FightLines: Light Heavyweights - Vol. II

W Silva = Arona
Griffin > Bonnar > Jardine > Griffin
Jardine > Liddell > W Silva > Jardine
Ortiz > Griffin > Jackson > Liddell > Ortiz

FightLines: FAQ
FightLines: the Original (Light Heavyweight)

Forrest Griffin blew up FightLines.

With his win over Quinton "Rampage" Jackson on July 5th, Griffin introduced a loop with Rampage, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, and himself.  In the process, he instituted a Tecumseh Sherman-esque "scorched earth" path of destruction on my beautiful baby.

What's left in the wake?  Well, Jackson, Wand, and Dan Henderson end up on their own little island, sent off like 3 little boys who've been making trouble on the blacktop.  Chuck Liddell is left with a lone victory over Renato Sobral.  Forrest finds himself atop of his own (short) path.  It even affects Lyoto Machida, who loses his path to Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and other Pride stalwarts through Tito Ortiz via Forrest.

We're stuck with a division without any clear hierarchy.  None of the subjective top guys (Forrest, Rampage, Chuck, Machida, and Shogun) have impressive showings on our graph.  Rashad Evans comes out of the mess looking the best, but again, subjectively, doesn't really have a solid batch of victories.

Fortunately, Liddell/Evans ends up having some semblance of relevance now and I've already praised Thiago Silva/Machida as a solid bit of matchmaking.  However with Wandy probably shelved until December, Shogun's bum knee, and Rampage's sanity in question, we may not get all the questions answered for some time.

Additional notes and analysis after the break

-The use of the Meta-Rankings added some more data points (the big ones being Vladimir Matyushenko and Matt Hamill), but like the welterweights, didn't really make any significant changes to the makeup of the graph.  Glover Teixeira has a nice little spot because of his victory over the African Assassin, Sokoudjou.

-Initially, I resisted Zuffa's plan on giving Chuck a title shot if he gets by Rashad Evans.  I suppose I'm still against the idea that title shots are being determined by who the champ is (because I don't think we'd be seeing Liddell/Jackson III if Rampage had won the decision against Griffin), but I'm coming around to accepting Liddell as Plan A.  Now, if they give Evans a shot before Machida, I'm going to start kicking down Dana's door.

Majority Leaders - Top 5

1. David Heath 45.9% (0/17)
2. Rashad Evans 43.2% (16/0)
3. Stephan Bonnar 35.1% (12/1)
3. James Irvin 35.1% (10/3)
5. Thiago Silva 32.4% (12/0)
5. Wilson Gouveia 32.4% (5/7)
5. Jason Lambert 32.4% (3/9)