Top 10 Flyweights Meta-Ranked for March

by Chromium on Mar 24, 2010 9:49 PM EDT

No, this is not an official Bloody Elbow meta-ranking, since I don't work for them, but I did manage to find 5 sites that had Flyweight rankings that didn't mix genders (like MMA ELO), and decided to combine their rankings using BE's formula modified for a mere Top 10, giving anyone ranked #1 ten points, #2 nine points, and so forth. Sherdog, Fight Matrix, MMARocks, FiveKnuckles.com, and MMARising.com all have relatively recent Flyweight rankings, and were the sources for this. The consensus #1 Flyweight was Jussier "Formiga" da Silva, who has been inactive since beating longtime #1 Shinichi "B.J." Kojima last July. Kojima was the consensus #2. See the rest of the rankings after the jump.

Fighter	Points	Record	Promotion
1) Jussier da Silva	50	3-0-0	Shooto
2) Shinichi Kojima	45	10-4-5	Shooto
3) (tie) Yuki Shoujou	35	10-5-2	Shooto
3) (tie) Yasuhiro Urushitani	35	16-4-6	Shooto
5) Mamoru Yamaguchi	29	23-5-3	Shooto
6) Ryuichi Miki	22	10-3-3	Shooto
7) Kiyotaka Shimiza	11	5-3-1	Pancrase
8) Rambaa Somdet	10	7-2-0	Shooto
9) Alexis Vila	9	6-0-0	G-Force Fights
10) Pat Runez	8	4-0-0	UWC/PFC

Also receiving points: Daniel Otero (6 points), Jessie Riggleman (4 points), Mitsuhara Sunabe (4 points), Masaaki Sunabe (3 points), Jesse Taitano (2 points), and Fumihiro Kitahara (1 point).

It seems Shooto has a near monopoly on top Flyweights. Furthermore, there's a remarkable amount of stagnancy there, as #1 Jussier da Silva, #2 Shinichi Kojima, #3 Yasuhiro Urushitani, and #9 Alexis Vila all have gone 6 months or more without a fight. It should also be noted that #8 Rambaa Somdet doesn't fight exclusively at Flyweight, as he also fights in Shooto's 114 lbs. Strawweight class (which they call "Flyweight"; they call their Flyweight class "Bantamweight," because apparently that's just how they roll), as the division's first Champion. As such, he was only listed in two of the five rankings, although it was still enough to get him into the top 10.

In my opinion, the WEC Flyweight division cannot come soon enough. If you've ever seen Rambaa Somdet fight, you know how talented and charismatic the guy is. There are currently some very good WEC fighters who could comfortably drop to Flyweight but aren't doing so since that's not an option. No offense to Shooto, which is an extremely important promotion to MMA history, and is still the gold standard at 125 lbs. and under (well, technically 123 lbs.), but I think a lot of questions would be answered about who truly are the world's top Flyweights if Zuffa could get behind the division and start running regular fights at the weight class.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.

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Nice...

Creator of the FightMatrix rating system.

by JCS_FM on Mar 24, 2010 10:11 PM EDT reply actions

By the way, I wrote this now in part because BE is about to release their official monthly meta-rankings. Check out the rankings page, rankings for LW-HW are already up.

by Chromium on Mar 25, 2010 2:53 AM EDT reply actions

cool stuff

Follow me on Twitter @KidNate

by Nate Wilcox on Mar 25, 2010 10:37 AM EDT reply actions

Nice post, rec’d

http://www.twitter.com/TB_Money

by Tim Burke on Mar 25, 2010 10:55 AM EDT reply actions

havent seen too many of these guys fight

but i think if joseph benevidez were to drop down hed be a force to be reckoned with

by milk72 on Mar 25, 2010 1:03 PM EDT reply actions

WEC fighters dropping down, not to mention all the largely unknown talents in America and Brazil not having much contact with the rather insular Japanese talent pool, are one of the many reasons I’d love for Zuffa to get behind the division. Zuffa absolutely dominates the Bantamweight rankings today, for instance, and the WEC Champion at BW is recognized as the best in the world. This was not true at all before the WEC started running regular fights at that class. With the WEC running more shows and experimenting with PPVs, it only makes sense to add another division and another Champion they can use to headline shows with, not to mention the fact that Flyweight fights are just fun to watch.

by Chromium on Mar 25, 2010 9:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Somdet

is an absolute firecracker, I honestly don’t think any of the guys at -125 can even compete with him standing.

He’s super exciting to watch

Supporting all Las Vegas MMA. Xtreme Couture- "The Best Never Rest!"

Go Gonzaga! G-O-N-Z-A-G-A

by ElliotMatheny on Mar 25, 2010 9:33 PM EDT reply actions

Somdet is fucking amazing, and is the reason I wish the unified rules would expand to include a Strawweight class, as he is actually quite small even for 125. Dana White said that he thought MMA could probably go as low, weight-wise, as boxing does, so I hope Zuffa gets behind the idea. I don’t think MMA is ready for a Minimumweight class (outside of women’s MMA), but 115 is plausible. There are wrestlers, boxers, and kickboxers who fight at 115 or lower, so if such a division was created in MMA, you could probably find enough competitive talent.

by Chromium on Mar 25, 2010 11:29 PM EDT up reply actions

The little dudes are awesome to watch. rec’d.

by The Flying Gentleman on Mar 25, 2010 9:40 PM EDT reply actions

No Sports Illustrated rankings?

Bolts from the Blue // "He looks like a catfish" - Nick Hardwick on Brandon Siler
Bloody Elbow // " looks like your comment violated rule #4. and it’s a heck of a rule, rule #4" - Kid Nate

by Richard Wade on Mar 25, 2010 11:54 PM EDT reply actions

Like the majority of outlets that rank MMA, Sports Illustrated does not rank Flyweights. It was hard enough just to find five places that did that on a regular basis that didn’t mix genders. Only three of the sources I use are also used by Bloody Elbow for their meta-rankings, and only Fight Matrix ranked more than the top 10 (Sherdog did have five “honorable mentions”).

by Chromium on Mar 26, 2010 12:56 AM EDT up reply actions

I disagree.

Bolts from the Blue // "He looks like a catfish" - Nick Hardwick on Brandon Siler
Bloody Elbow // " looks like your comment violated rule #4. and it’s a heck of a rule, rule #4" - Kid Nate

by Richard Wade on Mar 27, 2010 6:49 PM EDT up reply actions

Providing an actual link would have been a much better rebuttal...

but after looking into the matter, it seems that BE’s link to SI’s MMA rankings in the meta-ranking section is outdated. As SI only releases MMA rankings via Josh Gross’ columns, I had to go through those until I found the most recent one, from March 5th, which indeed had a Flyweight ranking. I may include that if I do this again. I am a little hesitant though, since it seemed to mirror Sherdog’s February and March Flyweight rankings exactly (the Bantamweight rankings too, for that matter, at least for February), and Josh Gross used to work for Sherdog, making me wonder about his objectivity when it came to the least-watched weight class (everyone else’s rankings were unique and none of the sites have any strong connection to each other like that). Anyway if I were to include Josh Gross’ Flyweight rankings for SI, Yuki Shoujo would become the sole #3 Flyweight, Yashuhiro Urushitani would drop to #4, Pat Runez would jump to #8, while Rambaa Somdet would fall to #9 and Pat Runez would fall to #10.

I would take that with a grain of salt though, particularly with regards to Somdet, whom again, isn’t even ranked by a lot of sites because he fights at Strawweight now (he is the Shooto World Champion).

by Chromium on Mar 28, 2010 3:30 AM EDT reply actions