The UFC Heavyweight Division

MMA fans, I present to you the UFC Heavyweight division:

The Top Ten in the UFC

1. Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera- A great champion, a great heavyweight, in fact the second best heavyweight in MMA. Would be a perfect champion if not for the glaring losses to Fedor.

2. Fabricio Werdum- A very good jiu jitsu player, his standup has improved but still a weakness. He has wins over Alexander Emilianenko, Gabriel Gonzaga, and Alistair Overeem. His losses are to Sergei Kharitonov, Noguiera, and Andrei Arlovski. He is a good fighter, definitely top ten, but not quite top five.

3. Gabriel Gonzaga- Despite two losses in a row, Gonzaga is still an elite, top ten fighter. He is great on the ground and has good ground skills. His win over Cro Cop was not a fluke, Gonzaga definitely has legitimate skills. His glaring weakness is his heart. In the most recent fight with Werdum he looked like he gave up after Werdum started with the knees, and in the fight with Couture his offense became limited (however in all fairness his nose was broken and bloody from Couture's illegal headbutt.)

4. Heath Herring- Here is where it starts to drop off a bit. Herring is a good fighter, but he is not great and he is not top ten. He is a rough fighter, a little more polished than a brawler but by no means an elite striker. He is tough but he has 3 losses to the UFC champion Noguiera. The win over Cheick Kongo was a good win.

5. Cheick Kongo- Needs to work his jiu jitsu and takedown defense. He has good striking skills, good kicks and knees, and his takedowns are good too. However, his takedown defense and jiu jitsu is terrible. When on his back Kongo looks lost, he needs to be more comfortable on the ground if he is to be an elite fighter. He also had a terrible game plan in trying to turn his fight with Herring into a ground war. Additionally, I think he's a dirty fighter, 5 knees to the balls in his fight with Cro Cop....there is no way he accidentally kneed Mirko in the balls 5 times.

6. Brandon Vera- Vera is an extremely skilled young fighter. His kicks and knees are nasty stuff, and along with that he has a solid jiu jitsu game. I don't know what the hell he was doing in his fight with Tim Sylvia. After he broke his hand, all he did was go for the clinch against Tim, he fought a boring, ineffective fight. With some more seasoning he could be a very good fighter, but he is also very small for the weight class and he could potentially have even more success at 205.

7. Frank Mir- I talked about Frank Mir in my last post, and I don't think much of him as a fighter.

8. Antoni Hardonk- A very skilled kickboxer, but with a typical Dutch ground game, terrible. His takedown defense is terrible, and his jiu jitsu is not much better.

9. Eddie Sanchez- Oh yes, Eddie Sanchez is a top ten heavyweight in the UFC.

10. Christian Wellisch- Are there any other UFC heavyweights with at least two wins in the UFC?

Up and Comers

• Brock Lesnar- I don't by the hype quite yet, but he does have tremendous physics skills.
• Cain Velasquez- By far the best prospect in the division
• Shane Carwin- I'm interested to see how he will do against Wellish at UFC 84

The Rest of the Division

• Mark Coleman- Well past his prime, this veteran needs to settle down and be content with his past accomplishments. He will get destroyed by Lesnar come August.
• Justin McCully- a very mediocre fighter
• Brad Morris- As an Australian fighter, his skill set is not at the level it needs to be for competing in the UFC
• Neil Wain- an awful, awful fighter

And just for the sake of it, some heavyweights not in the UFC include: Fedor Emilianenko, Randy Couture, Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski, Mirko Cro Cop (although he plans on returning,) Josh Barnett, Alexander Emilianenko, Sergei Kharitonov, Mark Hunt, Ben Rothwell, Jeff Monson, and Antonio Silva.

Its official, the heavyweight division is the weakest in the UFC.