Heavyweight 7-12-09

Rank

Fighter

Comments

1.

Fedor Emelianenko

 

2.

Josh Barnett

His inability to finish Gilbert Yvel from the mount at Affliction: Day of Reckoning didn't inspire much confidence. But maybe his size and highly technical wrestling will cause problems for The Last Emperor when they meet on August 1st. Or maybe he'll get iced standing like everyone else Fedor has faced lately...

3.

Brock Lesnar

Like it or not, we've now entered the Brock Lesnar Era. His size, power, and athleticism were enough to exact a brutal revenge against Frank Mir, whose jiu-jitsu was completely neutralized during their UFC 100 rematch. Will another big wrestler like Shane Carwin or Cain Velasquez be able to give Big Brock a taste of his own medicine, or will Lesnar keep his belt until a mythical pipe-dream fight against Fedor?

4.

Frank Mir

 

5.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

 

6.

Alistair Overeem

 

7.

Randy Couture

 

8.

Shane Carwin

 

9.

Jeff Monson

With Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia dropping off the top ten due to their recent humiliating beatings, the hard-working Snowman sneaks into the Power Rankings for his low-key, high-volume string of wins. In the last nine months, Monson has gone 6-0, with submission wins over Sergei Kharitonov and Jimmy Ambriz, and decision victories over Roy Nelson and Ricco Rodriguez. He's called out Kimbo, he's called out Fedor — the dude just wants bigger fights, and we hope he can get them.

10.

Brett Rogers

It's hard to get an accurate sense of how good The Grim is, since he keeps knocking people out so fast. All we know is that he's eerily focused and his fists make people go to sleep. Wrecking a former UFC champion with a suspect chin in 22 seconds was a good first test; a future Strikeforce match against Alistair Overeem could be his true coming-out party.

See previous rankings (published June 16, 2009)