Dana White Accuses Unnamed Sites of Taking Payoffs for Ranking Non-UFC Fighters With Zero Evidence

But Zuffa already dominates the top 10 lists with fighters whose ranks can be established based on the fact that they all fight on another. They wouldn’t need to go out of their way to push somebody up the rankings the way that a small promotion could give what amounts to chump-change to them to an MMA writer for ads who then thinks, “Well, Chase Beebe did look pretty good in his last fight….” :-)

How long was/is Robbie Lawler ranked in the top 10 of middleweights? He was top 5 for a while, yes?

MADNESS.

— George Carlin

I seriously don’t know why I bother. Every conversation ends in how you’ve talked to the source. Sources change their thinking, and they say different things. You can tell me Dana White said it’s because Fedor is a heavyweight all you want, but the guy never falters from saying Fedor hasn’t fought anyone… since the late 90’s. It used to be a couple of years, now it’s suddenly spanning a decade.

The fact of the matter is that Dana White needs to simply stay out of ranking discussion because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, nor does half the rankers out there. When I have to look at Helwani’s rankings, it makes me cringe and makes me believe he’s being paid off.

The pound for pound list has traditionally been a tool for fantasy fight booking. Who would win between fighters if size and weight wasn’t an issue. Obviously, he doesn’t think Fedor is as skilled as many smaller fighters.

This is just ridiculous. Traditionally, sure. But there are a lot of rankers who don’t see pound-for-pound in that capacity, and I’d say… dumb rankers. They simply rank who they think it just better overall without any consideration for that.

And who wins between fighters if size and weight wasn’t an issue is a completely subjective question to which various opinions will be formulated. Why White is mad about that is just comical.

Obviously, he doesn’t think Fedor is as skilled as many smaller fighters.

Agreed, but how absurd does that sound? He’s one of the quickest heavyweights, and he’s great in almost any area of a fight. Translate that down to lightweight where he’d be even faster. That’s why P4P is irrelevant. You can’t translate it.

and obviously evil. ;)

Yeah, but that’s such an unfair comparison because EVERYONE sees HW fighters as slower due to the size difference. Nobody can ever know how it would look if the guy lost 100 pounds.

You just told me that heavyweight boxers are no at the top of the P4P list.

So I’m left to my personal theory about your argument. My personal theory is that you have a silly understanding of what any ‘fair’ pound-for-pound metric would be – you understand that it would just entail making everyone the same size. This, of course, is the silliest thing you could do and pretend you have a fair comparison.

What a ‘fair’ hypothetical pound-for-pound metric would do would calculate the relative disadvantages and advantages that a fighter accrues based on their size – speed, coordination, power, leverage, etc – and make all those factors equal.

Would this mean that everyone would have equal attributes? No, it would mean that the attributes are re-scaled according to how the model deems they are influenced by size/weight.

Of course, P4P rankings are, like I said, mostly nonsense. But you’ve taken a mostly nonsense analytic construct, and made it complete freaking gibberish.

why are you even comparing Boxing p4p to MMA’s pound for pound. Actually bolth Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lewis all HW’s now bacl in the the late 80’s right up to the mid 90’s were all at one time in p4p list, And even now Wladimir Klitschko falls between 8 and 15 on most P4P boxing list.

I’ve got to imagine that Muhammed Ali topped the P4P rankings in his prime. I would guess Tyson too. Right now, there is little question that Manny and Floyd are 1a and 1b (or vice versa, depending on who you talk to), but a great heavyweight absolutely belongs on the P4P list, especially a heavyweight like Fedor who is considerably undersized in the division. (I’d bump Fedor further down on the list due to inactivity, but that’s another argument).

Also, I’ll say this again: I love P4P rankings. I think they go to the core of what we do here on BE by giving us a framework to discuss a sport we love. I don’t care that they don’t “mean” anything. I’ll still argue passionately about them.

Also, also. Dana is right about one thing. Fitch? Seriously?

The way I see Fedor is that he’s basically content as what he describes as a sportsman. He hasn’t moved into a mansion, he hasn’t gone all Rocky 3 and stopped training, he still lives in small town Russia. He has had a run of managers that I believe took amazing amounts of money from him, but he hasn’t really fought it that hard because money isn’t everything to him. He simply seems content with his lot.

Based on that premise I think someone insulting him would be more than enough to end a business relationship. Money really isn’t everything to this guy.

1. and 7 are just hilarious.

There are so many variables when it comes to someone writing out there top10 list in any devision. I do like some of what you are saying but the truth is you could never have a rule set when it comes to ranking fighters it would just leave for questions then there is now, The way most top MMA websites do there Rankings now is just fine buy me. They give each person on staff a vote on each devisions 1-10 then play the percentages from there on all the votes for there final 1-10 in each devision. That will probably always be the best way in my opinion ?

I didn’t even know that. Wow.

Is he still working for M-1 as well?