Current UFC Middleweights:

Michael Bisping - While the winner of the 3rd installment of The Ultimate Fighter isn't quite ready to step up to a championship level fight just yet, UFC management is clearly grooming Michael Bisping for stardom. He's already become the face of MMA in England and recently garnered the biggest win of his career in a Main Event victory over the popular and heavy handed, Chris Leben. Bisping can only count one official blemish on his near perfect, 17-1 record, that loss coming by split decision at the hands of Rashad Evans, an undefeated fighter who just knocked out Chuck Liddell and will be fighting Forest Griffin for the Light Heavyweight title in December. Not to shabby, specially as that close loss came prior to Bisping dropping down to a more naturally suited 185 pound weight class, where he appears to be quicker without losing any of his power. The UFC is wisely bringing the British fighter along slowly, but a title fight can't be too far off, just as long as "The Count" continues with his winning ways.

Dan Henderson - Henderson is one of the most experienced and savvy fighters in the UFC, having been a two time Olympic wrestler, UFC 17 tournament champion, PRIDE 2005 welterweight Grand Prix champ, and the only MMA fighter to ever hold a belt in two weight classes concurrently for a major promotion, when he held both the Pride welterweight (183 lbs) and middleweight (205 lbs.) belts at the same time. With a 23-7 record and victories over a who's who list of top MMA fighters, including Wanderlei Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Renzo Gracie, Vitor Belfort, Renato "Babalu" Sobral, Murilo Bustamante, Yuki Kondo and too many others to list, Henderson has seen and done it all in mixed martial arts, and he's a fighter that can never be counted out. In March of this year, as Pride Champion, Henderson faced Anderson Silva in a title fight to unify the two middleweight belts. He won the opening round of that match, but got caught in the 2nd and ended up succumbing to a fight ending rear naked choke. At 38 years of age, he's reaching the latter stages of his career, though I'd still like to see him get one more shot at Silva, because he's a fighter who plays the underdog role well, and one who I'll always find it hard to bet against.

Denis Kang - Up until a recent slump, this American Top Team fighter was rated by many as a Top 5 middleweight, with wins over Murilo "Ninja" Rua, Akihiro Gono, Amar Suloev, Marvin Eastman and Andre Semenov. Sporting a 31-10-1 record, Kang hadn't lost a fight for over three and half years heading into the Finals of the Pride Bushido 2006 Welterweight Grand Prix, in which he won his first match of the night in the tournament semi-finals, but came out of that bout injured. He valiantly attempted to win the Grand Prix championship, but didn't appear to be a healthy fighter going in, and after 23 straight fights without a loss, Kang was narrowly defeated by split decision in the finals. Since that night he's gone 3-2 in his last five fights, but each of those losses have come at the hands of top notch middleweights, including Gegard Mousasi and Yoshihiro Akiyama, who was on the short list of middleweights considered for this article. Regardless of those recent bumps in the road, Kang seems to be back on track with 1st round victories in each of his last two fights, needing a combined time of only 2:19 to finish both opponents. A BJJ black belt and striker with knock out power, if Kang is back to his old ways, he might be the type of middleweight challenge that Silva needs...and apparently the UFC thinks so too. As this article was being written, the news broke that Dennis Kang had just signed a four fight deal with the UFC. His first fight in the Octagon should take place in early 2009. If all goes well, we just might see Kang vs. Silva sooner than expected.