Bloody Elbow Meta-Rankings: Welterweight

Another fun installment of the Bloody Elbow Meta-Rankings, this time we're doing the Welterweight division. Our methodology is at the bottom of the entry, but the main thing to keep in mind is that the Meta-Rankings aren't rankings, they're an analysis of how the MMA online community is ranking the fighters. Also note that we're only tracking fighters ranked in somebody's top 10. That's how we end up with different number of fighters Meta-Ranked in each division. We posted the Lightweight division and the Light Heavyweight division last week.

The numbers reveal some interesting things -- namely that there's a pretty clear consensus of how to rank the fighters in this division, at least the top 8. Instead of having several fighters bunched up with very close scores, there's 3.33 points between GSP at #1 and Serra at #2, another 2.33 between Serra and Hughes, 3.17 between Hughes and Fitch, 3.5 between Fitch and Karo, etc etc down to Diego at #8, then there's a huge gulf of 7 points between Diego and Carlos Condit at #9.

The UFC has 7 of the top 9 and when you count the WEC's Condit, Zuffa has 8 of the top 10 under contract but only 10 of the 17. Elite XC's Jake Shields and Nick Diaz are the top ranked non-UFC fighters, begging the question who are those guys going to fight that won't be a waste of time? Well, I guess that's true in Shields' case but Diaz can always rematch K.J. Noons who beat him by cut stoppage in November.

It's interesting to me that there is beginning to be chatter that the UFC welterweight division is getting thin. It's more a case of there being a clear heirarchy than it being a thin division. GSP looked so dominant over Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck in his last outings that people are having a hard time seeing a tough challenge for GSP on the horizon. That may be the case but it doesn't mean its a thin division. I for one am eager to see Fitch vs Gono, Karo vs Thiago Alves, even Marcus Davis vs Jess Liaudin.

Rankings are based on an average of 6 Media Rankings (MMA Weekly, Sherdog, Irish Whip, MMA on Tap, our own Luke Thomas', and 5 oz of Pain), Fan Rankings (represented by MMA HQ Rankings) and Computer Rankings (represented by Fight Matrix). If we missed a good ranking someone is doing let us know, we'll add them to the mix. Particularly other computerized or fan vote rankings.

A #1 vote is worth 10 points, #2 is 9 points and so on. Media rankings are totaled and divided by 6 to represent the average media ranking, this is then added to the computer and fan ranking points to create the total (perfect score is 30 points).