Unfortunately Josh Barnett was caught up in the politics of MMA and is the latest causality of rankings manipulation.

Recently VP of Fighter and Promoter Relations Pat Miletich had this to say in an interview done by Dreamfighters.com:

DreamFighters.com: Why isn’t BJ Penn fighting for the WAMMA title? Isn’t he ranked #1?

Pat Miletich: Yes, BJ Penn is ranked #1 and nothing less than a superb fighter. But, BJ is moving up to fight GSP at Welterweight in January. Ideally, BJ should be fighting for a WAMMA title, be it in the UFC or by way of a cross-promoted fight within two organizations. However, given that BJ is moving up to Welterweight and the UFC will not cross promote fights, a fight with BJ as a participant is not possible at this time. At some point the question will arise as to how along a fighter can hold onto a #1 WAMMA Ranking in a weight division without fighting the top contenders in that division.

Under the recommendation of Pat Miletich WAMMA enacted the rule that to be eligible to be in the top 10 in a weight class you have to have fought a top 10 contender in the last 6 months.

So since BJ Penn had not fought a top 10 contender since 5/24/08 WAMMA voters can no longer vote for him in the WAMMA lightweight rankings.

As strictly the reporter I realize I shouldn't interject my opinion in this breaking story but I find 6 months to be an incredibly short amount of time to start considering such a move like that. Also this is just opinion as well but that move seems to be a move to manipulate the rankings to punish a UFC fighter. Which of course would contradict all of WAMMA's stated goals it wanted to accomplish for the sport.

Now back to the story at hand. As a result of WAMMA adopting that policy the voters couldn't vote for Josh Barnnett because he has not fought another top 10 Heavyweight since 12/31/06.

It is a very unforunate for Barnett that a rule seemingly meant to punish BJ Penn as a UFC fighter has dashed his chance at a WAMMA title shot. However under the advice of Pat Miletich WAMMA adopted that policy and if it should apply to BJ Penn then it has to apply to Josh Barnett.

Also another unforseen dilemma has come up. WAMMA has to decide if it's only previous WAMMA title fight should have ever happened because of this new rule they have adopted Fedor should have never been ranked in the WAMMA rankings because he had not fought another top 10 ranked opponent since 8/28/05.

On the Fedor issue WAMMA just basically has to decide if they want to be consistent in their policies and decide if this new policy should be applied retroactively. In which case if they wanted to be consistent in their policies and eliminate the politics of MMA they will have to strip Fedor of his WAMMA title and start over determining who should be awarded the WAMMA championships under this new set of rules.

I will try to stay on top of this breaking story to see how far I can go with this satire but ultimately this satire should point out a major problem with WAMMA's intergrity.