Top 15 Middleweight

Having taken such a long hiatus, I'm in a bit of a rush to officially reorient myself with the sport. What better way to take stock of things than by an endless barrage of lists?

1. Anderson Silva

2. Paulo Filho
When Mike Tyson got a tattoo of Mao Tse Tung on his arm, he began a great tradition of permanently styling your body with portraits of history's greatest abominations. Filho has continued this proud tradition by getting a similar tattoo...of Mike Tyson.
Filho had a lot of questions to answer after his fight with Chael Sonnen (which some say he only barely won) and he has even more after pulling out of the rematch. It was initially reported that he had to withdraw due to personal issues, but after that didn't go over very well with the general public, the reason was slightly refined to say that he was in rehab for substance abuse. Unfortunately, rumors out of Brazil stated that he was woefully under training in the weeks leading up to the fight, and that perhaps he just wasn't ready. Those rumors in combination with the fact that he coincidentally finished his rehab program the Saturday immediately following his scheduled fight cast a strong sense of suspicion as to how he will perform in the future.

3. Rich Franklin

4. Nathan Marquardt

5. Yushin Okami

6. Robbie Lawler

7. Yoshihiro Akiyama
"Relatively more like leather than anything else I'm thinking about right now."
"What is Akiyama's face skin?"

8. Frank Trigg

9. Kazuo Misaki

10. Gegard Mousasi
Mousasi cracks the Top 10 thanks to his triangle-choke win over Denis Kang. Mousasi has flown under the radar the last couple years, missing his most recent chance at the big time by way of a decision loss to Akihiro Gono. However, his upset over Kang, a not too-distant win over Hector Lombard, and an overall stellar record make a strong case for Mousasi as an acknowledged top-flight competitor.

11. Jorge Santiago

12. Jason Miller

13. Denis Kang
Denis Kang has a bad habit of making Top Tenners out of previously uncertain middleweights. Misaki, Akiyama, and Mousasi are all enjoying a new (or renewed) relevance thanks in part to Kang, who was just recently considered to be one of the few people capable of dethroning Anderson Silva. Of course, Top Tenners is not to be confused with Top Tanners, which Evan Tanner also has a bad habit of making. He does this by sneaking up on unsuspecting jump-ropers before wailing on a guitar and taking a tremendous shit on their head while they're at the top of their jump. Therefore, Top Tanner.
Kang came off as extremely flaky in his fight with Mousasi, where he more or less gift wrapped a triangle choke for his opponent. His knockout loss to Akiyama was just as surprising since Kang was generally considered the more well-rounded and powerful fighter. He has, however, been able to excel outside of the big ticket fights. Perhaps, after all the hype, we're getting a view of the ceiling for Kang. On any given day he can take out other strong competitors like Murilo Rua and Akihiro Gono, but when it comes to top contenders, he always falls a little short.
However, it's also possible that his success and popularity in the smaller shows, namely Spirit MC, is part of the problem. He's not facing anywhere near the level of competition he would get elsewhere, and his reign in the Korean fight promotion may be giving him a false sense of security and prove distracting.

14. Jason Macdonald
Wins over Joe Doerksen, Ed Herman, and Chris Leben, plus the fact that he hasn't lost to anyone but Top 10 middleweights in the last two years, puts Macdonald at 14. There's a lot of other fighters that could arguably take this spot--Hector Lombard, Chris Leben, Joey Villasenor, Benji Radach, and Patrick Cote, to name a few-- but at the moment I think their inconsistency and lower-caliber competition keep them off the list.

15. Chael Sonnen
I think it's important to not put too much stock in a fighter based on how well he loses, which is what I think a lot of us did following Sonnen and Filho's first fight. Yet, however well a fighter performs at the outset, if in the end he lets the fight slip through his fingers, this is what ultimately counts most. Incidentally, this issue seems to best characterize Chael Sonnen.
Sonnen has always shown flashes of brilliance, but also a puzzling habit of blowing it in spectacular fashion at the last moment. His fight with Sobral was going swimmingly until he got overconfident in the BJJ specialist's guard, succumbing to a triangle choke, and was similarly eliminated by Paulo Filho.
It's for his inability to consistently win the bigger fights that Sonnen has to take a spot behind Jason Macdonald, who has, by contrast, shown an ability to perform consistently at the higher levels of competition.