1. Anderson Silva: Silva’s taking the rest of the year off to heal a wounded shoulder, but he’ll have plenty of interesting challengers in early 2012. The winner of Chael Sonnen/Brian Stann gets the next crack, and a Dan Henderson win over Shogun could put him in line as well.

2. Jon Jones: Jones leaps into the pound for pound rankings with a dominant win over Quinton Jackson at UFC 135. In a fight that wasn’t even remotely competitive, Jones proved that he’s quickly becoming one of the absolute best fighters in the world, and one with seemingly unlimited potential for greatest. It’s only a matter of time before he’s standing atop this list, and could possibly be there for quite some time to come.

3. Georges St-Pierre: St-Pierre’s unwillingness to move to middleweight doesn’t hamper him in these rankings, but his inability to finish recent opponents despite dominant performances does. He’s got a date with Carlos Condit in late October, and perhaps Nick Diaz or B.J. Penn after that. There are several interesting “down the road” challengers available for St-Pierre’s title, but he’s pretty well cleared out the division at this point.

4. Jose Aldo: Aldo defends his title against Kenny Florian at UFC 136 next weekend. He’ll go into the bout as the prohibitive favorite, and fans will be looking for him to recapture the magic he did not display in his title defense against Mark Hominick. Like Jones, Aldo is still very young and has many years left to develop.

6. Dominick Cruz: The bantamweight champion makes his second title defense against Demetrious Johnson on free television this Saturday night. Brian Bowles and Urijah Faber will battle for the right to face Cruz next.

7. Gilbert Melendez: No one knows how long Strikeforce will be around, but you can assume that Melendez will get his UFC title shot once the sister Zuffa promotion is folded. His last remaining Strikeforce challenger, Jorge Masvidal, will get his crack at the belt in December, but beyond that, it only makes sense for Melendez to move to the UFC.

8. Jon Fitch: Fitch finally returns to the cage against Johny Hendricks in December at UFC 140. He’s constantly in the title picture, but his lack of exciting finishes hurts him deeply when it comes to title shots. Still, he's one of the best fighters in the world.

9. Dan Henderson: Henderson signed with the UFC and will face Mauricio Rua at UFC 139. A win would likely earn “Hendo” a shot at either the light heavyweight or middleweight titles. He truly wants a rematch with Silva, so we could see him go that route.

10. Nick Diaz: Diaz and his lack of desire to “play the game” cost him a title shot against St-Pierre next month, but all is not lost. Dana White appears willing to work with Diaz and will give him a title shot if he beats B.J. Penn.