Average opponent strength between 2007 and 2009
by who me on Jun 28, 2010 2:51 AM EDT
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PrintFight Matrix recently did an analysis of average opponent strength between 2007 and 2009 to determine which 25 fighters have fought the toughest schedules. The list had some real interesting names pop up on it and I thought it would be a good break from the 24/7 Fedor-fest that has been going on all weekend.
1. Forrest Griffin
2. Matt Hughes
3. Chuck Liddell
4. Dan Henderson
5. Georges St. Pierre
6. Thiago Alves
7. B.J. Penn
8. Sean Sherk
9. James Irvin
10. Frank Mir
11. Rich Franklin
12. Nate Marquardt
13. Jens Pulver
14. Yasuhiro Urushitani
15. Josh Koscheck
16. Marcos Galvao
17. Tim Sylvia
18. Mauricio Rua
19. Matt Lindland
20. Diego Sanchez
21. Patrick Cote
22. Mamoru Yamaguchi
23. Jon Fitch
24. Hong Man Choi
25. Dokonjonosuke Mishima
Source: Fight Matrix
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Fighters must have had at least four qualifying fights between 1/1/2007 and 12/31/2009, an average of one fight per nine months. I did not want to bring this to the current day due to the next point.
The opponents’ current FightMatrix division dominance ratings are considered, not their pre-bout ratings or regular ratings. I wanted to use the current division normalized status of the opponents to show what they’ve become, not what they were, or what the rating system thought they were. So, to limit the direct effect of points gained by the opponents who beat the listed fighters, I stopped the date range short of this year.
No contests are excluded as are female fighters.
I think GSP should actually be higher on the list, but Penn wasn’t technically ranked at WW very high when they fought.
I wonder how FightMatrix has Matt Serra ranked (GSP fought him twice in that timeframe)and where they put Dan Hardy because it seemed to me that he should of been higher too. There are some oddities to how FightMatrix generated the list.
Serra only had 3 fights in the timespan
Less than the minimum req. of 4.
Creator of the FightMatrix rating system.
Forrest fought some beasts in that time span.
Gotta believe Irvin is there on the strength of the Anderson Silva fight.
Forget it Donny, you're out of your element.
It's a flawed methodology
To rank them as they currently are. Is Chuck Liddell not a good win for Jardine because of what Chuck has become. At that time, that was a very strong win for Jardine. Is Frank Mir not a great win for Lesnar because of current standing? Again, at that time, that was a great win. Randy/Gonzaga, Wand/Jardine, Fedor/Arlovski, etc.
And the reverse is true as well. Is JDS’s win over Werdum heightened because Werdum beat Fedor? (Rhetorical question as I’ve seen some rankings list JDS at the top of the HW division) Frank Mir over Brock Lesnar I? Forrest/Shogun? Maynard/Edgar?
While there is some validity to your methodlogy, IMO the results are flawed. While it is true that some wins (Fedor/Sylvia, Mir/Nog, etc) should be looked at in a different light, the criteria you used in this research unfairly punishes winners of matches that, at that time, were strong wins.
To editorialize, Tim Sylvia’s name being listed is a joke. He fought Ray Mercer and Jason Riley in this time. That negates any boost that Fedor could’ve given him. Especially since the Randy and Nog losses should have lower weights because of their current DivDom. HMC, again propped up because of Fedor, should not be listed in a true SOS list as he fought Jose Canseco.
It would seem like Shogun Rua would be ranked higher. As would Rashad Evans. As would Machida. Notice they are all LHWs. And if you examine the list closely, you’ll see that merely fighting (and in most cases losing to) one opponent who has dominated his weight (Fedor, GSP, Silva) is enough to boost you into the top 25 even if your fights are lackluster. Meanwhile, Machida (who fights in a highly contested weight) fights 3 top 10 opponents and Tito and he can’t be ranked? It shows the flaws of your methodology.
Cause there's only one, and that's me
You understand? for all that fighting, you understand
That sucka think he good, that sucka think he can whoop me
And i know he can't whoop me, Ay boy, the n**** whole style is chump
by S.C. Michaelson on Jun 28, 2010 11:39 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
It's an excellent methodology
The question is: Do you understand it?
This isn’t a list of the 25 best fighters, any more than a top list of SOS in college football is a top 25 best teams list. It only indicates who faced the toughest opponents.
Tim Sylvia faced Fedor, Nogueira, Vera and Couture during the time period as well. Thus his #17 SOS rating.
At the end of the last college football season the strongest SOS belonged to Mississippi St, with a lowly 4-7 record. They faced the strongest opponents and did poorly against them. And SOS was NOT based on how that opponent was ranked at the time, but rather recalculated throughout the season based on how that team performed over the course of the year.
To editorialize – a fight against Dos Santos, Cain or Carwin should be worth much more now than it was then. And this methodology is a very good one. Not the only one, but a very good one to use in looking at strength of opponent.
The real problem with this methodology
is that it is actually beneficial to have LOST your matches in these rankings. Having lost the fight gives your opponent a higher ranking, while having won gives your opponent a lower rankings. MMA has far too few fights for something like this to be of value, because the result of the fight itself plays such a major role in determining the rankings. In your example of Mississippi State, the team’s results against Mississippi St. had a very minimal effect on where they were ultimately ranked, simply because there are considerably more results to consider. Simply works much better with more data points, so that one fight doesn’t skew the ratings so much.
This
Losing matches boost your ranking because the guy that beats you keeps his ranking or improves it.
It's not a ranking of who's the best fighter...
it’s merely ranking how tough your schedule has been. Naturally if you’re beating guys left and right, they’re not going to be considered as tough a fight.
Trysdor is right though, the sample size is just too small since most of these guys fought less than 8 times.
I don't think
he’s trying to use this as a method to “rank” fighters. I think he’s using this a supplement to help decide rankings.
Cause there's only one, and that's me
You understand? for all that fighting, you understand
That sucka think he good, that sucka think he can whoop me
And i know he can't whoop me, Ay boy, the n**** whole style is chump
by S.C. Michaelson on Jun 28, 2010 6:04 PM EDT up reply actions
I understand the methodology
I know this isn’t the 25 best. It’s a strength of schedule.
You use college football as an analogy and it’s incorrect because they don’t analyze “strength of schedule” 2 or 3 seasons later. They analyze it that season. That’s like saying a win against Florida State a few years ago isn’t worth what it should be because Florida State has fallen as a program.
You can’t analyze Randy’s win over Sylvia by using what Sylvia is now. 3 years ago Sylvia was a real threat in the division. Josh Koscheck’s win over Diego Sanchez shouldn’t be analyzed by what Diego is NOW, back then he was a fight away from a title shot. THAT’S the flaw in your methodology.
To editorialize again – a much better methodology would be one where you look at a fighters previous 2 or 3 fights and subsequent 2 or 3 fights. That would give you a much better gauge as to what their opponents did or didn’t do at the time that they fought them. Not 3 years later.
Cause there's only one, and that's me
You understand? for all that fighting, you understand
That sucka think he good, that sucka think he can whoop me
And i know he can't whoop me, Ay boy, the n**** whole style is chump
by S.C. Michaelson on Jun 28, 2010 6:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Take note that..
I wasn’t trying to solve all of the world’s problems with the methodology here, I was simply posting some statistics for our visitors to chew on.
Creator of the FightMatrix rating system.
How does this index come up with it's final total?
Is it the average of rankings between fights between 2007-2009 or is this some sort of summation where a guy could fight five lower ranked opponents and outscore a guy who only fought two highly ranked opponents. Not to mention using current division normalized status is sketchy, beating a great fighter in 2007 amounts to less than beating a relative newbie in 2007 because the older fighter might no longer be relevant and that newbie might now finally be someone but neither are the same opponent at the time of the fight. The context on this scale is severely lacking.
Another mistake
He should’ve included his full scientific method including research.
Cause there's only one, and that's me
You understand? for all that fighting, you understand
That sucka think he good, that sucka think he can whoop me
And i know he can't whoop me, Ay boy, the n**** whole style is chump
by S.C. Michaelson on Jun 28, 2010 6:07 PM EDT up reply actions
interesting nonetheless
whatever the methodology, I’m amazed that neither Fedor nor Anderson Silva made the top #25.
by burien top team on Jun 28, 2010 6:44 PM EDT reply actions
Fedor’s opponent strenth isn’t that great by any means of measurement. Heck there just aren’t that many heavyweights on there to start with.
Fedor is hurt by
his opponents tanking after he fought them
Cause there's only one, and that's me
You understand? for all that fighting, you understand
That sucka think he good, that sucka think he can whoop me
And i know he can't whoop me, Ay boy, the n**** whole style is chump
by S.C. Michaelson on Jun 28, 2010 7:36 PM EDT up reply actions
The Lindland and Choi fights also fall into that time period too and the weakness of the heavyweight division in general probably didn’t help.
I'm doing my own SoS analysis
Using a different model (opponent’s record in their previous and subsequent 2 fights AND their opponents’ opponent’s record in their previous and subsequent 2 fights) similar to what college football uses to determine. And similar to college football any wins taking place in “Division II” (Outside the top 30 HWs) will not count, only losses.
Preliminary results are shocking.
Cause there's only one, and that's me
You understand? for all that fighting, you understand
That sucka think he good, that sucka think he can whoop me
And i know he can't whoop me, Ay boy, the n**** whole style is chump
by S.C. Michaelson on Jun 29, 2010 1:24 AM EDT up reply actions
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