I understand the point of "aging" a fight. I really do. Bellieve me when I say that I've toyed around with it a lot.
But it became one of those things where it made perfect sense in one set of circumstances, but totally counter-productive in another.
It sort of ties in with the cronological vs. dynamic debate too.
Aging, together with the static vs. dynamic point awards created some cases where it worked well, and others where it arguably worked poorly.
BJ Penn and Fujita are favourite examples of mine.
Both burst onto the scene and slowly started making waves. When we first saw them one would assume that they were newbies scoring major upsets. Fujita over Mark Kerr???? Surely a devastating upset loss for Kerr, right?
But as we became more familiar with Fujita through fights to come, we could say that Fujita was a legitimately solid competitor. I think even in our minds, we started to forgive Kerr a little more, each time Fujita showed well.
Same with BJ Penn. Surely we began to forgive Paul Rodriguez more and more for losing to BJ, once it became increasing evident how good BJ was.
I completley understand the flipside point, where it was debated that someone like Wanderlei could experience a life-changing scenario where his career could go down the drain. In this case each successive loss that Wanderlei might suffer would statistically hurt those who beat him when he was at a pinnacle. Fair point, and as you can see, using the same system provides a converse effect to the BJ and Fujita examples.
So is it a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation?
My take on this particular scenario has always settled on this other factor.... Sure Wanderlei losing 4 in a row would hurt Arona's rank, but none of that stops Arona from continuing to seek out wins over those who are now the elite.
If Wanderlei loses 4 in a row, surely we'd all essentally consider him out of the picture, so it's then up to Arona to beat whoever IS ranked, if he wishes to maintain a lofty status.
That all speaks more toward the dynamic system though. I think the dynamic system works best.
As for aging a fight result gradually... again it may seem perfectly fine in one case, but you'd see other cases where you wouldn't like the results it gave you.
It almost works opposite to those same scenarios I described for the dynamic system.
When Wanderlei was smaking Sak around three times, one might argue that Sak was at his best the first time, and became progressively worse and more broken-down each time. If older fights were worth a lesser percentage, then what was supposed to be Wanderlei's best win over Sak, would become his most worthless win, simply because it had aged longer.
I guess what I'm saying is, both the aging and the dynamic systems will help or hurt you depending on which way your opponent happens to be headed.
Actually, aging would help lessen the damage of a loss, which I guess is another reason I'm not sold.
Through aging, losing to Fedor would be less damaging to Nogueira than it would be for Cro Cop, simply because Nog did it first.
In my book, both guys lost to Fedor, so should both suffer the same deduction. I don't really care if one happened 8 months before the other. If anything, you can argue that Fedor was a more solidified fighter when he fought Cro Cop, thus should hurt Cro Cop less. But aging would do the opposite.
Then of coarse there's the deal where Fedor fights Nog on one NYE show, and Zuluzinho on the next. If I aged fights, it would reduce the value of the Nog win more than it would reduce the value of the Zulu fight.
I shudder to think that I'd be giving a win over Nog and a win over Zuluzinho similar point awards, simply because one happened earlier.
I want Fdor to get full marks for beating Nog until he moves on and fights enough other people to put Nog in the past.