USAT/SBN June MMA Consensus Rankings: Light Heavyweight

by Kid Nate on Jun 24, 2010 4:07 PM EDT in MMA Rankings

Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.

Rank	Fighter	Points	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Mauricio Rua	299	UFC	1
2	Lyoto Machida	285	UFC	2
3	Rashad Evans	275	UFC	3
4	Quinton Jackson	259	UFC	4
5	Anderson Silva	241	UFC	5
6	Forrest Griffin	235	UFC	6
7	Antonio Rogerio Nogueira	216	UFC	7
8	Muhammed Lawal	207	Strikeforce	8
9	Gegard Mousasi	164	Strikeforce	10
10	Thiago Silva	163	UFC	9
11	Rich Franklin	138	UFC	13
12	Jon Jones	137	UFC	12
13	Randy Couture	129	UFC	14
14	Dan Henderson	129	Strikeforce	11
15	Ryan Bader	105	UFC	17
16	Vitor Belfort	90	UFC	16
17	Renato Sobral	82	Strikeforce	20
18	Keith Jardine	75	UFC	18
19	Brandon Vera	62	UFC	21
20	Matt Hamill	59	UFC	23
21	Chuck Liddell	53	UFC	19
22	Luis Arthur Cane	49	UFC	15
23	Tito Ortiz	46	UFC	22
24	Cyrille Diabate	45	UFC	NR
24	Wanderlei Silva	45	UFC	27

Not a lot of movement in MMA's premiere division this month. The biggest fight featured #21 Chuck Liddell losing to #11 Rich Franklin at UFC 115.

This led to a two spot jump for Franklin and an equal drop for Liddell.

Otherwise most of the changes in the rankings this month are more noise than signal. Other than a three spot jump for #17 Renato "Babalu" Sobral after beating Robbie Lawler at last week's Strikeforce: Los Angeles.

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.

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Comments

Jesus Christ

I guess I must be especially proud of my LHW rankings, but this is ridiculous:

Lawal and Mousasi both ranked over Thiago Silva, whom has only lost to Machida and Evans thus far
Lil Nog is seventh while Jason Brilz is… are you fucking kidding me? Am I the only one that ranked him?

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com

by Derek Suboticki on Jun 25, 2010 1:23 AM EDT reply actions

What sort of methodology is typically used in determining rankings?

I guess it all depends on how you determine your rankings. It appears that the methodology is more like golf or tennis, where the last several years of history play into the rankings – more like a career snapshot than realistic rankings of where they are today.

Some are just silly (Rampage at 4, Griffin at 6), some quite questionable based on recent fights (Little Nog at 7, Anderson only at 5, Jones only at 12).

But if we were to look at the fighters a little more realistically, either in the very subjective terms of who beats who (and not via MMAMath) or even more like pre-tournament NCAA rankings, then these appear to be way off…

I don’t claim to have a better definable methodology, but I would think most reasonable people would agree for example that any out of the group of Rua, Machida, Anderson and Jon Jones would be favored against any of the remaining 21, with the possible exception of Lawal against Rua or Anderson.

by BigDNotDallas on Jun 25, 2010 3:05 AM EDT up reply actions

I use a combo

It’s part record, part who I think would beat who. I’ll throw my ballot up later for people to pick at.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com

by Derek Suboticki on Jun 25, 2010 1:11 PM EDT up reply actions

Some are essentially interchangable, but I would say something like:

1. Rua, by default
2. Anderson, by current reality
3. Machida
4. Evans, largely on record, and even though Jones would take him
5. Jones
6. Lawal
7. Diet Nog, in spite of the short notice Brilz fight
8. T. Silva
9. Mousasi
10. Rampage, whom I can’t realistically see beating any of those above him.

by BigDNotDallas on Jun 26, 2010 2:46 AM EDT up reply actions

Mousasi’s only wins at LHW are over Sokonojudo and Babalu, and Mo’s biggest win at LHW is over Mousasi. How the hell are either of them in the top ten?

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com

by Derek Suboticki on Jun 26, 2010 6:37 PM EDT up reply actions