Bloody Elbow August MMA Meta-Rankings: Welterweight

This month's GSP vs Jon Fitch matchup didn't really impact the ratings much. Fitch's standing has eroded just a little bit but not a lot. Diego Sanchez is moving up, passing an injury-sidelined Matt Hughes en route to a big time fight with #3 Thiago Alves at UFC 90. The winner of that fight should emerge as the #2 welterweight. I expect they'll also get first crack at the winner of GSP/BJ Penn sometime in spring/summer 2009 as well.

Zuffa has 19 of these top 25 welterweights signed, 17 of them to the UFC. They've dominated this division for years and show no signs of falling behind. Their long-range plans for WEC aren't clear however so I'm not sure if we'll find out if Carlos Condit is really top 10 material in 2009 or not. Larson is surging after his demolition of a tough Carlo Prater a few weeks back. He'll get a second chance at Condit and since quick submissions are rarely repeated in rematches, I expect he'll give Condit a very tough test. Larson gave Jon Fitch a tough fight a few years back so he's a legit top 15 fighter.

For all Condit's isolation in the WEC though, Jake Shields is the real odd man out in this division. He's got a great resume and just buzz-sawed through Nick Thompson, the highest ranked challenger outside the UFC. But will fighting Paul "Semtex"  Daley get Shields anything beyond money and exposure? As dangerous as Daley is, he's pretty unknown -- only scoring enough on the meta-rankings calculations to come in in the top 30 with 56 points.

UFC 88 will pit #9 Karo Parisyan against #13 Yoshiyuki Yoshida in a match that could be a snoozer. Judo guys cancel each other out IMO. They'll likely end up clinched up against the fence not giving the other guy the leverage to bust a throw. If Karo wins, especially via decision, he's secure in his gatekeeper role but not much else. If Yoshida wins, he's on the fast track to contention.

The long awaited Matt Hughes vs Matt Serra match is rumored for UFC 91. The loser of that will be on his way out. Personally I'd like to see Serra go back to 155 where he's a threat to anyone.

Swick, Gono, Wilson, Hardy and Hazelett are all on the rise in the UFC. Gono and Hardy will collide at UFC 89.  Neither will emerge as an immediate contender but the winner will definitely be on the right track. David Baron is ranked at WW for his win over Hayato Sakurai but will be fighting at 155 for the UFC. Marcus Davis' loss to Swick exposed him as a non-contender but he seems likely to keep getting fights in the UFC UK and should continue to do well as long as he avoids good wrestlers.

Affliction's nonsensical signing of IFL champ Jay Hieron makes little sense. Should be fun to see him against Drew Fickett. Fickett's a good yard stick. But is Hieron going to sell a single PPV? And what does Affliction get him long-term

I'm thinking the rumored Sakurai vs Diaz matchup in DREAM won't be happening until EliteXC dies if then. Neither is really going anywhere anytime soon IMO not at 170lbs anyway.

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 42 fighters were ranked in the top 25 by one source or another, for reasons of sanity I only track the top 25 (26 due to a tie) 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. 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, FightMatrix, MMA Playground, HDNet/Inside MMA, MMAVT (Japan), and Total MMA, Fighters.com and Figure 4 Online.

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 = 16

Figure 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.