1. Fedor Emelianenko (31-1, 1NC) – Red Devil Sports Club

Fedor is still firmly at the top of the division and will stay that way until he loses.  He’s got a big fight coming up against Werdum but the fight I’m most interested in now is against Overeem.

2. Brock Lesnar (4-1) – Minnesota Martial Arts
Everyone is anxiously awaiting the return of the UFC champion and it will come in less than a month when he meets the fast rising interim champion Shane Carwin.   Both men are humongous and have been devastating.  The matchup is likely the most anticipated fight of the year. 

3. Shane Carwin (12-0) – Grudge Training Center
Any questions you may have had about Carwin should have been answered when he swiftly dispatched the veteran and former champion Frank Mir at UFC 111. Carwin deserves to be number three and ahead of Velasquez. If beating Frank Mir and Randy Couture are good enough for Lesnar to be number two, then knocking out Gabe Gonzaga and Frank Mir are certainly enough for Carwin to be in this position. And he still hasn’t seen the second round yet.

4. Cain Velasquez (8-0) - American Kickboxing Academy
It’s amazing to see the level that Cain is fighting at after only eight fights. He’s improved in every fight and he’s improved drastically between the Kongo and Nogueira fights. His wrestling was never a question. Simply put, if he wants to take you down, he will. Now it appears his striking is on a totally new level. He looked very fast and obviously powerful in knocking out Nogueira. His next fight is TBA. Dana says that he has earned a title shot and won’t have to fight again until that time comes but whether he remains on the shelf for that long remains to be seen.

5. Alistair Overeem (33-11, 1NC) – Golden Glory

Overeem jumps up a few spaces not just due to the fact that he finished Brett Rogers, but for how he looked in doing it.  Overeem made Rogers look like an amateur.  Overeem was very big, very fast, and most importantly calm and composed throughout the fight.  He never put himself in a bad situation and sent Brett Rogers back to the drawing board.  I’d love to see Overeem in the UFC against the likes of Brock, Carwin, Velasquez, etc., but not until he fights Fedor.  He would no doubt be Fedor’s toughest test in years.   

6. Junior dos Santos (11-1) – Black House
“Cigano’s” knockout of Gabriel Gonzaga in the first round of the UFC on Versus card brings his grand total up to five stoppages due to punches in five fights in the UFC.  “Cigano” gets another interesting test in August when he takes on Roy Nelson.  He’s such a dynamic prospect and in a really rare situation as the UFC has handled his rise perfectly to this point.  Once he knocked out Werdum and they saw what they had, they decided to bring him along slowly which is a great idea.  The Nelson fight will certainly be an interesting one but also one where Cigano should be heavily favored. 

7. Frank Mir (13-5) – Team Mir
Mir was on a path towards another showdown with Lesnar but Shane Carwin had something to say about that. Mir will now look to regroup and climb his way back to the top of a suddenly crowded division.

8. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (32-6-1, 1NC) – Black House
Although Nogueira looked like his old self in a win over Randy Couture, in his losses against Mir and Velasquez he just looked like an “old” version of himself. Nogueira hasn’t had a fight scheduled yet but the talk was that if Mir were to lose then they would target a rematch against him. Should Nog lose in his next fight, it could possibly be the end of seeing him on a top ten list.

9. Fabricio Werdum (13-4-1) – Werdum Combat
Aside from the loss to “Cigano”, Werdum has been fighting like an elite heavyweight the last few years. He weathered the early storm from Antonio Silva in the first round and dominated him over the following two to get the victory. Werdum will look to dethrone the king of the division in June.

10. Antonio “Big Foot” Silva (14-2) - EMF

Silva cracks the top ten by bouncing back from a tough decision loss to Werdum and grinding out a decision victory of his own against former top heavyweight Andrei Arlovski.  Ironically the area where most fans thought Andrei would dominate-boxing- actually turned out to be the opposite as Silva out-struck Arlovski for the duration of the fight.  Silva has shown he can fight a smart fight and not put himself in harms way which is exactly what he did with Arlovski.