In the latest FightSport Mag (pg 18 & 19) they have listed their top fighter rankings as follows (in that order}:
HW: Fedor, Nog, Cro Cop, Barnett, Couture, Arlovski, Werdum, Sylvia, Gonzaga & Monson
LHW: Liddell, Rua, Henderson. Wanderlei, Arona, Sokoudjou, Nog, Rampage, Ortiz, Rashad
Any thoughts?
Lidell is #1>??????? WTF???
have you seen the magazine at all? Pretty interesting takes on the fighters...they include their notes on the reasoning why thet have rated the fighters that way.
In WW: St Pierre, Hughes, Serra, Aoki, Diego Sanchez, Kos, Penn, Parysian, Fitch & Kikuchi
Yeah, the LHW rankings are wrong.
Guys,
Due to the time taken for printing and distribution these rankings are from May 1, 2007. Before Rampage beat Chuck
If anyone's seen the mag you'll notice that each fighters rank is explained in the notes. I don't expect everyone to agree with all the rankings as they're always fairly subjective.
DROC
Those are doubtless the worst rankings ever. They are actually worse than many of the fan boy rankings.
Chuck was like #4 or #5 at best, gets crushed and magically becomes #1?
Serra is the champ, just crushed the guy they have at #1 and GSP just crushed the guy they have at # 2.
Gonzaga tied with Monson when he just crushed Cro Cop is ridiculous.
Sok right below Arona who he just made an ass clown of is senseless...
There is nothing about those rankings that is consistant with brain activity.
Smac1, Chuck was ranked no1 before his fight with Rampage (which is when these rankings were made).
In no other sport does a fighter immediately replace the opponent he beat in the rankings. If Billy McIveneverheardofyou, ranked 254th in the world, from some swamp in Louisiana beat Tiger Woods in a golf match would he immediately be ranked no 1?
Rankings are based on recent performances and consistency, not just one fight which is why Serra doesn't immediately jump to the number 1 spot. Same with Gonzaga, he has one win over a top 10 fighter which got him into the top 10.
Sokoudjou has two wins over top 10 fighters and got into the top 10.
Arona was ranked 4th before he lost to Sokoukjou, the loss makes him drop 1 place.
DROC
DROC
ttT
When is the US edition going monthly? Thanks
Intuitionmedia,
We don't have a date for the magazine going monthly yet, it will depend on sales (which are going very well). I expect it will be either before the end of the year or perhaps early 2008.
DROC
I've put the two pages of rankings, with notes and rules for the rankings included, online.
You can take a look at http://darragh.creamer.free.fr/RankingsMay1.pdf
Please feel free to give your opinion, positive or negative.
DROC
great thanks
NO problem
i hate rankings like i hate herpes....although they do generate good debate
BM21
I've never had Herpes, but I'd certainly prefer to debate rankings than any form of VD
DROC
they should have a point system to determine this stuff
like hockey or something
Shadoknan, how would the points system work? How do you take into account the quality of opponents?
MMARanks.com has a points system that's pretty good, but they still have a panel of voters for the X factor
TTT for droc and the good people at Fight Sport Mag!
Thanks Quik and Tha Realness
"Smac1, Chuck was ranked no1 before his fight with Rampage (which is when these rankings were made)."
How? Who did he beat to magically get that ranking? There is no world where Lidell ever made sense as #1 except "I think he is the best". He certainly never had the wins over the top guys to warrant it. Has he ever beat a top 5 fighter in his career?
"In no other sport does a fighter immediately replace the opponent he beat in the rankings."
You don't know much about combat sports rankings do you? See boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai etc. for examples of sports that do their rankings in exactly that manner. The whole point of rankings is to figure out who should fight the champ next. The champ is always ranked number 1 (except for rankings that refer to the champ as "Champion" and start numbering from the top contender). In MMA because of the separate orgs this is difficult, so the number 1 guy is typically the linear champ. See Ring magazine's definitive boxing rankings for further detail on how to rank fighters in combat sports.
Couture being above Gonzaga is ridiculous. Couture has 1 heavyweight fight in the last 5 years, and got stopped in 2 of his last 3 HW fights. Gonzaga is 8-1 during the same time period with 8 stoppages and a recent dominating win over tougher competition than Couture has ever faced let alone beat. Hell Couture has lost half of his last 10 fights at any weight.
Serra is the undisputed #1 WW. He decisively beat the champ, if it turns out he does not deserve this the rankings will self correct the next time he fights. As of right now he earned it by any measure other than "I don't think he is the best" which has nothing to do with rankings.
Arona has lost 3 of his last 4, and has 1 win in the last 6 years over top 10 LHW competition. you apparently anointed him number 4 based on 1 meaningful win (and he lost the more important rematch).
"Sokoudjou has two wins over top 10 fighters and got into the top 10."
He has back to back destructive KO wins over top 5 competition. There is no objective or subjective system in the world that has him out of the top 5 other than "I like these other guys better". He has more wins over top 5 competition this year than Arona or Lidell have in the last 5 years.
"If Billy McIveneverheardofyou, ranked 254th in the world, from some swamp in Louisiana beat Tiger Woods in a golf match would he immediately be ranked no 1?"
If he followed it up by beating Phil Mickelson so badly that they didn't appear to belong on the same course, and 2 or 3 rounds of golf a year was all that golfers played... yes he would. Golfers play hundreds of rounds a year. This is a ludicrous analogy.
Honestly, it seems like you ranked the fighters based on who you think is the best instead of any sort of reasonable approach.
"I don't expect everyone to agree with all the rankings as they're always fairly subjective."
When 2 guys have not fought you might have a subjective decision to make between who is 2nd and who is 3rd. Otherwise rankings done right are quite objective.
For instance there was some debate over who was 2nd and who was 3rd at HW (since Nog beat Cro Cop, Cro Cop beat Barnett, and Barnett beat Nog). This debate continues because Gonzaga's win over Cro Cop puts him in either 2nd or 3rd depending on how you subjectively determined who was #2 and who was #3. Personally I think Nog's avenging his loss to Barnett cemented his #2 ranking, but others will argue (validly) that Cro Cop destroyed Barnett repeatedly while Nog went to two decisions, 1 he clearly lost, and 1 he won a close decision.
How the hell is Kosh right behind Diego who he just clearly beat?
How is Sherk who has NO wins over top 20 LW's EVER magically number 5? He has done nothing whatsoever to justify being in the top 10. He has no wins over top 10 competition in his entire career at any weight class. It seems that you are using the back in time machine ranking system to move Sherk up the rankings. His win over Diaz at a different WC when Diaz was not top 10, does not move Sherk up the rankings now because Diaz beat Gomi. This is the same back in time machine ranking people used as an excuse to move Lidell up the rankings when he beat Babalu who had a win over a young and inexperienced Shogun.
As ridiculous as we might think the decision is Diaz has no official wins at LW and can't be ranked. If he was he would be the undisputed number 1. Sakurai is the only other logical choice, who BTW has a win over your #1 in the last 2 years, as well as a win over Hansen... who Aoki beat to magically become #1 in your rankings. So Aoki loses to Sakurai and beats Hansen to magically become #1, but Sakurai beats both Aoki and Hansen and is #7. That's beyond subjective, that's fanboy.
Aoki is probably the best LW, but he has NO WINS over top 5 fighters EVER. He is clearly not #1.
Your notes contradict themselves at almost every turn.