Injuries, suspensions impact Y! Sports' Top 10 MMA rankings
Injuries are a part of sports, but never have they had more impact upon the UFC than they have in 2012, when scores of headliners missed fights because of them.
Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, both of whom would be highly ranked in the Yahoo! Sports Top 10, haven't fought this year. They're ineligible for the poll because both have been out more than 12 months.
Light heavyweight Dan Henderson, who is 10th in this month's poll, hasn't fought since November. He injured a knee and had to pull out of UFC 151, ultimately forcing that card's cancellation. He'll soon be ineligible due to inactivity.
Featherweight champion Jose Aldo fought on that ill-fated UFC 142 card, but hasn't fought again and has nothing scheduled yet.
Other elite fighters and big names like Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Rory MacDonald, Brian Stann, Thiago Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Frank Mir, Gilbert Melendez, Luke Rockhold, Erik Koch and Brandon Vera, among many others, had to pull out of at least one fight in 2012.
Assuming the rate of injuries abates, the UFC will have a number of stacked cards in the early part of 2013 to accommodate those who are returning from the injury lists. But until then, matchmaking is going to be a major headache.
With that, let's take a look at the rankings in the October poll:
1. Anderson Silva Points: 258 (24 of 26 first-place votes) |
2. Jon Jones Points: 236 (2 of 26 first-place votes) |
3. Jose Aldo Points: 198 |
4. Junior dos Santos Points: 164 |
5. Benson Henderson Points: 147 |
6. Frankie Edgar Points: 89 |
7. Gilbert Melendez Points: 71 |
8. Demetrious Johnson Points: 68 |
9. Carlos Condit Points: 66 |
10. Dan Henderson Points: 55 |
Others receiving votes: Cain Velasquez 23; Rashad Evans, 19; Renan Barao, 11; Ronda Rousey, 9; Gray Maynard, 5; Joseph Benavidez, 2; Daniel Cormier, 1; Chris Weidman, 1.
Ineligible: Nick Diaz (serving marijuana suspension); Alistair Overeem (serving PED suspension); Dominick Cruz (inactive more than 12 months) Georges St. Pierre (inactive more than 12 months).
Voting panel:Denny Burkholder, CBSSports.com; Elias Cepeda, Cage Potato; Mike Chiappetta, MMA Fighting and Fight! Magazine; Steve Cofield, ESPN Radio 1100, Las Vegas; Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press; Dave Deibert, Post Media; Dave Doyle, MMA Fighting/SI.com; Matt Erickson, MMA Junkie/USA Today; Josh Gross, ESPN.com; Ariel Helwani, MMA Fighting; Rafael Hernandez Brito, Univision; Adam Hill, Las Vegas Review-Journal; Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports; Case Keefer, Las Vegas Sun; Steven Marrocco, MMA Junkie/USA Today; Damon Martin, MMA Weekly; Todd Martin, freelance; Franklin McNeil, ESPN.com; Dave Meltzer, The Wrestling Observer/MMA Fighting; John Morgan, MMA Junkie/USA Today; Brett Okamoto, ESPN.com; Ken Pishna, MMA Weekly; Greg Savage, Sherdog; Mike Straka, Spike TV and Sirius/XM; Dann Stupp, MMA Junkie/USA Today; Jeff Wagenheim, SI.com.
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