Bloody Elbow August MMA Meta-Rankings: Middleweight
| Fighter | Points | Promotion | Last Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Anderson Silva | 500 | UFC | 1 |
| 2. Paulo Filho | 469 | WEC | 2 |
| 3. Rich Franklin | 431 | UFC | 3 |
| 4. Robbie Lawler | 413 | Elite XC |
4 |
| 5.Yushin Okami | 402 | UFC | 5 |
| 6. Dan Henderson | 382 | UFC | 6 |
| 7. Nathan Marquardt | 297 | UFC | 7 |
| 8. Kazuo Misaki | 295 | WVR/Strikeforce | 9 |
| 9. Matt Lindland | 292 | Affliction | 8 |
| 10. Frank Trigg | 248 | WVR/Strikeforce | 10 |
| 11. Gegard Mousasi | 195 | DREAM | 11 |
| 12.Yoshihiro Akiyama | 193 | DREAM | 13 |
| 13. Thales Leites | 189 | UFC | 12 |
| 14. Patrick Cote | 142 | UFC | 14 |
| 15. Jason Miller | 131 | DREAM | 17 |
| 16. Michael Bisping | 130 | UFC | 15 |
| 17. Ronaldo Souza | 128 | DREAM | 18 |
| 18. Martin Kampmann | 120 | UFC | 16 |
| 19. Jorge Santiago | 112 | WVR/Strikeforce | 19 |
| 20. Demian Maia | 95 | UFC | NR |
| 21. Joey Villasenor | 82 | EliteXC | 20 |
| 22. Vitor Belfort | 81 | Affliction | 25 |
| 23. Denis Kang | 75 |
DREAM |
21 |
| 23. Murilo Rua | 75 | EliteXC | 23 |
| 25. Chael Sonnen | 74 | WEC | 22 |
This division remains a mess! Despite a wealth of talented fighters and seven major promotions (UFC, WEC, EliteXC, DREAM, WVR, Afflictiong and Strikeforce) booking top fighters, there's more confusion than clarity at 185. First off, Anderson Silva has cleaned out the UFC middleweight division so brutally that he has literally no interesting fights left there.
Sure I was looking forward to Silva/Okami but I wasn't expecting it to be too competitive. And now that Okami's out of UFC 90 with a broken hand, I have to say I find the Silva/Cote matchup mostly sad. Cote's meta-ranked at #14 but I think there's a good bit of inflation going on because he's got a title shot coming up.
Then you've got Rich Franklin moving up to 205 after having lost badly twice to Silva. It's too bad as I'd much rather see Franklin take on the other contenders in the UFC 185 than move up . There's no way he contends at 205 and I think Anderson might be moving out of the division. Let's see who the second best at 185 is. We're missing out on scads of good fights -- Franklin vs Henderson/Marquardt/Leites/Bisping/Kampmann are all more intriguing than Franklin/Hamill.
They seem to be building Henderson back up by giving him a fight against BJJ ace Rousimar Palhares at UFC 88 -- a fight Dan should win, although Palhares is a very promising young fighter. Meanwhile Marquardt and Kampmann will face off at the same event. Marquardt lost to Thales Leites, but it hasn't hurt him too much in the meta-rankings and I think it raised his profile with the fans quite a bit. Nate the Great is now a certified heel. Kampmann was on the fast-track to a title shot before sitting out many months with injuries. He's already beat Leites so a win over Marquardt should get him very close to a title shot. I don't think he can do it though.
Demian Maia bursts into the rankings after his impressive win over gatekeeper Jason McDonald. If Michael Bisping can beat Chris Leben, the two of them might be on a collision course. Leites is up against former light heavyweight Goran Reljic for his next fight, that winner will also be in the mix.
Paulo Filho is at a put-up or shut up moment when he rematches Chael Sonnen. The undefeated PRIDE veteran looked bad in the first match and his subsequent break due to depression and drug problems didn't help his reputation any. Rumors persist that Zuffa will be folding the WEC's 185lb division into the UFC so even if Filho gets past Sonnen, he's looking at being another undersized BJJ ace in a division that's packed with them. Is he better than Maia, Leites, or Palhares? We might find out.
Robbie Lawler didn't draw eyeballs as the headliner for EliteXC's second CBS show. He won't be getting top competition challenging for his belt anytime soon either. The best EliteXC can do is #21 Joey Villasenor who Lawler beat in 2006 and Murilo Rua who lost to Lawler in 2007.
DREAM's middleweight tournament should propel Mousasi and Souza further up the standings -- provided they win in the next round. Sadly, the word is that a desperate for ratings DREAM is looking at matching the hated Akiyama up against a heavyweight instead of letting him fight the tournament winner at the end of the year. Jason "Mayhem" Miller has certainly benefited from his exposure in Japan, despite losing to Souza, his rankings have only risen.
World Victory Road and Strikeforce have overlap on several fighters -- Misaki, Trigg, and Santiago. Misaki will be fighting Joe Riggs at Strikeforce's upcoming Playboy Mansion show. That fight could lead to matches against Cung Le or Frank Shamrock for the "Grabaka Hitman." There's also talk of a rematch with Frank Trigg who's also talking Le or Shamrock. The upcoming WVR/Sengoku middleweight tournament shouldn't be ignored either as it will include #19 Jorge Santiago against a decent field including Shooto champ Siyar Bahadurzada, veterans Yuki Kondo and Yuki Sasaki, plus the always fun Cyborg Santos. No word on whether or not Misaki or Trigg will participate.
Meanwhile poor Matt Lindland is awfully lonely fighting for Affliction. His ranking continues to erode and now instead of fighting #22 Vitor Belfort, he'll be fighting Trevor Prangley in what could be a tough match with almost no upside for Lindland.
Based on the premise that opinions are like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink, instead of putting up our own subjective fighter rankings, we compile and average the rankings of every source we could find online.
The goal is to show how the MMA community rates the fighters, not to bore you with our opinions.
Be sure and look at the points, they're a much more telling number than the ranking. There's clearly a huge gulf between the top 9 fighters and those that follow.
A total of 40 fighters were ranked in the top 25 by one source or another. For reasons of sanity I only track the top 25 most highly rated fighters.
25 points are awarded for a first place ranking, 16 for a 10th place ranking, 1 for a 25th place ranking. A formula is used to "normalize" the data so all fighters are awarded points from those lists that do not include a full 25 fighters. Each site consulted awards a total of 325 points. Fuller explanation below.
Rankings were compiled from the following sites: TAGG Radio, MMA News, Sherdog, Cage Potato, MMA On Tap, Five Ounces of Pain, Houston Chronicle's Brawl Sports, WAMMA, MMA Fighting, MMA-ELO, FCFighter, 411 Mania, MMA Madness, FightMatrix, MMA Playground, HDNet/Inside MMA, MMAVT (Japan), Figure 4 Online, Fighters.com, and Total MMA.
The normalization scheme as explained by JCS of FightMatrix is here:
The “normalization number” (new name) would be:
120
divided by
(Total Fighters Found in Any List minus 10)Every fighter found somewhere else, but on a Top 10 list would be assigned this number.
The “normalization” number would not apply to a fighter not found on a Top 25 list. They would simply get 0.
So the process would be:
Do all of the Top 25 lists first, #1 = 25, #2 = 24…. #24 = 2, #25 = 1
Do all of the Top 10 lists, same scoring structure.. stops at #10 = 16Figure out that normalization variable.
Fill in the normalization variable to all fighters not found in the Top 10 lists, but found elsewhere.
Do your totals and rank.
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I wonder if UFC will eventually have another Rich Franklin/Silva fight. I’m sure Rich will work his way back up middleweight and get pummeled by Anderson one more time. Some guys never learn.
Rob Dib
http://www.break-your-face.com
I feel the same way, to an extent, about the UFC MW division, as I do about the LWs. Take Anderson (BJ) out, and it is fairly compelling. Marquardt, Almeida, Palhares, Filho(?), Maia, Leites, Cote, Okami, McDonald, Hendo, Kampmann and Bisping, can make some very interesting match ups. All those grapplers could really put on shows, ala Maia/McDonald, one of the best fights of the year, imo.
"The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'"
Unfortuneately
For the UFC (and the hardcore fan), a large majority of viewers don’t care for grappler matchups. Sadly, even alot of “hardcore” fans just want bloody striker battles.
"I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them."
-George Bush
I think Maia has the ability to change that. His ground game is just crazy tight. Its really amazing to watch him work.
Agreed
Best in the game right now (in my opinon). I love to watch a good grappling showdown, but most of the bar watchers and new fans don’t care. Sad. I hope it does change a bit here in the future. I think BJJ in the olympics could do more for MMA than anything else right now.
"I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them."
-George Bush
people are learning
at the bar I watched the Ortiz/Machida fight at the yahoos knew enough to know that Tito almost won it at the end with a triangle. I didn’t get to watch UFC 87 with a crowd so I have no feel for how the Maia/McDonald fight went over.
I think
there is a distinct difference between knowing it’s almost over and nearly having an orgasam (exageration) when seeing someone pull off an amazing sweep into mount.
"I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them."
-George Bush
I should rephrase...
It’s good that even the drunk meatheads are starting to come around. However, until they can cheer and high five when somebody throws down a super technical move, I’ll continue to be under the impression that they just don’t get it.
"I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them."
-George Bush
A) You guys should preemptively add in a comment complaining about the rankings and then explaining AGAIN what meta means every time you post one of these. Just to save time, you see.
B) I’m gonna say it every month if I have to: LAWLER? ROBBIE LAWLER?!?! REALLY?!?!? Dear MMA Bloggers (not you guys, I know what meta means), please recognize that EliteXC and their belts are jokes. Thanks.
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones
I know this sounds crazy, but I think Lawler/Chris Leben would be a great fight. Leben has grown on me since he was absolutely humbled by AS. He’s gotten his shit together.
It doesn't sound crazy...
it’d be a fun striking matchup. But still…Lawler belongs nowhere near top 5 in the world.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Aug 27, 2008 8:32 PM EDT up reply actions
I’m glad I’m not the only one completely blown away by Lawler’s inclusion in the top five. I mean seriously, wtf is that about?
by Richard Wade on Aug 27, 2008 8:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Agree
I don’t understand why Lawler is top 5 and you make no comment about that, yet you say something about Cote’s rating being inflated. Give me a break. Ya, ya, meta ranking blah, blah. Poor Patrick, never gets any love despite his recent success. I like him, too bad he has to lose to Silva next.
Lawler's been top 5
as long as I’ve been doing this and frankly with wins over 3 other top 25 fighters I can see where Lawler could be considered top 10.
Cote is a recent arrival and his wins over Grove, Almeida, Day, and Smith were either not impressive or against weak competition. He also had back to back losses to Chris Leben and Joe Doerksen in 2005.
I just don’t see where the guy is anywhere near ready for a title shot.
Agreed on both points. Lawler has not impressed me enough to be top 5. top 10 maybe…maybe.
Cote is the typically overranked UFC fighter who has a big fight coming up. He isn’t a bad fighter and I like him, but come on. He “beat” Almeida and I would have less of a problem if Almeida was ranked there.
"The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'"
It's got to do with his ICON/PRIDE run of 2006/2007 not EliteXC
beating Vitale, Villasenor, Ninja Rua and especially Trigg (who was coming off wins over Mayhem and Misaki) really made an impression on a lot of people.
Obviously the loss to Mayhem has been largely forgotten…
I’m just saying that he was chased out of the UFC’s welterweight division – and has been beating other similarly chased-out welterweights like Scott Smith and Frank Trigg. How is that supposed to impress me?
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ. -- TangleBones
he was chased out of the UFC middleweight division actually
by Evan Tanner.
Smith was also a failed UFC middleweight.
Trigg’s crushing of Mayhem and Misaki were impressive.
I was planning to put up that table for all the classes at once, but TAGG Radio was down yesterday, so I couldn’t pull the numbers from it.
by Richard Wade on Aug 29, 2008 4:46 PM EDT up reply actions

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