New UFC Light Heavyweight Rankings: Warning – Several Seismic Shifts

OSP vs. Rumble next?

Talk about shakeup in the rankings. Only Alexander Gustafsson at #1, Dan Henderson at #6, Mauricio Rua at #8, and James Te Huna stayed at their respective spots. Everyone else either moved up or down and of course it all makes perfect sense.

Right now the title picture is pretty clear as Gustafsson gets the next shot and then the winner of the Daniel Cormier and Henderson gets the next shot. That should keep Jones busy for most of the rest of the year depending on how they go.

For everyone else here are some fights to make as well as trying to make some kind of sense of the movement in the rankings.

Like Ovince Saint-Preux (pictured) dropping three spots to #14. Since his dominating submission win over Nikita Krylov at UFC 171 he has been pretty quiet. Once you check his Twitter it is easy to see why he dropped three spots.

He retweeted someone congratulating Jim Miller on his submission win. There are shout outs to family and friends and others thanking people.

Not once has Dana White complained about him blowing up his phone. He has a lot of work to do if he wants to move back up in the rankings.

He currently does not have an opponent and since the title picture is jammed up. Right now a fight with Anthony Johnson makes a lot of sense.

Johnson is coming off of the proverbial biggest win of his career over Phil Davis at UFC 172. Johnson moved up nine spots to #5 two spots ahead of Davis who dropped three places to #7.

While Johnson and Saint-Preux are now ranked far apart fortunately the rankings do not mean anything and this fight would be a great matchup for both fighters. It certainly makes more sense then feeding Rua to Johnson.

The fight for Rua would be with Davis. It is the type of fight that would let us know if they are still true contenders or just top ranked fighters.

Rashad Evans moving up one spot to #2 and Glover Teixeira dropping one to #3 is fine. Though neither of them is getting a title shot any time soon and that is why they should be the next fight for each other.

Evans is recovering from his knee injury and Teixeira will need a little time off after his fight with Jones. They should be ready right about the same time and this would be another exciting fight.

The winner stays in the title mix and the loser falls back into the middle of the top ranked pack.

Also Chael Sonnen dropped two spots to #9; apparently it is a tough season for him on TUF Brazil. Also, the minds behind the rankings do not value the in flip-flops double leg takedown like they used to.

Ryan Bader (#10) and Jimi Manuwa (#11) each dropped one spot which was a by product of Johnson rising.

However, Rafael Cavalcante dropped one slot to #13 switching spots with Vitor Belfort who rose one to #12.  It seems that Vitor claiming he deserves his middleweight title shot and passing some homemade self-administered drug tests was good enough to move him up one spot in the rankings.

That is this week’s fun with the wacky UFC rankings.  They never fail to surprise and entertain.