[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
penn now fights at lightweight and i think hes pretty clearly one of the ten best fighters in that division, so if i was doing a top ten using my own criteria i would rank him

i just think "who is the best" is a much more interesting question than "who has accomplished the most"

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, I think "Who is the best" type of rankings are too subjective. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I just prefer as much objectivity as possible.

For instance, I've nearly completed my first beatpaths style graph for the middleweight division. Here's how the system ranks the MW top 10:

1. Anderson Silva
2. Yushin Okami
3. Paulo Filho
4. Matt Lindland
5. Yoshihiro Akiyama
6. Denis Kang
7. Robbie Lawler
8. Rich Franklin
9. Dan Henderson
T. Alan Belcher

I'm gonna start a blog up eventually and have an explanation for this. One criteria that I should note is that I only counted fights in the MW division in the past 3 years. Anyway, Okami benefits a lot from his DQ win over Silva. Belcher's probably the only "huh?" guy on there, and he benefits a lot from his win over Kalib Starnes. The guys at 11 and 12 are Akihiro Gono and Nathan Marquardt.