Who Is The Best Pound For Pound Fighter In M.M.A. Today?

So there I was, checking out mmaweekly.com, and they had a poll going as to who was the best fighter, pound for pound, in the world today.

The contenders, in alphabetical order by last name, were:

Fedor Emelianenko
Urijah Faber
B.J. Penn
Georges St. Pierre
Anderson Silva

As of 10 this morning, there were almost 45,000 votes, and the results were:

B.J. Penn - 42%
Fedor - 31%
Anderson Silva - 20%
GSP - 6%
Urijah Faber - 1%

I did not have any doubt that one of B.J. Penn, Fedor or Silva would be on top. What did surprise me though was the margin by which Penn is leading, and also Silva getting only 20% of the vote. Especially since both Fedor and Silva fought this past weekend and won in dominating fashion; both fighters destroyed their opponents in the first round of their respective fights - Fedor beat Tim Sylvia by rear naked choke in 36 seconds, and Silva TKO'd James Irvin in 1:01.

Personally, I would rank it this way:

1. Anderson Silva - the man has blown through all competition for the last 2 years now (3 if you don't count a controversial DQ loss vs. Yoshin Okami in early 2006). And he's beaten the best of the best - Rich Franklin and Dan Henderson are two of the best fighters in the world, and he tore through them like nobody's business. Franklin dominated UFC's middleweight division in scary fashion, and Silva dismantled him like he was dealing with an amateur. For his fight with Irvin, he moved up from middleweight to light heavyweight and put on a clinic. He fights, he fights often, and he destroys them all. No way he is not #1 pound for pound.

2. B.J. Penn - a healthy and focused BJ Penn has no business losing to anybody in lightweight. Since rededicating himself, he's beaten 3 top fighters in Jens Pulver, Joe Stevenson and Sean Sherk and all dominantly too.

3. Fedor - this rating is based more on reputation than recent results. Yes, he beat Tim Sylvia a few days ago. But this is the same Tim Sylvia who in his previous 3 fights lost to Randy Couture, Minotauro Nogueira and beat an injured and massively outsized Brandon Vera. He wasn't exactly setting the world on fire, know what I mean? Before the Sylvia fight, he was fighting tin cans like Hong Man-Choi or fighters 2 weight classes below him like Matt Lindland (as good as he may be). I would say the last great fighter-in-his-prime he beat was Cro Cop in August 2005. Nevertheless, this is the man who has beaten Minotauro twice, Cro Cop, Mark Coleman twice, Heath Herring, etc. so there is no denying his stature. He just needs to keep on fighting against quality opponents from now on.

4. GSP - as physically gifted as any MMA fighter out there, he made up for a horrible loss to Matt Serra with a spectacular beat down in their rematch to win the welterweight title. He has fought Matt Hughes, the greatest welterweight of all time, on 3 occasions and has pummeled Hughes in the last 2 of those. What has impressed me the most about him recently is that this is a man whose background is not amateur wrestling. And yet, when he fought Josh Koscheck and Matt Hughes - who have extensive amateur wrestling in their resumes - he just took them down to the ground at will and kept them down there with flawless wrestling technique.

5. Urijah Faber - probably the least known fighter in this group, but just may be the most charismatic of the bunch. He could be the most innovative of the group as well, but I think he needs more "defining" fights. Yes, he beat Jens Pulver convincingly, but I think a fight with Kid Yamamoto (who recently tore his ACL) needs to happen.