Sherdog, one of the most, if not THE most respected MMA web site on the Internet has produced Top 10 rankings for quite sometime. I thought I would take a look at their latest Top 10s and compare the differences between the fights they rank and the ones we rank, including some commentary.
Heavyweight
Rank | Fight Matrix | Diff | Sherdog |
1 | Cain Velasquez | = | Cain Velasquez |
2 | Junior dos Santos | = | Junior dos Santos |
3 | Daniel Cormier | -1 | Fabricio Werdum |
4 | Antonio Silva | -1 | Daniel Cormier |
5 | Fabricio Werdum | +2 | Antonio Silva |
6 | Alistair Overeem | = | Alistair Overeem |
7 | Frank Mir | = | Frank Mir |
8 | Mark Hunt | Next 5 | Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira |
9 | Josh Barnett | = | Josh Barnett |
10 | Stipe Miocic | = | Stipe Miocic |
Next 5 | Travis Browne Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira Roy Nelson Stefan Struve Alexander Volkov |
Travis Browne Gabriel Gonzaga Mark Hunt Roy Nelson Stefan Struve |
The two rankings are eerily similar, with the first notable difference being Fabricio Werdum.
While we have him ranked at #5, Sherdog is fairly generous and places him at #3. Although he does have a win against Antonio Silva he also has a more recent loss against Overeem. Furthermore, it seems ridiculous to rank him ahead of Daniel Cormier.
The next notable difference is Mark Hunt, who we have at #8. He is in the “Next 5” list over at Sherdog. This one is arguable, though Hunt did beat Struve after Struve beat Miocic — so it would seem logical to have Hunt ranked ahead of Miocic, given that Hunt’s only fight more recent than this chain of events was a loss to #2 Junior dos Santos. In Hunt’s place at our #8, Sherdog decided to place Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira who we have at #12. Perhaps I am biased, but I just cannot see justifying a Top 10 position for “Big Nog”.
The last small difference is the fact that we have Alexander Volkov at #15, while Sherdog replaces him with Gabriel Gonzaga. I don’t feel overly strong about either argument for this one, but Volkov has been consistently winning while Gonzaga has been in the cage with the better competition.
So, who did it better?
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