USAT/SBN July MMA Consensus Rankings: Featherweight

by Luke Thomas on Jul 29, 2010 8:58 AM EDT

Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.

Rank	Fighter	Points	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Jose Aldo	300	WEC	1
2	Manny Gamburyan	277	WEC	2
3	Mike Brown	264	WEC	3
4	Urijah Faber	263	WEC	3
5	Marlon Sandro	237	WVR	7
6	Bibiano Fernandes	230	DREAM	5
7	Hatsu Hioki	219	WVR	6
8	Josh Grispi	217	WEC	9
9	Michihiro Omigawa	205	DREAM	8
10	Masanori Kanehara	140	WVR	10
11	L.C. Davis	106	WEC	15
12	Deividas Taurosevicius	105	WEC	12
13	Yuji Hoshino	99	WVR	14
14	Leonard Garcia	97	WEC	13
15	Diego Nunes	97	WEC	25
16	Rafael Assuncao	94	WEC	11
17	Hiroyuki Takaya	88	DREAM	16
18	Joe Warren	86	Bellator	21
19	Mark Hominick	83	WEC	17
20	Chad Mendes	82	WEC	18
21	Joe Soto	68	Bellator	19
22	Joachim Hansen	61	DREAM	20
23	Takeshi Inoue	55	Shooto	23
24	Takafumi Otsuka	51	DEEP	22
25	Kazuyuki Miyata	49	DREAM	24

#1 Jose Aldo will defend his WEC title against #2 Manny Gamburyan at WEC 51 in September.

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

These are fairly all over the place but where is the korean zombie? The guy has good wins and probably belongs between 25-15. I know it sounds fanboyish, but if you look at who he has faced, the nature of his wins and his controversial losses (against #10 & #14 kanehara & garcia) he should be on here somewhere way more than miyata, otsuka etc.,

by destructivist on Jul 29, 2010 12:21 PM EDT reply actions