USAT/SBN May MMA Consensus Rankings: Welterweight

by Nate Wilcox on May 26, 2010 8:53 PM EDT

Rank	Fighter	Points	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Georges St. Pierre	375	UFC	1
2	Jon Fitch	357	UFC	2
3	Thiago Alves	342	UFC	3
4	Josh Koscheck	318	UFC	4
5	Paulo Thiago	311	UFC	5
6	Dan Hardy	286	UFC	7
7	Nick Diaz	280	Strikeforce	6
8	Paul Daley	251	Impact FC	8
9	Matt Hughes	246	UFC	9
10	Jake Shields	187	Free Agent	15
11	Martin Kampmann	180	UFC	10
12	Jay Hieron	139	Strikeforce	12
12	Matt Serra	139	UFC	12
14	Mike Swick	132	UFC	11
14	Carlos Condit	132	UFC	14
16	Dan Hornbuckle	111	Bellator	15
17	Marius Zaromskis	105	DREAM/Strikeforce	17
18	Mike Pierce	85	UFC	18
19	Anthony Johnson	83	UFC	19
20	Akihiro Gono	70	WVR	20
21	Jake Ellenberger	67	UFC	21
22	Ricardo Almeida	62	UFC	22
23	John Howard	53	UFC	23
24	Chris Lytle	49	UFC	24
25	Ben Saunders	43	UFC	25

Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.

# 1 Georges St Pierre remains atop the welterweight division. From his lofty perch he awaits #4 Josh Koscheck. They'll coach The Ultimate Fighter together before facing off in a title fight at the end of the year.

Hopefully nothing goes wrong with this plan. I hate to think we'd only see GSP fight once this year.

#2 Jon Fitch and #3 Thiago Alves will finally face off at UFC 117. The winner will presumably get a title shot. It's very unlikely, but part of me hopes that Fitch and Koscheck both win just to force them to fight.

No word on what's next for #6 Dan Hardy. At least he managed to lose gracefully, unlike teammate #8 Paul Daley who got himself cut from the UFC for his post-fight cheap shot on Koscheck at UFC 113. Daley's exile begins in Australia at Impact FC in July.

#7 Nick Diaz will face MMA legend Hayato "Mach" Sakurai this weekend at DREAM.14. No word on whether he'll be suspended for his brawl with Mayhem Miller at Strikeforce on CBS.

#9 Matt Hughes will fight #22 Ricardo Almeida, a pupil of Hughes' UFC 112 opponent Renzo Gracie at UFC at UFC 117. Presumably a win for Almeida would propel him into title contention.

#10 Jake Shields owes his relatively low welterweight ranking to the fact that he hasn't fought in the division since 2008. If he does sign with the UFC as many expect, he'll likely be on the quick track for a title shot.

Based on the premise that all MMA rankings are subjective but that it’s still useful and informative to know who the online MMA community as a whole ranks as the best fighters in MMA, we collect and average the rankings of the top MMA websites to produce our consensus rankings. We compile the top MMA rankings from each of our sources and award 25 points 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. This formula ensures that each ranking site awards the same number of total points regardless of how many fighters they choose to rank. Each fighter’s total is divided by the number of possible points to determine their standing in the Consensus Rankings.

We are now moving to what JCS of Fight Matrix has described as assumed rankings in an attempt to rank fighters who move between weight classes. This has been the biggest problem with the consensus rankings and we believe this new methodology will rectify that.

Let's take Anderson Silva for instance. 87% (13 of 15) of our panelists have him at Light Heavyweight and 100% (15 of 15) at Middleweight. On the 13 ballots that ranked Silva at 205, we took the average (21.2). We then reduced that number by half the percentage of Light Heavyweight ballots that he was not included on. Say he's not on 30% of them, then we do a 15% penalty on the average that we found in the previous step. That number is then used instead of the usual "normalization number" to provide points from those not ranking the fighter in the weight class in question. This avoids fighters being excessively penalized by confusion about which weight class they belong.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

WOnder what caused

the drop from Diaz over the course of one month. Negative perception from the melee I suppose, which is kind of silly.

http://mixedmartialartsblogger.wordpress.com/

by Cory Braiterman on May 27, 2010 2:39 PM EDT reply actions

Derek Suboticki, Jim Genia, Jesse Holland and MMA Playground all moved him down on their lists. The rest of the panel left him alone.

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 May 27, 2010 4:26 PM EDT up reply actions

Why would he get dropped in rankings

over a fight he was clearly winning? ( =

"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe

by pdl on May 27, 2010 9:44 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

heh

http://mixedmartialartsblogger.wordpress.com/

by Cory Braiterman on May 28, 2010 1:20 AM EDT up reply actions

You can’t have someone who lost head-to-head directly ahead of someone in the rankings. That just looks wrong. (Kos & P. Thiago). Also how has Shields’ success @ MW dropped his WW ranking?

by Mulefloyd on Jun 6, 2010 5:58 PM EDT reply actions