially blocked high kick. Silva pops back up and is knocked down again – this time with a body kick. Thiago scrambles up again, Mendes attempts a throw from clinch but lands on the bottom. Thiago quickly passes Antonio’s guard and pounds away from mount; Mendes is unable to escape and the bout is stopped.
MMA Rankings Update: 5/25/08 (12 PM EDT)
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.
FightMatrix UFC 84 Predictions (Main Card + 1)
Since this is such a large event, we figured we would air our predictions out there for all to see. As a statistical based site, we’re going to analyze this based more on statistics and trends versus style analysis. So, enjoy!
+1
Light Heavyweight
[#7] Sokoudjou vs. [#17] Kazuhiro Nakamura
FightMatrix Comments: Kind of disappointed this didn’t make the main card (per Wikipedia). Statistically, these two are hard to get a read on. Nakamura tends to lose decisively against top-notch competition, but win decisively versus the rest. Sokoudjou on the other hand, took the scene by storm with two dominant wins over two Top 10 Light Heavyweights, before putting on an embarrassing performance against Machida. Some would like to say those wins against Nogueira and Arona are flukes, but we’re not foolish enough to dismiss two back-to-back quality wins. Sokoudjou regroups and batters Nakamura for the stoppage. Sokoudjou wins by (T)KO
Main Card
Keep Reading
UFC 84: How they stack up
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.