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CJ Taylor is a regular contributor to www.fighting-mma.com. He also has his own blog at http://mercilessrhetoric.blogspot.com

The current UFC champions are the most fearsome of all time. Never has it been more difficult to win a title-fight in any weight division. But no one stays at the top forever, so now is a great time to start guessing who will be the first to fall.

Here’s a list of the champs in order of their likelihood to lose the belt, considering both competition in the weight class as well as their individual abilities.

1. Brock Lesnar—Heavyweight

First off, Brock’s position here is not based on his history in the WWE. There is no argument any longer over whether he is a legitimate talent; he has an impressive college wrestling record and his MMA game has grown by leaps and bounds over the last two years.


However, being at the top after only 5 professional fights is a very dangerous position. A lot of Lesnar's opponents will be bringing significantly more experience into the ocatagon, enabling them to capitalize on any mistakes. Also, an upcoming match against Shane Carwin will be Lesnar’s first without a significant size advantage—he had 60lbs on Randy Couture at UFC 91 and 30lbs on Frank Mir for their rematch at UFC 100. Brock will either quickly become the best heavyweight fighter in the world or, more likely, get  knocked off within two more fights and have to climb back up the ladder.

2. “The Prodigy” B.J. Penn—Lightweight

BJ seems to have some serious problems with motivation and focus. Going into the rematch against Georges St Pierre at UFC 94, he stated that a victory would be mean immediate retirement—cutting and running on top. Also, his endless crusade to try to have that loss overturned and decared a 'No Contest' has become embarassing. Whether or not GSP illegally had some vaseline on his shoulders had no affect on the many punches to BJ's face that made his corner stop the fight. For whatever reason, the vicious, hungry fighter that came into the UFC ten years ago now seems bored and lazy.

For most of BJ's career his notorious weakness has been conditioning—after submitting Joe Stevenson he could barely stand to hear the official decision. However, he showed no signs of gassing during his last fight against Kenny Florian at UFC 101, even in the 5th round. Penn has always been a very well-rounded fighter with incredible Jiu-Jitsu abilities and great kickboxing skills. With his cardio finally up to par, now it will be interesting to see how long a fighter can last with all the skills, but no heart.

3. Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida—Light Heavyweight

What’s fascinating about Machida is the relative ease with which he knocked out his past two opponents—Thiago Silva and Rashad Evans, both top-level fighters. But like his training partner Anderson Silva, he is tenative about taking the fight to the ground and it remains to be seen whether his ground game is truly at the same level as his Karate. Even with a size disadvantage at a bizarre catch-weight, BJ Penn was able to take him down and land some nice shots. His next opponent, Marucio "Shogun" Rua will likely to first to not make the mistake of trying to box with him, and may have the skills to find a chink in Machida's armour.


There hasn’t been a successful defense of the light-heavyweight title since Quinton “Rampage” Jackson beat Dan Henderson in September 2007. The division is full of tough opponents including superstars like Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, as well as dangerous rising talent like Luiz Cane and a re-invigorated Brandon Vera. If anyone can stay at the top, it’s Lyoto, but he has to take out a couple more contenders before he truly deserves to be called number 1. Plus the whole urine-drinking thing is weird.

4. Georges “Rush” St. Pierre—Welterweight

Thiago Alves said it best: GSP is the man. The Montreal native is the most athletic man in the UFC. An incredibly well-rounded fighter, GSP can exchange with the best and take down opponents at will. His confidence and determination is terrifying, as demonstrated by his domination of the last two rounds at UFC 100 while suffering from a torn groin. The only reason Georges does not get the top spot for holding on to the title is because he is up against the most stacked division in the UFC. Despite misconceptions about a finished weight class, there are an incredible amount of skilled fighters at 170lbs. Mike Swick, Martin Kampman, Kim Dong-hyun, Anthony Johnson, Paulo Thiago, Dan Hardy and Marcus Davis will all be studying GSP’s fight tapes, looking to pull an upset like Matt Serra did in 2007. And that’s a tall order, even for one of the best in the world.

5. Anderson “The Spider” Silva—Middleweight

Silva will retire undefeated in the UFC. End of story. There are no contenders left in the middleweight division. The top two under Silva: Dan Henderson and Nate Marquardt, are men that he already beat decisively. Even his attempts at light-heavyweight produced two first-round KOs. The only fight that would make sense for Silva would be a catch-weight against GSP; but since that is clearly not happening, maybe the UFC should consider setting up two or three-on-one matches to generate some sort of challenge for this guy.

Silva has chewed up and spit out the who’s-who of the middleweight division with ease. The only fighter who has ever even looked decent against him was Dan Henderson, who will likely be 40-years-old and passed his prime before a rematch ever happens. Currently sitting on a record 13-fight win streak in the UFC, Silva will apparently be retiring after three more fights, but he’s hardly cutting and running; the man is just in a league of his own.

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