Dana White went on the Bill Simmons’ podcast, the BS Report last week to promote UFC 114. As Dana is wont, he shot from the hip and said something that a lot of people took umbrage with. Simmons asked White what he thought about the Sherdog pound-for-pound rankings and when they got to the number three position and Fedor Emlienenko, Dana allowed as how he didn’t deserve to be ranked that high. When they finished counting down the top ten, White accused some unnamed sites of taking payouts from smaller promotions to put their fighters on the lists. Audio below.

[You can listen to the full podcast here. h/t on the YouTube to Cagewriter's Steve Cofield.]

Interesting thought. Though the top two fighters and seven of the top ten are all in the UFC. Jake Shields isn’t in the UFC, but he should should be and Jose Aldo is in the WEC, which is owned by the same company as the UFC. The lightweight to heavyweight lists are chock full of UFC fighters. The best fighters are in the UFC, so the only weight classes where the UFC isn’t the majority landowner is welterweight and flyweight which aren’t in the UFC.

As for Simmons, I cringed a couple times listening to him mess up some prominent UFC names, but I appreciate what he’s doing. Bill Simmons hasn’t always been on the MMA bandwagon, but over the last few years he seems to have taken a serious interest in it. The UFC is new to Simmons. I’m sure there was around the first or second viewing of the Karate Kid trilogy that Simmons would have struggled for a perfect quote or the perfect spelling of Zabka or Macchio. These things take time.

I’m not going to pretend I could pronounce all the names I’ve written over the years without a few days of Ariel Helwani coaching me. (It would take longer because I’d spend hours at a time staring into his flannel Canadian eyes.) I spend hours every day reading about MMA and I don’t know jack compared to some bloggers and fans. The same degree of difficulty goes to some of my friends who watch almost every UFC event with me. (I think I previously told the story of my friend getting drunk at UFC 78 and screaming “Rasheem!” over and over.) Not all fans know who is fighting who in a month, or where everyone stacks up in any given division.

There are degrees of MMA fans. Most of my friends are UFC fans. I watch UFC, Strikeforce, WEC and Bellator – the latter three promotions which most of my friends know little to nothing about. I don’t have HDNet so I never see Dream or Sengoku. There are people who live and breathe that stuff. There are smaller promotions, regional promotions… it goes on.

Now having said all that, I’m ready to break out my MMA rankings for the first time. It seems like something I should have been doing for years, but I haven’t. I guess I didn’t realize I would get secret payouts. So without further adieu…

HEAVYWEIGHT
1. Brock Lesnar (4-1) – Can anyone beat a healthy Lesnar? Tune in July 3rd.
2. Shane Carwin (12-0) – This guy can probably beat a healthy Lesnar. Tune in July 3rd.
3. Cain Velasquez (8-0) – Too long a layoff waiting for winner of Carwin-Lesnar.
4.  Alistair Overeem (32-11, 1 NC) – Let’s make this Fedor fight.
5. Fedor Emelianenko (31-1, 1 NC) – I think he’s too small to beat the top guys.
6. Junior dos Santos (12-1) – Fights Roy Nelson in August.
7. Frank Mir (13-5) – Let’s get this guy a rebound fight.
8. Roy Nelson (15-4) – Can he really keep winning?
9. Fabricio Werdum (13-4-1) – Has a chance to become legend against Fedor.
10. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (32-6-1, 1 NC) – Who else would go here?

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
1. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (19-4) – All the way back.
2. Rashad Evans (15-1-1) – Can’t argue with the results.
3.  Anderson Silva (26-4) – Too low?
4. Jon Jones (10-1) – Most potential.
5. Lyoto Machida (16-1) – Should have lost the first Shogun fight.
6. Forrest Griffin (17-6) – Can’t wait to see him fight again.
7. Quinton Jackson (30-8) – Who knows if he committed to training.
8. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (19-3) – Jason Brillz should probably be in this spot.
9. Muhammed Lawal (7-0) – Can’t wait to see him fight again in 2011.
10. Gegard Mousasi (27-3-1) – I thought he was unbeatable.

MIDDLEWEIGHT
1. Anderson Silva (26-4) – He can do what he wants, when he wants.
2. Chael Sonnen (25-10-1) – His turn to look silly.
3. Vitor Belfort (19-8) – Next up after Sonnen.
4. Nate Marquardt (29-9-2) – Lost to Sonnen, beat Maia.
5. Demian Maia (12-2) – Much more popular than he was before Abu Dhabi.
6. Jake Shields (26-4-1) – Beat Lawler and Hendo. Probably be hanging out at WW.
7. Robbie Lawler (17-5, 1 NC) – Fighting Babalu at a catchweight in a couple weeks.
8. Dan Henderson (25-9) – Legend with a disappointing Strikeforce debut.
9. Yoshihiro Akiyama (13-1) Wanderlei is up next.
10.  Alan  Belcher (16-6) – 3 straight wins after losing a FotN to Akiyama.

WELTERWEIGHT
1. Georges St-Pierre (20-2) – Hard to believe he’s got 2 losses.
2. Josh Koscheck (15-4) – He is the #1 contender.
3. Jon Fitch (21-3, 1 NC) – Probably should be the #1 contender.
4. Jake Shields (25-4-1) – It’ll be interesting to see what the UFC does with him.
5. Nick Diaz (22-7) – Knucklehead.
6. Thiago Alves (16-4) – Rematch with Fitch then a rematch with GSP?
7. Paulo Thiago (13-1) – In a year since a win over Kos, and loss to Fitch he’s 3-0.
8. Dan Hardy (23-8) – Still young.
9. Paul Daley (23-9-2) – Bellator or Strikeforce?
10. Mayhem Miller (23-7, 1 NC) – I may have taken Bully Beatdown into account.

LIGHTWEIGHT
1. Frankie Edgar (12-1) – Immediate rematch with BJ.
2. BJ Penn (15-6-1) – We shall see how sick BJ really was in April.
3. Kenny Florian (13-4) – Love the MMA Hour, hope he dosn’t lose his seat to Maynard.
4. Gray Maynard (9-0, 1 NC) – Fights KenFlo for the next shot at the belt.
5. Ben Henderson (12-1) – He’s got a belt, let’s bring it to the UFC and unify it.
6. Gilbert Melendez (18-2) – Keeps defending his belt.
7. Eddie Alvarez (19-2) – The best in Bellator.
8. George Sotiropoulos (12-2) – So much fun to watch.
9. Shinya Aoki (23-5) – He’s very good on the other side of the planet.
10. Diego Sanchez (21-4) – Come back down where you belong.

SUB-LIGHTWEIGHT
1. Jose Aldo (17-) – Very scary little man.
2. Doninick Cruz (15-1) – The tiniest WEC belt.
3. Joseph Benvanidez – Only loss is to Dominick Cruz.
4. Brian Bowles (8-1) – Only loss is to Cruz.
5. Manny Gamburyan – Beat a possibly distracted Mike Brown.
6. Mike Brown (23-6) – Hopefully he’s over his heartache for his next fight.
7.Urijah Faber (23-4) – Wonder if the 10 pound drop rejuvenates him.
8. Miguel Torres (37-3) – Only losses to Benvanidez and Cruz.
9. Scott Jorgensen (10-3) – Just avenged his only loss in the last 2 years.
10. Cris “Cyborg” Santos (9-1) – You tell her she doesn’t belong on this list.

How do you rank fighters pound for pound? Brock Lesnar is twice the size of Jose Aldo. Would Shane Carwin be a freakishly large 155-pounder? If everyone was the same size and Anderson Silva, would GSP be able to take him down? The P4P rankings exist in a weightless vacuum.

POUND-FOR-POUND
1. Anderson Silva
2. Georges St-Pierre
3. Fedor Emelianenko
4. Shogun Rua
5. Jose Aldo
6. Brock Lesnar
7. BJ Penn
8. Jon Jones
9. Lyoto Machida
10. Jake Shields

The next rankings will come out after UFC 116. Now tell me what I did wrong.

[Dana White and the P4P hottest MMA fan, Mandy Moore via Getty]