Bloody Elbow January 2008 Meta-Rankings: Lightweight Division

Wednesday we introduced the Bloody Elbow Meta-Rankings. The full explanation of how these work is in the extended entry but basically we have created a system that averages the rankings of the leading pundits So this division with fan rankings (represented by MMA HQ Rankings) and computer rankings (represented by Fight Matrix). These meta-rankings are intended to tell you at a glance which fighters are considered the best by the MMA community.

Like I said yesterday, the coolest thing about this system is its already revealing things we didn't expect to see. The main revelation is the way the point totals create clearly discernible heirarchies. Unfortunately the lightweight division is so messed up that it still leaves more questions than answers.

This division is probably the most jacked up and difficult to rank of any of the big 5. There are 16 athletes ranked in the 4 top 10 lists I've selected. And in a sharp contrast to the Light Heavyweight division, the UFC only has 6 of the 16 top ranked fighters signed.

A lot of the chaos is a by-product of the UFC letting its Lightweight division lie dormant for a couple of years. Since relaunching the division in 2006 (starting with a couple of matches at 155 in 2005) they've gone a great job of building an exciting roster. But much of their top fighters haven't faced top international competition or had been fighting at 170lbs so it's been like comparing alternate universes.

There are two schools of thought as to how to deal with that -- those who insist on ranking Takanori Gomi at #1 due to his amazing 13-1 streak over 2004-2006. Gomi notched up wins over Ralph Gracie, Jens Pulver, Crazy Horse Bennett, Luis Azeredo (2x), Kawajiri, Sakurai, Ishida and avenged his only loss over that period by beating Marcus Aurelio. That's the pro-Gomi is #1 case.

The opposite case is, here's a guy who lost his only fight since New Year's Eve 2006 but has been otherwise inactive. The NSAC may think Nick Diaz smoking a little green invalidates his amazing upset win over Gomi at PRIDE 33, but I don't.

The big fights over NYE didn't do anything to clear up the picture either. At one point it looked like the big Japanese NYE events K-1 and Yarrenoka! would clear things up -- K-1 tournament champion Gesias JZ Calvancanti was scheduled to fight Japanese star Shinya Aoki. JZ was red hot coming off his destruction of a tough field including Vitor Ribeiro and a win over Aoki would have put him very near the top of the division for sure. Unfortunately he didn't fight due to injury. He's still the consensus number 2 but a win over Aoki would have really pushed him up the rankings.

Then we've got Gilbert Melendez, the previously undefeated young sprawlNbrawler from the Cesar Gracie camp who lost a decision to Mitsuhiro Ishida and Yarrenoka. This was pretty shocking. Melendez had looked nigh on invincible against Clay Guida and Tatsyua Kawajiri in 2006 and few expected Ishida to be more than another notch on his belt. I was in that camp. Ishida's a pretty one dimensional wrestler with 12/16 wins coming by decision. After seeing Melendez stuff takedowns from the more powerful Guida and Kawajiri, I figured Ishida would be no problem. Especially after Takanori Gomi destroyed him at NYE 2006. But then they got in the ring, and Ishida fought an absolutely great fight, scoring take down after take down and totally taking Gilbert out of his game.

Before his stunning upset of Melendez, many pundits, Luke Thomas for one, poo poohed including Ishida on any Top 10 lists -- who's he beat? they'd ask. Well now we have your answer -- Gilbert Melendez.

The Meta-Rankings show that while Ishida's win was enough to get him on everyone's top 10 list, Melendez is still the more highly regarded fighter.

But one thing the NYE fights did do was push the UFC guys, Penn and Sherk past Melendez. If B.J. Penn beats Stevenson on the 19th to take the UFC belt I would expect him to jump past JZ and maybe even knock off Gomi.

Click "read more" to see how the Meta-Rankings work.

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).