MONTREAL — Mauricio “Shogun” Rua has been on the shelf since shortly after capturing the UFC light-heavyweight championship last May. But after going through another in a series of knee surgeries and the subsequent rehabilitation process, Rua is healing well and on track for a March 2011 return.
That’s the word from UFC president Dana White, who saw Rua just last week and has been keeping tabs on his recovery.
“Rua looks good,” White said. “He was there at the [World MMA Awards last week]. He’s in great shape, walking up and down the stairs really well. What happened with Shogun was, the last couple times his knee went, he had surgery down in Brazil, didn’t do the proper rehab, started training too early, and ruined his knee.”
When you’re trying to rank MMA fighters, it’s easy to say you’ll just rank them based on who they’ve beaten and who they’ve lost to inside the cage. It’s a lot harder to actually create the rankings when you realize that it’s mathematically impossible to rank every fighter ahead of the guys he’s beaten and behind the guys who have beaten him.
November is a month without any title fights, which makes it a good time to take a long view of the future title picture in each weight class. Today we look at the light heavyweight division.
With his second straight unanimous decision loss to Frankie Edgar, B.J. Penn is no longer one of the top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
There’s another change at the top of my pound-for-pound rankings.