Combat Sports & Martial Arts Writer| Partnership Marketing and Digital Strategy Lead (Combat Sports)
I have been an avid viewer of Boxing and MMA for decades. Judo is the martial art that I most admire. At different periods in my life, I have practiced Judo. This piqued my interest in MMA since 2001. I had a 25 year career in healthcare, and now I am pursuing my hobby. I enjoy writing about combat sports and martial arts for FightMatrix.
Let’s take a look at the current ranking of Chan Sung Jung at various outlets:
| Source | Rank |
| MMA Weekly | #6 |
| Tapology | #6 |
| Sherdog | #8 |
| MMA Junkie | #8 |
| ESPN | #9 |
| MMA Madman | #9 |
| Fight Magazine | #12 |
| Fight Matrix | #24 |
Now, I’m of the opinion that a top fighter must fight (and win) often enough to sustain such a lofty ranking.
If we go back to the start of 2010, we have the following results for Chan Sung Jung:
Now visible in the fighter ranking “hover overs”, is our initial iteration of a statistic we call combat age.
For years, fans have subjectively argued about which fighters were battle-worn and have attempted to link this to the foreshadowing of the end of a fighter’s prime. With combat age, we are looking to add our objective touch to this.
At it’s most basic level, one can equate “combat age” to “dog years” in that it will mirror the basic human lifecycle. With this new computation, we expect fighters to hit their respective “peak” in the years that your typical adult “peaks” in life, somewhere between 25 and 40. We will expect most fighters to start their descent at some point in their 40s and be far removed from their peak by 60. Please keep in mind, that there will be anomalies, just like in life. These anomalies (for the most part) will be welcome. Anomalies we cannot prevent, are those that basic fight data can’t convey, such as serious career-altering injuries, non-MMA fight careers or a predisposition to not get knocked out (incredibly hard heads).
In this computation, we will be considering:
The included factors, as well as the weighting of said factors are subject to and may very likely change.
For a quick demo of combat age.
| Age | Combat Age | Diff | |
| Forrest Griffin | 33 | 44 | +11 |
| Wanderlei Silva | 36 | 56 | +20 |
| Georges St. Pierre | 31 | 38 | +7 |
| Andrei Arlovski | 34 | 50 | +16 |
| Anderson Silva | 38 | 44 | +6 |
We feature two upsets per year, the most “noteworthy” and the most “lopsided”.
The most “noteworthy” upset is based on a net difference of pre-fight rating points, normalized by division.
This was not a big year for notable upsets, but the most noteworthy based on our standards was: Josh Sampo UD(3) Antonio Banuelos. For this win Sampo also earns the “most improved” award.
The most “lopsided” upset is based on the largest divisible difference between pre-fight rating points.
The upset that makes the notability cut is Ilir Latifi UD(3) Tony Lopez.
In the world of obscurity, quite possibility the biggest upset in history took place — assuming the previous records are correct (a main reason we have a notability requirement). On 9/8, a previously 0-3 fighter named Ben Santiago TKO’d Paulo Goncalves Silva, who was ranked and held a previous record of 18-7.
It should come as no surprise that Ronda Rousey, now holder of the only Women’s MMA championship that really matters, is our Women’s 2012 Fighter of the Year. With two first round finishes against the best competition available, you could not have given the award to anyone else.
The first runner-up is Ayaka Hamasaki who went 3-0 on the year against quality ranked opposition, including a dominant win over Yuka Tsuji, one of the best women’s fighters in history. Hamasaki is undoubtedly the best women’s fighter in Asia and with a record of 9-0, she’s beaten the best over there (sans Fujii) in her division. With the 115lb division relatively unestablished in the USA, let’s hope it picks up and she fights Aguilar before exiting her prime.
In third place is Jessica Penne who put the Atomweight division on the map by beating the consensus #1 and our 2011 Women’s Fighter of the Year, the previously undefeated Naho Sugiyama.
The honorable mention goes to Jessica Aguilar. Her questionable win over the aged Megumi Fujii to propel her to the top of the division did not go unnoticed, but aside from that, her year was relatively quiet.
Amassing a 5-0 record in 2012, finishing all opponents in the first round, 74th ranked Heavyweight, Smealinho Rama is our Men’s Rookie of the Year
Amassing a record of 4-0 in the 2012 calendar year, (#9 W115) Joanne Calderwood is our 2012 Female Rookie of the Year
