The Art and Science of MMA Matchmaking

Michael David Smith at AOL Fanhouse has a really good interview with WEC matchmaker Sean Shelby talking about how he sees his job:

I have to form a line of credible athletes and keep the line moving. I owe it to the champions. Of course there are so many things that go along with that, but I'm trying to find out just who is the absolute best in the world. Not only that, but who is second best, third best, fourth best, and so on.

What he looks for in a prospect:

In each weight class I've got about 20 guys I keep my eye on to see if they're still fighting and still winning, and so then when there's an opening, I'll call one of the managers for those guys.

I want somebody who looks like a pro. I want somebody who's got a lot of ring time, at least four pro fights. I want somebody who's got crisp stand-up and is a complete martial artist. And also somebody who's a scrambler as well, meaning they'll really go after it.

And how he and Joe Silva decided on Takeya Mizugaki as a late-replacement for Brian Bowles:

When Bowles fell out, Joe Silva and I were talking, and we just said, 'Let's just get the toughest sonofabitch we can find. We owed that to Miguel Torres, because Miguel doesn't like easy fights. So I thought Mizugaki was an opponent the hard-cores would like. Not a lot of people knew about him in the United States, but I thought it would be a good fight. And it turned out to be an awesome fight. An incredibly awesome fight. And I think it shows that WEC caters to the hard-cores. If you're a real, hard-core fan of MMA, you like what the WEC is doing.