USAT/SBN June MMA Consensus Rankings: Welterweight

Rank	Fighter	Points	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Georges St. Pierre	300	UFC	1
2	Jon Fitch	285	UFC	2
3	Thiago Alves	272	UFC	3
4	Josh Koscheck	257	UFC	4
5	Nick Diaz	234	Strikeforce	7
6	Dan Hardy	226	UFC	6
7	Martin Kampmann	217	UFC	11
8	Matt Hughes	201	UFC	9
9	Paulo Thiago	192	UFC	5
10	Paul Daley	166	Impact FC	8
11	Jake Shields	139	Free Agent	10
12	Matt Serra	129	UFC	12
13	Jay Hieron	127	Free Agent	12
14	Mike Swick	125	UFC	14
15	Carlos Condit	110	UFC	14
16	John Hathaway	86	UFC	37
17	Ben Askren	74	Bellator	NR
18	Anthony Johnson	63	UFC	19
19	Mike Pierce	58	UFC	18
19	Dan Hornbuckle	58	Bellator	16
21	Akihiro Gono	52	WVR	20
22	Ricardo Almeida	50	UFC	22
23	Jake Ellenberger	48	UFC	21
24	Marius Zaromskis	46	DREAM/Strikeforce	17
25	Evangelista Santos	40	Strikeforce	NR

 

Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.

Get used to this division being somewhat on hold. #1 Georges St Pierre and #4 Josh Koscheck will be occupied with the reality show and not fighting for the UFC title until year end.

We'll have to make due with #3 Thiago Alves vs #2 Jon Fitch at UFC 117.

The big moves this month were #7 Martin Kampmann's four spot jump after his win over #9 Paulo Thiago at UFC 115.Thiago dropped an equal number.

#17 Ben Askren jumps into the rankings from no where after beating #22 Dan Hornbuckle at Bellator XXII.

#25 Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos also makes the rankings after smoking #24 Marius Zaromskis at 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.