This week, the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament kicked off in New Jersey, causing fluctuations in the heavyweight rankings.

In the main event, one of the sport’s great careers may have come to an end.  After a very close first round, which took place mainly on the feet, Antonio ‘Big Foot’ Silva took down Fedor Emelianenko early in the second, and proceeded to lay a brutal beating on the former Pride FC champion.  Though Fedor survived the round, Silva’s ground-and-pound left Fedor’s face bloody and his right eye swollen completely shut, which caused the officials to stop the fight between the rounds.

Silva moves up 6 spots to #5 HW, and will face the winner of the upcoming bout between Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem in the Grand Prix semi-finals.  Fedor falls 4 spots to #8.  He has been stopped in back-to-back bouts for the first time in his career, and admitted that it may be high time to retire in the post-fight interview.  However, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker mentioned that Fedor’s decision is not final and he may still take place in an alternate bout if he chooses to continue fighting.

In the other tournament bout, Sergei Kharitonov made a strong bid to revive his floundering career, with a first round knockout of former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski.  While Arlovski seemed to be the quicker of the two fighters, Sergei managed to back him into a corner and unload, at which point Andrei’s chin let him down once again.  This is the fourth consecutive loss for Alrovski, three of which left him unconscious.  He falls to #23 in the rankings; and it’s time to call it a career.  Kharitonov rises to #14 and will face Josh Barnett or Brett Rogers in the semi-finals.

In the reserve bouts, Shane Del Rosario and Chad Griggs both entered the heavyweight Top 50 with first-round stoppages of their respective opponents Lavar Johnson and Gian Villante.   They should face off in the next round of the tourney.  Lavar Johnson falls to #101 with the loss and Villante, previously ranked at #140 LHW, re-enters the heavyweight division at #166.

Finally, Valentijn Overeem – the journeyman older brother of Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair – rose to #95 with a neck crank sumbission of kickboxer Ray Sefo in a meaningless fight that was also billed as a tournament reserve.  If Fedor Emelianenko does decide to re-enter the tourney as an alternate, Valentijn would make for acceptable Fedor fodder.

Ranking Expansion

In this week’s update, we expanded our lightweight, welterweight, and middleweight rankings from 250 to 300 fighters.  Check out who made the cut into the Top 300’s:

Middleweight 250-300

Welterweight 250-300

Lightweight 250-300

Notable Info

• Lightweight, Welterweight, Middleweight expanded to Top 300.
• Ratings update to give special consideration to wildly varied split and majority decisions.
• Mild blocking routine implemented – see details in previous post.

Every year on the Saturday prior to Superbowl, UFC traditionally puts on one of the bigger cards of the year.  Last year’s UFC 109 was a notable exception to the usually stacked line-up of the pre-Superbowl event.  This year, Zuffa did not disappoint with UFC 126: headlined by a long-awaited middleweight title bout between champion Anderson Silva and challenger Vitor Belfort, and bolstered by a couple of high-profile light heavyweight bouts, one featuring two former champions and the other two top prospects.

Anderson Silva defends

It started out slow, as many of Anderson’s fights tend to, and ended with a flash of brutality in the first round as Silva knocked Vitor Belfort down with a front kick to the face and finished him with two quick punches on the ground.  Silva retains his UFC title, and his #1 spot on both the middleweight ranking and the Division Dominance list.   If the UFC welterweight champion and the #2 on our Division Dominance list George St. Pierre is successful in the upcoming defense against Jake Shields, a super-fight between Silva and St. Pierre seems inevitable.  If GSP falters, Anderson’s next title defense will likely come against Yushin Okami – unless Silva decided to move up to 205 lbs.

Previously unranked for inactivity, Vitor Belfort returns to the middleweight ranking at #8.  A rematch with Wanderlei Silva at the upcoming UFC in Brazil would be a great scrap.

Notable

Rising head and shoulders ahead of competition, Anderson Silva holds the records for most consecutive wins in the UFC at 13, and most consecutive title defenses (8).   He is also only 1 title win away from also holding the record for most wins in title bouts (currently  held by Randy Couture at 10).

Light-Heavyweight picture shifts

I expected the two featured light-heavyweight bouts to be fairly competitive, but this turned out not to be the case.  Jon ‘Bones’ Jones took down Ryan Bader at will, finishing him with a modified guillotine choke in the second round.  After the fight it was announced that the top contender and Jones’ training partner Rashad Evans suffered a knee injury, and Jones was offered to take Rashad’s spot in challenging Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua for the UFC title.  Jones of course accepted, and after moving up 10 spots to #5 on the rankings he will now have the chance to become #1.  Bader falls to #12; Stephan Bonnar has been rumored as his next opponent.

Though the Rich Franklin – Forrest Griffin bout was not as lopsided, Griffin used his noticeable size advantage to out-work Franklin in every aspect of the game, winning a unanimous decision.  Franklin was able to steal a round on all three scorecards due to Griffin slowing down as the fight went on – likely a side effect of his long layoff from the Octagon.  Griffin regains the three ranking spots he lost due to inactivity, and is now back at #6 LHW.  He should next face the winner of the upcoming bout between Randy Couture and Lyoto Machida. Rich Franklin, who falls to #13,  should take on the Couture-Machida loser.

Meanwhile, rumors are swirling about Thiago Silva having to withdraw from his planned bout with Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, and Rashad Evans taking Thiago’s place.  Nothing has been made official yet in this regard.  However all the fluctuations in the division forced Evans to drop a spot to #9 on the Division Dominance list, trading places with Jake Shields.

Further down the rankings, Kyle Kingsbury rose 26 spots to enter the light-heavyweight Top 50 at #43 after making quick work of Ricardo Romero.  Kyle improves to 1-3 in the UFC and is on a three-win streak, while Romero falls to #84 with the first-round TKO loss.

Keep Reading

Heavyweight
[#4] Fedor Emelianenko vs. [#11] Antonio Silva

Heavyweight
[#15] Andrei Arlovski vs. [#25] Sergei Kharitonov

Heavyweight
[#62] Shane del Rosario vs. [#72] Lavar Johnson

Heavyweight
[#88] Chad Griggs vs. [#140 LHW] Gian Villante

Heavyweight
[#126] Valentijn Overeem vs.  [*] Ray Sefo

Lightweight
[#239] John Cholish vs.  [*] Marc Stevens

Welterweight
[#474 LW] John Salgado vs. [*] Igor Gracie

Welterweight
[#385] Don Carlo-Clauss vs. [#478] Sam Oropeza

Featherweight
[#144] Josh LaBerge vs. [#267] Anthony Leone

Featherweight
[#229] Jason McLean vs. [#714 LW] Kevin Roddy

In (most probably) our next release, we will be introducing a mild “blocking” routine into the ratings.

No software-based rating system is perfect and although we’ve stymied most of the undesirable qualities of an ELO-system, some still remain.  As such, we will be implementing a blocking routine which will prevent a fighter from increasing his or her rating over a fighter who has beaten them in the past 450 days, unless one of the following conditions are met, in a future match within the 450 day window:

• The winning fighter loses to a future fighter with a pre-bout rating of less than the loser of the original match.
• The losing fighter wins against a future fighter with a pre-bout rating of more than the winner of the original match.
• The winning fighter only wins a close decision or draws against a future fighter with a pre-bout rating of less than 1/2 the loser of the original match.
• The losing fighter loses a close decision or draws against a future fighter with a pre-bout rating of more than 1/2 the loser of the original match.
• Fighters are ranked in different divisions.

Our intent is to resolve the issue of a losing fighter creeping above the winner with a multitude of mediocre, yet point-scoring wins.  This is a very mild solution, and as a result, our initial test only produced 65 blocks — less than half of which will affect ranked fighters.

Although there are 5 conditions above, this still pales in comparison to the complexities of our rating system as a whole.  Nevertheless, we feel this is more than a fair start for our first attempt at releasing this into the wild.

In addition, our next update will introduce a new slant on scoring split and majority decisions.  If one judge’s score wildly varies from the others, it will have less, or more effect on the ratings, depending on the direction in which that one judge scored.  This will have very little overall effect on the ratings.

As for the expansion..

In the last few years, Lightweight, Welterweight, and Middleweight have outpaced their larger predecessors in producing more quality fighters.  As such, we will be progressively expanding these rankings in the coming weeks/months.  We will be increasing these three divisions to a Top 300 list on the next update.

UFC/FightMatrix Middleweight Championship

[#1 MW] Anderson Silva vs. [*] Vitor Belfort

Notes: Silva is also #1 Division Dominance and the #1 All-Time Middleweight.  Belfort is not ranked due to inactivity, but would likely be the #3 Middleweight if he stayed active.

Light Heavyweight

[#9] Forrest Griffin vs. [#10] Rich Franklin

Notes: A virtual tie, as Griffin’s points have slipped since the last update due to inactivity.  Griffin is the #13 All-Time Light Heavyweight, Franklin is #21 (and #3 Middleweight).

Welterweight

[#16] Jake Ellenberger vs. [#89] Carlos Eduardo Rocha

Notes: A former rookie of the year winner, Ellenberger may have a tougher challenge on his hands than the above ranking suggests, as recorded Brazilian fight history is very weak.

Light Heavyweight

[#5] Ryan Bader vs. [#15] Jon Jones

Notes: Another match-up that is likely closer than the rankings suggest, thanks to Jones’ DQ loss to Mark Hamill.  He will try to completely erase the software’s effects caused by that loss.  The winner should be looking at the Top 4 for their next opponent.

Keep Reading

Notable Info (Outside the Top 10s)

• Yushin Okami moves to #12 and is banging on the Middleweight Top 10’s door.  Another good win will see him battling it out with Chael Sonnen and Robbie Lawler to see who will occupy that #10 spot at year’s end.
• Frankie Edgar now occupies the #11 position at Lightweight.  Melendez’s recent activity has been staved off Edgar’s ascent to the main list, so he’ll stay just outside it, for now.
• At nearly 40 years old, and with only 8 professional fights, Alexis Vila has a chance to touch the Top 10 Flyweight ranks before his career comes to a close.  He moves up to #12 with our latest update, but has a few points to make up in order to get past Jin Akimoto (#11).

Notable Info

• Intermediate release due to a bug fix/revision made to a secondary metric that controls how far a losing fighter falls as a result of  a loss.  This largely did not affect the top fighters, but will cause a point decrease across the board and will cause fluctuations below the Top 20.

Using the FightMatrix rating system, we will now be issuing out awards at yearly and perhaps other intervals, to fighters, shows, and fights.  We will also be backfilling some past years based on the metrics we’ve used to create the current ones.

Check it out when you get a chance: FightMatrix Awards.

The biggest event of the past week was the UFC’s second annual ‘Fight for the Troops’: a charitable event to benefit the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund for the treatment of Armed Forces veterans who suffered traumatic brain injury in the line of duty.

The televised portion of the event was broadcast on Spike TV, and as is generally the case for UFC’s Spike show, there were no Top 10-ranked fighters on the card – so the impact on rankings was fairly minimal at a high level.  However there were some fluctuations, particularly in the heavyweight & lightweight divisions.

Heavyweight action

Matt ‘Meathead’ Mitrione made short work of Tim Hague, improving his record to 4-0 and rising to #23 on the heavyweight ranking.  A big, quick heavyweight with serious knockout power, Mitrione looks to have improved in every one of his four professional fights.  Despite his inexperience, he already sits at #11 in the UFC’s heavyweight division, and with another couple of wins I won’t be surprised to see him fighting for the title within a year.

Mitrione’s friend and training partner Pat Barry didn’t fare quite as well: though he made it into the Top 50 at #44 with a hard-fought unanimous decision win over Joey Beltran, his struggle with a small brawler like Beltran shows very limited upside in the heavyweight division where he will often face fighters much bigger than himself, and with a much more diverse skill set.   Beltran, after winning his first two bouts in the Octagon, loses two straight decisions and his UFC career will be in jeopardy with another loss.  Ultimately, the light-heavyweight division seems like a better fit for both Barry and Beltran.

Notable

The loss to Mitrione drops Tim Hague’s UFC record to a miserable 1-4.   Hague was already twice cut from his UFC contract after losses to Chris Tuchscherer and Joey Beltran.  If the first-round TKO loss sends Hague packing again (and I suspect that it will), this will be the third time he is served his UFC walking papers – in the course of a single year!

Hominick emerges as a contender

With a first-round KO of George Roop, featherweight Mark Hominick moves up four spots to #14, and earns a shot at the champion Jose Aldo.  Roop falls 10 spots to #55.  Meanwhile, former WEC champion Mike Thomas Brown falls to #21 with a unanimous decision loss to Rani Yahya,  Brown’s second consecutive loss and his third in the past four bouts.  Yahya, previously ranked at bantamweight, returns to the featherweight rankings at #18.

Six lightweight match-ups to make after ‘Fight For The Troops’

Four of the eleven match-ups on the card took place in the lightweight division.  Let’s play amateur matchmaker with the 155 lbs winners and losers of this event:

Keep Reading

It’s been another slow week, with the Strikeforce Challengers 13 the only major event to make a small blip on the rankings radar. The bigger news of the past week was the announcement of another Strikeforce event – or rather a series of events: an eight-men single elimination heavyweight championship tournament, or Strikeforce World Grand Prix.

While Strikeforce has a number of top heavyweights on their roster, they received plenty of criticizm in the past year for not being able to put together matchups due to injuries, suspensions, contract negotiations, scheduling conflicts, and a slew of other issues. CEO Scott Coker took the criticizm in stride and promised big things to come in 2011. The announcement of the tournament lays out the planned matchups for the next year, and is a huge step towards legitimizing the Strikeforce heavyweight division and title.

The current heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem will defend his title in a rematch with Fabricio Werdum in the first round, and the title will be subsequently defended in the tournament semi-finals and finals.

Here’s how the Grand Prix participants stack up according to FightMatrix rankings:

Bracket I

Rank	Fighter	Record	Points
3	Fabricio Werdum Last Fight: 6/26/2010 [Strike Force]	14-4-1	594
8	Alistair Overeem Last Fight: 12/31/2010 [K-1]	34-11-0	289

Rank	Fighter	Record	Points
4	Fedor Emelianenko Last Fight: 6/26/2010 [Strike Force]	31-2-0	493
11	Antonio Silva Last Fight: 12/04/2010 [Strike Force]	15-2-0	211

Keep reading for the second bracket & alternate bouts:

Keep Reading