B.J. Penn was thoroughly manhandled by Georges St. Pierre when he tried to move up to welterweight at UFC 94, but he's still the best lightweight in mixed martial arts, and he has a big lightweight title fight against Kenny Florian coming up this summer.
On my list of the 10 best lightweights in MMA, Penn is first and Florian is fourth. Second on the list is Shinya Aoki, who is about to follow in Penn's footsteps and try moving up to welterweight, in Aoki's case to participate in Dream's upcoming welterweight tournament. The full lightweight Top 10 is below.
Top 10 Lightweights in MMA
1. B.J. Penn
2. Shinya Aoki
3. Sean Sherk
4. Kenny Florian
5. Eddie Alvarez
6. Joachim Hansen
7. Gray Maynard
8. Josh Thomson
9. Gesias "JZ Calvan" Cavalcante
10. Satoru Kitaoka
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-13-2009 @ 11:16AM
ljcool110 said...
I think the MMA ranking lists and pound for pound lists are some of the most enjoyable writeups for Mixed Martial Arts sites. I noticed one MMA p4p list at http://www.profighting-fans.com that dropped Penn thanks to his bad loss to GSP in grease-gate, but against his weight class he is a beast.
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2-13-2009 @ 12:41PM
Slim said...
Just wondering MDS: why Sherk over Florian? With Ken-Flo being the #1 and coming off some strong fights, and with Sherk coming off 2 not great fights, I would have thought Kenny earned that top 3 spot (plus his MMA Live gig to boot). I'm sure you have a good reason for those two where they are however.
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2-13-2009 @ 1:02PM
Michael David Smith said...
It's basically just because Sherk beat Florian head-to-head. Florian has a great chance to prove me wrong when he fights Penn later this year.
2-14-2009 @ 10:59AM
Colonial said...
I'd put K-FLo at 3 and Sherk at 4. Otherwise my list would be nearly identical.
A juiced Sherk had some trouble with Florian when they fought two years ago. Since then Florian has improved dramatically while Sherk hasn't looked as good.
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