HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (265 pound-limit)


1. Cain Velasquez

2. Junior Dos Santos

3. Daniel Cormier

4. Fabricio Werdum

5. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva

6. Alistair Overeem

7. Frank Mir

8. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

9. Roy Nelson

10. Gabriel Gonzaga

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)


1. Jon Jones 


2. Lyoto Machida 


3. Dan Henderson

4. Alexander Gustafsson

5. Mauricio Rua

6. Rogerio Nogueira

7. Glover Teixeira

8. Rashad Evans

9. Phil Davis

10. Thiago Silva

MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185-pound limit)


1. Anderson Silva 


2. Chael Sonnen

3. Chris Weidman

4. Yushin Okami

5. Vitor Belfort

6. Michael Bisping

7. Brian Stann

8. Constantinos Philippou

9. Luke Rockhold

10. Tim Boetsch

WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170-pound limit)


1. Georges St-Pierre 


2. Johny Hendricks 


3. Nick Diaz 


4. Carlos Condit 


5. Demian Maia

6. Rory MacDonald

7. Martin Kampmann

8. Jake Ellenberger

9. Robbie Lawler

10. Tarec Saffiedine

LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (155-pound limit)


1. Benson Henderson 


2. Gilbert Melendez

3. Anthony Pettis

4. Gray Maynard

5. Nate Diaz

6. Jim Miller

7. Donald Cerrone

8. Rafael Dos Anjos

9. TJ Grant

10. Khabib Nurmagomedov

FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 pound-limit)


1. Jose Aldo 


2. Frankie Edgar

3. Ricardo Lamas

4. Chad Mendes

5. Cub Swanson

6. Chan Sung Jung

7. Denis Siver

8. Nik Lentz

9. Erik Koch

10. Dustin Poirier

BANTAMWEIGHT DIVISION (135 pound-limit)


1. Dominick Cruz 


2. Renan Barao 


3. Urijah Faber

4. Michael McDonald

5. Eddie Wineland

6. Raphael Assuncao

7. Brad Pickett

8. Mike Easton

9. Scott Jorgensen

10. Ivan Menjivar

FLYWEIGHT DIVISION (125 pound-limit)


1. Demetrious Johnson 


2. Joseph Benavidez

3. Jon Dodson 


4. Ian McCall

5. John Moraga

6. John Lineker

7. Chris Cariaso

8. Jussier Da Silva

9. Darren Uyenoyama

10. Louis Gaudinot

“I understand very well that this is a business,” Florian told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “It does come down to the fights that make the most amount of sense.”

That distinction clearly goes to Aldo (22-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) vs. Pettis (16-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC), which is expected to take place Aug. 9, as MMAjunkie.com recently reported.

Pettis becomes the second consecutive lightweight standout to drop weight and try his luck against the 145-pound champ. Former lightweight titleholder Frankie Edgar tried unsuccessfully to capture the belt earlier this month at UFC 156.

“I think that’s going to be a very exciting fight, and if we’re talking about two guys going at it with styles to entertain, Aldo and Pettis fit the bill,” Florian said.

Florian couldn’t get past Aldo at UFC 136 and decided to retire when doctors advised him he was risking his health by continuing to fight. Since then, the three-time title challenger and communications major has won a spot on the UFC’s broadcast team.

Along with Jon Anik, Florian will be calling the action inside the cage on Saturday at UFC on FUEL TV 7, which takes place at Wembley Arena in London.

Not everyone agrees with Florian’s opinion. Ricardo Lamas said he should be first to meet Aldo. However, Pettis texted UFC President Dana White and requested an immediate title shot following UFC on FOX 6, where he earned a highlight-reel TKO of Donald Cerrone. That allowed him to cut the line.

“I’ve put in the work at 145 pounds,” said Lamas, who brutally knocked out Erik Koch one fight prior to Pettis’ performance. “I’ve done everything I need to do, and I should be next in line for that shot.”

With four consecutive wins under his belt, Lamas certainly has more accolades at 145 pounds than Pettis or Florian. But Florian said Lamas doesn’t have the recognition to make him an easy sell to a pay-per-view audience.

“Sometimes divisions require divisions and certain contenders to step up,” he said. “In the 145-pound division, after Frankie Edgar, there are no real big names. Unfortunately for Ricardo Lamas, he doesn’t have the big name or the huge following that Anthony Pettis has, and that’s why Anthony Pettis is getting the next shot.”

While he staked his claim as No. 1 contender, Lamas (13-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) also said he would be willing to take another headlining fight prior to meeting Aldo. In recent days, he’s hinted at doing just that, though his opponent remains unknown.

Meanwhile, onetime featherweight title challenger Chad Mendes (13-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) has inked a UFC on FOX 7 bout with Clay Guida (30-13 MMA, 10-7 UFC), who hopes to make a run at Aldo’s belt.

The dance floor is getting crowded, but Lamas still has time to build his name.

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (206-265 pounds)

1. Cain Velasquez
2. Junior Dos Santos
3. Daniel Cormier
4. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva
5. Fabricio Werdum
6. Josh Barnett
7. Alistair Overeem
8. Frank Mir
9. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
10. Roy Nelson

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)

1. Jon Jones 

2. Dan Henderson 

3. Lyoto Machida
4. Alexander Gustafsson
5. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
6. Rogerio Nogueira
7. Glover Teixeira
8. Thiago Silva
9. Rashad Evans
10. Phil Davis

MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185-pound limit)

1. Anderson Silva 

2. Chael Sonnen
3. Chris Weidman
4. Vitor Belfort
5. Yushin Okami
6. Michael Bisping
7. Brian Stann
8. Constantinos Philippou
9. Hector Lombard
10. Luke Rockhold

WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170-pound limit)

1. Georges St-Pierre 

2. Johny Hendricks 

3. Nick Diaz 

4. Carlos Condit 

5. Demian Maia
6. Rory McDonald
7. Martin Kampmann
8. Jake Ellenburger
9. Jon Fitch
10. Josh Koscheck

LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (155-pound limit)

1. Benson Henderson 

2. Frankie Edgar 

3. Gilbert Melendez 

4. Anthony Pettis
5. Gray Maynard
6. Nate Diaz
7. Jim Miller
8. Donald Cerrone
9. Josh Thomson
10. TJ Grant

FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 pound-limit)

1. Jose Aldo 

2. Frankie Edgar
3. Ricardo Lamas
4. Chad Mendes
5. Chan Sung Jung
6. Cub Swanson
7. Denis Siver
8. Nik Lentz
9. Dustin Poirier 

10. Erik Koch

BANTAMWEIGHT DIVISION (135 lbs weight limit)

1. Dominick Cruz 

2. Renan Barao 

3. Michael McDonald
4. Urijah Faber
5. Eddie Wineland
6. Raphael Assuncao
7. Brad Pickett
8. Mike Easton
9. Ivan Menjivar
10. Brian Bowles

FLYWEIGHT DIVISION (125 lbs weight limit)

1. Demetrious Johnson 

2. Joseph Benavidez
3. Jon Dodson 

4. Ian McCall
5. John Moraga
6. John Lineker
7. Chris Cariaso
8. Jussier Da Silva
9. Louis Gaudinot
10. Yasuhiro Urushitani

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (206-265 pounds)

1. Cain Velasquez
2. Junior Dos Santos
3. Alistair Overeem
4. Daniel Cormier
5. Fabricio Werdum
6. Josh Barnett
7. Frank Mir
8. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva
9. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
10. Roy Nelson

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)

1. Jon Jones 

2. Dan Henderson 

3. Lyoto Machida
4. Rashad Evans
5. Alexander Gustafsson 

6. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
7. Quinton Jackson
8. Thiago Silva
9. Phil Davis
10. Forrest Griffin

MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185-pound limit)

1. Anderson Silva 

2. Chael Sonnen
3. Chris Weidman
4. Michael Bisping
5. Yushin Okami
6. Brian Stann
7. Vitor Belfort
8. Constantinos Philippou
9. Hector Lombard
10. Luke Rockhold

WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170-pound limit)

1. Georges St-Pierre 

2. Johny Hendricks 

3. Nick Diaz 

4. Carlos Condit 

5. Jon Fitch
6. Martin Kampmann
7. Rory MacDonald
8. Jake Ellenberger
9. Josh Koscheck
10. Nathan Marquardt

LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (155-pound limit)

1. Benson Henderson 

2. Frankie Edgar 

3. Gilbert Melendez 

4. Gray Maynard
5. Anthony Pettis
6. Nate Diaz
7. Donald Cerrone
8. Jim Miller
9. Josh Thompson
10. Rafael Dos Anjos

FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 pound-limit)

1. Jose Aldo 

2. Chad Mendes
3. Chan Sung Jung
4. Cub Swanson
5. Denis Siver
6. Erik Koch
7. Diego Nunes
8. Dustin Poirier 

9. Ricardo Lamas
10. Hatsu Hioki

BANTAMWEIGHT DIVISION (135 pounds or less)

1. Dominick Cruz 

2. Renan Barao 

3. Michael McDonald
4. Urijah Faber
5. Eddie Wineland
6. Raphael Assuncao
7. Brad Pickett
8. Mike Easton
9. Ivan Menjivar
10. Brian Bowles

FLYWEIGHT DIVISION (135 pounds or less)

1. Demetrious Johnson 

2. Ian McCall
3. Joseph Benavidez 

4. Jon Dodson
5. John Moraga
6. John Lineker
7. Chris Cariaso
8. Jussier Da Silva
9. Yasuhiro Urushitani
10. Louis Gaudinot

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (over 205 pounds)


1. Junior Dos Santos

2. Cain Velasquez

3. Alistair Overeem

4. Daniel Cormier

5. Josh Barnett

6. Shane Carwin

7. Fabricio Werdum

8. Frank Mir

9. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

10. Antonio Silva

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)


1. Jon Jones 


2. Dan Henderson 


3. Rashad Evans

4. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua 


5. Lyoto Machida 


6. Quinton Jackson

7. Alexander Gustafsson

8. Forrest Griffin

9. Thiago Silva

10. Phil Davis

MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185-pound limit)


1. Anderson Silva 


2. Chris Weidman 


3. Chael Sonnen

4. Michael Bisping

5. Vitor Belfort

6. Alan Belcher

7. Tim Boetsch

8. Brian Stann

9. Luke Rockhold

10. Cung Le

WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170-pound limit)


1. Georges St-Pierre 


2. Johny Hendricks 


3. Nick Diaz 


4. Carlos Condit 


5. Jon Fitch

6. Martin Kampmann

7. Rory MacDonald

8. Jake Ellenberger

9. Josh Koscheck

10. BJ Penn

LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (155-pound limit)


1. Benson Henderson 


2. Frankie Edgar 


3. Gilbert Melendez 


4. Gray Maynard

5. Nate Diaz

6. Anthony Pettis

7. Donald Cerrone

8. Josh Thompson

9. Jim Miller

10. Rafael Dos Anjos

FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 pound-limit)


1. Jose Aldo 


2. Chad Mendes

3. Chan Sung Jung

4. Cub Swanson

5. Dennis Siver

6. Erik Koch

7. Diego Nunes

8. Ricardo Llamas 


9. Dustin Poirier

10. Hatsu Hioki

BANTAMWEIGHT DIVISION (135 pounds or less)


1. Dominick Cruz 


2. Renan Barao 


3. Michael McDonald

4. Urijah Faber

5. Brad Pickett

6. Brian Bowles

7. Mike Easton

8. Ivan Menjivar

9. Yves Jabouin

10. Scott Jorgensen

FLYWEIGHT DIVISION (135 pounds or less)


1. Demetrious Johnson 


2. Ian McCall

3. Joseph Benavidez 


4. Jon Dodson

5. Chris Cariaso

6. John Lineker

7. John Moraga

8. Jussier Da Silva

9. Yasuhiro Urushitani

10. Louis Gaudinot

Florian, 36, hasn’t fought since losing to Jose Aldo at UFC 136 in Oct. of 2011, but he’s recently stayed in the spotlight as an analyst on Fuel TV’s “UFC Tonight.”

On the Nov. 13 episode of “UFC Tonight,” Florian said he sees a bright future for the UFC, and perhaps a slow, steady decline for the sport of baseball.

“You look at the explosion of the UFC and what it did in the last 10 years,” Florian said. “I think we are going to see it grow a lot more. It’s going to become a more international sport. It’s going to explode all over the world. In this country, don’t be surprised if it becomes more popular than baseball.”

Florian thinks the UFC may become the new national pastime, and baseball may slowly go the way of the buffalo.

Florian also wasn’t shy about chiming in on Rich Franklin’s nasty knockout loss to Cung Le, and the possibility of Franklin’s impending retirement.

“It definitely was a nasty knockout,” Florian said of Franklin’s brutal defeat. “Anytime you are at the end of your career and you get knockout like that you have to start thinking about if you should retire. Rich is an older guy, he is 38. He has done a lot and he will definitely go down as a Hall of Famer. You also have to think about if dropping to 185 was a problem and if dehydration had anything to do with that. If he does come back I’d like to see him fight at a catch weight. But yeah, this is a guy who is maybe a little older now and I definitely think he should start thinking about his retirement.”

The 36-year-old now will focus on his current UFC broadcasting career, which includes live UFC cable-TV broadcasts and the weekly “UFC Tonight” program on FUEL TV.

Florian (14-6 MMA, 12-5 UFC) first debuted with the UFC in 2005, when he was a middleweight runner-up on the groundbreaking first season “The Ultimate Fighter.” In fact, UFC president Dana White first discovered “Ken-Flo” when he saw him during a 2005 scouting trip for Drew Fickett, who ultimately defeated Florian via close split decision in a regional show. White, though, was impressed and offered Florian a spot on the show, anyway. Despite his small size for the division, Florian made it to the tournament’s finals, where he ultimately lost to Diego Sanchez.

Florian, who spent most of his career in the lightweight division, ultimately competed in four different weight classes during his 17-fight UFC career. His final two came in the featherweight division, where he admitted to grueling weight cuts to make the 145-pound limit for a final but unsuccessful title run.

From 2005 to 2010, Florian went 11-2 with 10 stoppages. The only losses came to Sean Sherk and B.J. Penn, the first two of his three eventual title fights. However, he posted wins over the likes of Clay Guida, Takanori Gomi, Joe Lauzon and Sam Stout, among others, during non-title bouts.

The Massachusetts native and former Boston College soccer player remained a fan favorite throughout his career, and he has been a go-to ambassador for many UFC ventures.

For now, though, one of the UFC’s most likable personalities is hanging up his gloves and retiring to the broadcast booth with partner Jon Anik.

For me, that realization came in the first round of the Gray Maynard fight. I had conditioned myself to think there was no way I was going to be taken down at all. When it happened I was so distracted by this that I lost all focus for pretty much the rest of the fight. It’s not that I hadn’t been taken down before. My brain stayed in that moment of being taken down instead of adjusting. There are technical mistakes that can be adjusted of course, but really it was the mental mistake that killed me.

Never was I more aware of the importance of not demanding perfection. The ultimate lesson learned was, don’t demand unattainable results, demand one hundred percent focus and effort.

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight lightweight featherweight lightweight fighter (and now the co-host of “UFC Tonight”) Kenny Florian wants everyone to know that he was a clean fighter who did things the right way. He also wants everyone to know how passionately he disapproves of those who have traveled the more unsavory road of using performance enhancing drugs.

“As a clean fighter, the whole issue of performance enhancing drugs (PED) in MMA really pisses me off. This sport is about honor, technique and discipline. When did it become about who uses the better PED’s and who can pass the test better than the other guy? PED’s allow you to train harder, longer and recover faster. It absolutely gives a user a competitive advantage. This isn’t baseball, where you’re just hitting a ball. This is fighting. You’re hitting other people in the face. As a fighter, if you use PED’s, how does it feel good knowing that you won using them? The fans should be upset too. How many fights are the fans gonna miss out on due to pre and post-fight testing? Don’t do it, dummies. Random testing needs to be the remedy. This is gonna be the only way to crack down on cheaters in the longterm.”

He’s all for random drug testing, but his fellow fighters may not be so quick to join in that particular chorus.

I remember how ignorant I was about food back on the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter”. I was literally putting cookies into my protein shakes to gain weight. I was trying to put on fat in my attempt to get close to 180lbs while I was fighting muscular 205lbers cutting down to the 185lbs weight class. Not good!

Since then I have done my best to slowly educate myself about how to gain the right weight and how to lose weight properly as well. More importantly, I have educated myself on the importance of eating real whole foods that are healthy, will aid in my performance and will make me look and feel good. I stopped thinking about what was just convenient and what tasted good and really started thinking about what foods were going to help me achieve my goals.

Anything that brought me further away from achieving my goals was deleted. Cookies taste great, but they weren’t going to get me to train better or longer. Instead, I traded that in for healthy fruits and vegetables that were gonna help me recover better, feel better and look better. I traded in the occasional soda with only drinking water or juicing actual fruits. I increased my consumption of water and just that alone gave me more energy for my two to three sessions of training per day. I started looking in to not only the foods that were going to help me but the timing of foods and how that will aid in my recovery and performance for the rigors of MMA training.

Like most things in life, you can’t cut corners with your nutrition if you want the good results. It comes down to consistency and getting a good balance of fats, proteins and high complex carbohydrates. Supplements and “diet bars” are not going cut it. You need real food as it is grown in nature to get the results you want. Don’t get caught up in fads, quick diets or taking medication to lose weight.

Everything you need to feel better and look better is offered to you in nature. Commit to it and you will not only feel and look better but it will have dramatic effects on your overall well being and life. Here on my blog I will offer recipes, nutrition tips and specific information on foods that have helped me tremendously.