USA TODAY/MMA Nation September 2011 Consensus Rankings: Featherweight

by Richard Wade on Oct 1, 2011 1:36 PM EDT in MMA Rankings

Rank	Fighter	%	Promotion	Last Rank
1	Jose Aldo	100	UFC	1
2	Hatsu Hioki	91	UFC	3
3	Chad Mendes	91	UFC	2
4	Kenny Florian	80	UFC	4
5	Pat Curran	64	Bellator	12
6	Marlon Sandro	63	Bellator	6
7	Mark Hominick	62	UFC	5
8	Diego Nunes	59	UFC	7
9	Tyson Griffin	53	UFC	8
10	Manny Gamburyan	49	UFC	9
11	Erik Koch	44	UFC	13
12	Dustin Poirier	43	UFC	10
13	Joe Warren	40	Bellator	11
14	Hiroyuki Takaya	35	DREAM	14
15	Michihiro Omigawa	30	UFC	17
16	Bibiano Fernandes	28	DREAM	15
17	Patricio Freire	27	Bellator	16
18	Rani Yahya	26	UFC	19
19	Tatsuya Kawajiri	25	DREAM	27
20	Darren Elkins	22	UFC	18
21	Robert Peralta	19	UFC	21
22	Takeshi Inoue	18	DREAM	24
23	Mike Brown	17	UFC	20
24	Masanori Kanehara	16	Battle of Moscow	22
25	Kazuyuki Miyata	15	DREAM	23

UFC 136 will be co-headlined by #1 Jose Aldo as he defends his title against former top lightweight contender #4 Kenny Florian.

Also on the Facebook portion of that card will be #20 Darren Elkins taking on the unranked Zhang Tie Quan.

Unrelated to any upcoming fights, take a gander at Derek Suboticki's ballot and wonder as I did whether he's watching the same fights you are.

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.

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No way in hell is Pat Curran the No5 Featherweight in the world

http://unintelligentdefense.blogspot.com

by MattParker117 on Sep 29, 2011 6:36 PM EDT reply actions

Subo doesn't even think he's in the top 25.

I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.

by Llewdor on Sep 29, 2011 6:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Should have stopped at "think."

Bolts from the Blue // "I eat cereal out of a giant novelty wine glass because it makes me feel fancy." - Britney Wade
Bloody Elbow // "I think we're poking fun at Leland's 'boner.'" - Michael Fagan

by Richard Wade on Sep 29, 2011 10:32 PM EDT up reply actions 6 recs

I love your comments Wade.

KEMvP

"You know Joe, if Keith Jardines last name was Johnson, the nickname 'The Dean of Mean' wouldn't work at all."

by T.C. Engel on Oct 1, 2011 1:30 PM EDT up reply actions

Remind me not to ban you.

Bolts from the Blue // "I eat cereal out of a giant novelty wine glass because it makes me feel fancy." - Britney Wade
Bloody Elbow // "I think we're poking fun at Leland's 'boner.'" - Michael Fagan

by Richard Wade on Oct 1, 2011 4:10 PM EDT up reply actions

Okay. Don't ban me.

KEMvP

"You know Joe, if Keith Jardines last name was Johnson, the nickname 'The Dean of Mean' wouldn't work at all."

by T.C. Engel on Oct 1, 2011 11:30 PM EDT up reply actions

why no Griffin Leland?

My Blog on lifting, movies, fish, and some mma: www.themindofshadow.blogspot.com

by dbcb on Oct 1, 2011 12:01 PM EDT reply actions

God dammit.

Staff Writer, BloodyElbow.com
Follow @lelandroling
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

by Leland Roling on Oct 1, 2011 3:32 PM EDT up reply actions

Freire should be higher

In my eyes he still beat Warren and should be ahead of him.

by blutspender on Oct 1, 2011 12:58 PM EDT reply actions

aaaaaaaaaaah the lower weights

aka the dartboard class.

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 1, 2011 1:08 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs

Which distinguishes them from the upper weights

which are the old “squat and plop”.

"If you say Chael Sonnen I will light you on fire." -- Farthammer.

by IKiIIed007 on Oct 1, 2011 1:30 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNT

Great win streak.

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 1, 2011 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

man Wade,... gettin more and more snippy no?

My Blog on lifting, movies, fish, and some mma: www.themindofshadow.blogspot.com

by dbcb on Oct 1, 2011 1:40 PM EDT reply actions

to be fair

bashing Subo is low hanging fruit.

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 1, 2011 1:51 PM EDT up reply actions

he bashed Leland and Roth in the WW rankings

My Blog on lifting, movies, fish, and some mma: www.themindofshadow.blogspot.com

by dbcb on Oct 1, 2011 2:20 PM EDT up reply actions

there was some ball dropping going there.

They were deemed fumbles. Wade’s ruling stands.

"Many have the will to win. Few have to will to prepare to win."

" A black belt only covers 2 inches of your ass. The rest is up to you." - Royce Gracie
"Wanderlei eventually got to his feet and stalked Fujita like a Japanese octopus in an all-female prison." - Sean Baby Cracked.com

by the-gentle-way on Oct 1, 2011 2:24 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

I was just needling "Leland." And Matt is impervious to bashing.

Bolts from the Blue // "I eat cereal out of a giant novelty wine glass because it makes me feel fancy." - Britney Wade
Bloody Elbow // "I think we're poking fun at Leland's 'boner.'" - Michael Fagan

by Richard Wade on Oct 1, 2011 4:11 PM EDT up reply actions

It was a long day at work.

Bolts from the Blue // "I eat cereal out of a giant novelty wine glass because it makes me feel fancy." - Britney Wade
Bloody Elbow // "I think we're poking fun at Leland's 'boner.'" - Michael Fagan

by Richard Wade on Oct 1, 2011 4:11 PM EDT up reply actions

HIOKI!

Love that.

Learn JiuJitsu.
"Gelato isn't Vegan?" -- Superman
"It's milk and eggs bitch." -- The Punisher

by RolloTomasi on Oct 1, 2011 1:49 PM EDT reply actions

The nice thing about looking at the scorecard is that it gives a good visual cue as to how widely varied opinions are among those who do the ratings. For the guys ranked 1 to 6, the field is mostly green, which shows that there is really a general consensus that those guys belong in the top 6. Below that, you start to see yellow and green scattered. Take a look at the other weight classes and you’ll see more uniformity in the top 10 to 15 fighters’ rankings.

This weight class’s rankings are about as non-uniform as it gets, so picking on one or two of the raters and suggesting they’re off-base seems a bit at odds with the overall picture. Lack of agreement is the norm, not the exception, in this weight class.

.....

by Scabby Knuckle on Oct 1, 2011 2:03 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs

Subo has Marlon Sandro in the top 10

and Pat Curran, who just knocked him stupid, completely unranked in the top 25. Robert Peralta, unranked, even though he holds a win from earlier this year over top 5 (!!!) Hiroyuki Takaya and another win since then.

There are a lot of things that I could debate about his rankings, like that you need to go all the way back to 2007 to find two wins for Rani Yahya at 145 and Dustin Poirier is ranked below him, despite the savage shitkicking he laid on then #2 in the world Josh Grispi. There are things like that in every ballot, which can be discussed and disagreed upon. But subo completely whiffed on things that you can’t really justify by any means beyond “Shit, that fight happened? When?!” Which, considering that the two exampled I gave are from Bellator and Strikeforce events respectively, is completely in character.

"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe

by pdl on Oct 1, 2011 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions

As I’ve said elsewhere, you can choose just about any one of the raters and find things to nitpick about.Three other raters also didn’t put Curran on their ballots. Iole has Sandro nowhere in his top 25, but the consensus is that Sandro is #6. Dallas Winston has Florian at 11 while the consensus says he’s #4 (after one fight in this weight class!). The list goes on and on. Plenty of rankings from almost all of the raters that anyone could argue are misplaced, biased, whatever. Focusing on a single rater for criticism seems to me as biased as the raters’ choices appear to others.

.....

by Scabby Knuckle on Oct 1, 2011 3:12 PM EDT up reply actions