It's been almost two weeks which means if I want to keep track of this stuff, I better hurry up and cut and paste this thing before it gets updated because I *believe* the deal is they're gonna update these lists a couple of times a month. EDIT: ...by which I mean, "Rankings will be updated approximately 36 hours after each event." I could READ the page, I suppose.
It should be noted that these rankings are not expected to make any difference in what the UFC matchmakers decide to book - so why have 'em at all? Oh, I think you know. (That's a clever way of saying "I don't really know, either.")
First off, Jeremy Botter voted in this, so not only is that enough to tank the whole project, but it also opens an interesting tangent on how Jeremy Botter is considered a member of the MMA media, but let's defer that discussion for now. Here's the entire august group:
Marcelo Alonso (Portal do Vale-Tudo ) Jeremy Botter (Houston Chronicle) Steve Cofield (ESPN Radio) Mark Daniels (Boston Herald) Bob Emanuel (Scripps Howard News Service) Paulo Favero (O Estado de S Paulo ) Steve Feiti (Asbury Park Press) Joe Ferraro (Sportsnet) Mario Filho (OSS TV) Grant Gordan (Burbank Leader) Andreas Hale (FightNews) Ana Hissa (Mundo da Luta ) Mike Johnston (Sportsnet) Case Keefer (Las Vegas Sun) James Koh (FOX 11 Los Angeles) Claudia Lima (VIP) Damon Martin (MMAWeekly.com) Franklin McNeil (ESPN.com) Guga Noblat (O Globo ) Brett Okamoto (ESPN.com) Chris Palmquist (MixedMartialArts.com) Ken Pishna (MMAWeekly.com) Marc Raimondi (NY Post) Marcelo Russio (Canal Combate ) John Silver (Chicago Sun-Times) Anthony Springer Jr. (FightNews) Neil Springer (Sun Media) Jeff Wagenheim (SI.com)
And here are the initial (4 Feb) rankings:
Pound-for-Pound 1 Anderson Silva 2 Jon Jones 3 Georges St-Pierre 4 Jose Aldo 5 Benson Henderson 6 Cain Velasquez 7 Dominick Cruz 8 Demetrious Johnson 9 Frankie Edgar 10 Dan Henderson
Flyweight Champion : Demetrious Johnson 1 Joseph Benavidez 2 John Dodson 3 Ian McCall 4 John Moraga 5 Jussier Da Silva 6 Louis Gaudinot 7 Chris Cariaso 8 John Lineker 9 Darren Uyenoyama 10 Ulysses Gomez
Bantamweight Champion : Dominick Cruz 1 Renan Barao (Interim Champion) 2 Michael McDonald 3 Urijah Faber 4 Eddie Wineland 5 Brad Pickett 6 Brian Bowles 7 Rafael Assuncao 8 Scott Jorgensen 9 Mike Easton 10 Ivan Menjivar
Featherweight Champion : Jose Aldo 1 Chad Mendes 2 Ricardo Lamas 3 Chan Sung Jung 4 Frankie Edgar 5 Dennis Siver 6 Cub Swanson 7 Dustin Poirier 8 Nik Lentz 9 Erik Koch 10 Clay Guida
Lightweight Champion : Benson Henderson 1 Gilbert Melendez 2 Anthony Pettis 3 Gray Maynard 4 Nate Diaz 5 Jim Miller 6 Donald Cerrone 7 TJ Grant 8 Rafael dos Anjos 9 Joe Lauzon 10 Khabib Nurmagomedov
Welterweight Champion : Georges St-Pierre 1 Johny Hendricks 2 Carlos Condit 3 Nick Diaz 4 Rory MacDonald 5 Demian Maia 6 Jake Ellenberger 7 Martin Kampmann 8 Josh Koscheck 9 Jon Fitch 10 Tarec Saffiedine
Middleweight Champion : Anderson Silva 1 Chris Weidman 2 Vitor Belfort 3 Michael Bisping 4 Yushin Okami 5 Mark Munoz 6 Constantinos Philippou 7 Luke Rockhold 8 Hector Lombard 9 Alan Belcher 10 Tim Boetsch
Light Heavyweight Champion : Jon Jones 1 Dan Henderson 2 Lyoto Machida 3 Alexander Gustafsson 4 Glover Teixeira 5 Antonio Rogerio Nogueira 6 Rashad Evans 7 Mauricio Rua 8 Phil Davis 9 Ryan Bader 10 Gegard Mousasi
Heavyweight Champion : Cain Velasquez 1 Junior dos Santos 2 Fabricio Werdum 3 Daniel Cormier 4 Antonio Silva 5 Frank Mir 6 Alistair Overeem 7 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 8 Roy Nelson 9 Stefan Struve 10 Shane Carwin
When I first read the thread title, all I could imagine was the old Apter magazines and their monthly rankings of the big three, and a random territory promotion. This could be a brilliant marketing tool to sell non title fights., but the people voting on it might not be the exact experts you need.
(edited by StaggerLee on 16.2.13 0048) YOUR 2012 NCCA Tournament Bracket Challenge Winner
I couldn't help but notice that the top 8 in the pound for pound rankings are the champions in the 8 weight groups. I thought perhaps they had gimmicked it make that happen, but the detail of each person's votes are at http://www.ufc.com/rankingsdetail and not all included the champs in their top 8 (Cruz and Johnson weren't even included in the top 10 of all ballots), that's just how it worked it. It looks like they're doing the old 10pts for 1st, 9 pts for 2nd, 8 pts for 3rd ... 1 pt for 10th thing. The PFP point totals are (280 points max): Silva (278), Jones (245), St-Pierre (221), Aldo (203), B. Henderson (161), Velasquez (102), Cruz (101), Johnson (77), Edgar (39), D. Henderson (37). And others receiving votes: Renan Barao (28), Gilbert Melendez (12), Junior dos Santos (9), Ronda Rousey (6), Daniel Cormier (4), Vitor Belfort (4), Gray Maynard (4), Anthony Pettis (2), Joseph Benavidez (2), Rory McDonald (2), Lyota Machida (2), and Johny Hendricks (1).
The heavyweight rankings by this method show a slightly different order than the official rankings for some reason. I won't figure out all "also receiving votes" for all weight classes unless people are interested.
"I'm pretty sure [Andre Caldwell]'ll do a lot more with Manning than he did with Andy Dalton." - StaggerLee
I like how the champions are pulled out of the top ten. Sherdog automatically puts them at #1, which never made total sense to me. It is sometimes the case that a guy wins a title while ranked at #3, but wins in such a fluke/split-decision manner that vaulting up to #1 is not justified. Taking the champion out of the list solves the problem of having a champion that is not necessarily #1.
Interesting seeing Mendes at the #1 contender even though it'll be a long time before he gets another title shot. He's not the more exciting fighter in the world and he has already been decisively knocked out by Aldo.
Featherweight is backed up in general since Aldo is now fighting a dropping-down Anthony Pettis, but that fight isn't happening until August. There have been rumours of a mini-tournament to decide the next contender after that....Swanson and Poirier are fighting today, Guida and Mendes are booked to face each other on an upcoming show, and that still leaves Siver, Lamas and the Zombie in the mix, so you figure two of them will be paired off.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." --- Bart Giamatti, on baseball
Originally posted by CRZHere's the entire august group
Per Dave, they invited 90 reporters to vote (including him), of which 28 did (he didn't).
That's... not a very good response rate. Maybe that'll get better as it lasts, or maybe the whole thing will get dropped like a TNA ranking list.
"Northern Illinois posted its best defensive effort in seven seasons allowing just 42 points on Saturday afternoon, but it came in a losing effort as the Huskies fell to Eastern Michigan, 42-25, at the EMU Convocation Center. "
Go Pack Go! Owner of one (1) share. Let's Go Riders! Owner of one (1) share.
If they aren't going to use the rankings in any real tangible way, this just seems like a big waste of time and energy on everyone's part. Plus, so far guys have been considered "legitimate" challengers for title, pretty much "because Dana White said they were." (See: Brock Lesnar getting a heavyweight title shot after three fights, one of which he LOST.)
Boxing rankings are the sanctioning bodies' way of forcing fights to happen when promoters and fighters can't agree to make fights. (This is less of an issue now as the boxing title belts have lost value...guys just forfeit belts instead of taking risky, low-paying fights. But whatever...) UFC didn't need a mechanism like that...THEY MAKE THE FIGHTS, and people buy the fights as legit match-ups (for the most part) because UFC made the fight happen.
Plus, I don't know what it says about UFC when all boxing fans hear is "boxing needs to be more like UFC" when this is UFC basically ripping off something from boxing (and to be fair, any other sport that has rankings) to what end...to make a talking point or two? I don't get it.
(Also, I would've voted Bones/Silva/GSP as 1-2-3. But that's JMO.)
Holy fuck shit motherfucker shit. Read comics. Fuck shit shit fuck shit I sold out when I did my job. Fuck fuck fuck shit fuck. Sorry had to do it....
*snip*
Revenge of the Sith = one thumb up from me. Fuck shit. I want to tittie fuck your ass. -- The Guinness. to Cerebus
Originally posted by Matt TrackerI don't like Rashad at 6.
Also, has Sonen retired?
At the bottom of http://www.ufc.com/rankings the most popular facebook comment asks about Sonnen, and the aforementioned Jeremy Botter responds to say that he was eligible at Light Heavyweight, but most decided not to rank him since he hasn't fought at that weight yet. 4 people included him on their list.
"I'm pretty sure [Andre Caldwell]'ll do a lot more with Manning than he did with Andy Dalton." - StaggerLee
Originally posted by JayJayDeanIf they aren't going to use the rankings in any real tangible way, this just seems like a big waste of time and energy on everyone's part.
The way they're using is not in matchmaking, but in promotion. As in Fox used to promote shows as...
two big welterweight fights!
or whatever, and now they can hype it as
the #3 & #5 welterweights in the world facing off!
It's something that'll be over analyzed to death by the hardcores, and at least once pressure UFC into making a fight they don't think is marketable before they bail on the thing, but the real purpose is to make the advertising more digestible to the casual person who's only tuning to the Fox show if they believe it's a big match. It's not really for anyone else, even though it's the everyone else who's going to lose their minds about people being one or two spots off.
The rating success of the last UFC on Fox seemed to indicate that they could draw enough people in by promising a title match (even while doing their hilarious best to hide which title was actually on the line), so this is expanding that idea and seeing if they could draw people in based on highly ranked people facing off.
Originally posted by CRZHere's the entire august group
Per Dave, they invited 90 reporters to vote (including him), of which 28 did (he didn't).
That's... not a very good response rate. Maybe that'll get better as it lasts, or maybe the whole thing will get dropped like a TNA ranking list.
I think a big part of that was the quick turnaround they wanted after 156 finished. For those actually covering the event there really wasn't much time to pull together rankings and get them in. And a bunch of them probably don't fancy having their rankings dissected by the likes of us.
Originally posted by thecubsfanThe rating success of the last UFC on Fox seemed to indicate that they could draw enough people in by promising a title match (even while doing their hilarious best to hide which title was actually on the line), so this is expanding that idea and seeing if they could draw people in based on highly ranked people facing off.
Yeah, it seems likely FOX would be the ones pushing for this. It gives them another way to market fights and gives folks something to discuss but I wouldn't take the rankings themselves too seriously.