Sherdog and MMAWeekly both rank "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler in the top 5 middleweights in the world, but despite being 8-1 with 1 no contest in his last 10 fights, I'm not convinced he's going to be a threat if he decides to come to the UFC now that EliteXC has folded.
Those ten fights followed his two consecutive losses in the UFC to Nick Diaz via KO and Evan Tanner via triangle choke. He hasn't fought any top level competition since then. He did take care of Scott Smith via TKO in his latest fight to retain his EliteXC middleweight championship, but it was after a lackluster first round that had him backpedaling and up against the cage. It was also following a no contest with Smith that ended due to an unintentional eye poke in the third round.
After having so much trouble with Smith, an individual who was only 1-3 in the UFC, (his 1 win coming in that ridiculous comeback knockout over Pete Sell) I can't really believe Lawler is going to be any competition for the likes of Nate Marquardt, Yushin Okami, or Demian Maia, let alone Anderson Silva.
I understand that those losses were over 4 years ago and perhaps Scott Smith has also greatly improved, but I'm always reluctant to give that top ranking to non-UFC fighters in any 170+ pound divisions unless their name happens to be Fedor Emelianenko. As for the lower weight classes, Dream has proven to be the home of all great lightweights that aren't BJ Penn and the WEC pretty much employs all the featherweight and bantamweight greats (Mike Brown, Urijah Faber, Miguel Torres, Brian Bowles).
I do enjoy watching Robbie Lawler fight and it would be great to see Lawler return the UFC and kick some ass, but until that happens, he's out of my top 5 rankings. Actually, I'd love more than anything for him to avenge that loss over Nick Diaz. Let's make that happen.
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