USAT/SBN August MMA Consensus Rankings: Lightweight

Rankings compiled by Richard Wade.

Fans of big-time lightweight action are in the midst of a delightful August. In just two days at UFC 118, #1 Frank Edgar will rematch #2 B.J. Penn. It's a rematch of their controversial first bout at UFC 112 when Edgar stole the title in a close decision.

Also on the card will be title shot elimination bout between #4 Kenny Florian -- a man who's had two bites at the championship apple -- and #7 Gray Maynard.

The first of the month saw "The Fireball Kid" #13 Takanori Gomi make short work of #17 Tyson Griffin at UFC on Versus 2. Expect Gomi to be on a very short road to a title shot.

#6 Eddie Alvarez will face the unranked Roger Huerta at Bellator 33 in October. For all the talk of #3 Gilbert Melendez vs #5 Shinya Aoki being a telling clash between Japanese MMA and the American breed, this is the real clash of worlds. Like both Melendez and Aoki, Alvarez earned his reputation in Japan. He's done well in Bellator against second tier competition but Roger Huerta is someone with a lengthy and formidable UFC resume despite his loss to Pat Curran this year. If Huerta crushes Alvarez, UFC fans will truly have some bragging rights.  

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.