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.

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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:

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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:

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When considering upsets for the list, we took the winner’s rating at the first of that month and divided it by the loser’s rating at the first of that month.  Fighters coming back from inactivity, and previously undefeated winners (up-and-comers) are excluded.

Biggest Point-Based Upsets by % – (Loser with rating above #20 in assumed division /#20 overall female)

1. Jadamba Narantungalag UD(3) Akihiro Gono

2. Darren Uyenoyama TKO(2) Shuichiro Katsumura

3. Eric Schambari SD(3) Matt Horwich

4. Jimmie Rivera SD(5) Abel Cullum

5. Luis Palomino SD(3) Jorge Masvidal

6. Matt Horwich SUB(4) Thales Leites

7. Fabricio Werdum SUB(1) Fedor Emelianenko

8. Amir Sadollah UD(3) Brad Blackburn

9. Rafael Cavalcante TKO(3) Muhammed Lawal

10 Marloes Coenen SUB(3) Sarah Kaufman

The past week more than made up for the lull in MMA action over the holidays, as three major events went down in the books.   In Japan, Sengoku closed the year out with the ‘Soul of Fight’ on December 30th, and K-1 rang in the new year with the annual ‘Dynamite!!’ event on the 31st.  State-side, the UFC made 2011 official with ‘UFC 125: Resolution’.  As a result, a few of our divisional rankings in the current update look like someone took an eggbeater to them (thank our reader Chromium for the apt analogy).

Here is how some of this weekend’s events affected the FightMatrix rankings:

UFC 125: Resolution (or lack thereof?)

As the UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar took on Gray Maynard – the man responsible for the sole loss on Edgar’s record – the final WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis watched patiently.  Pettis was tentatively slated to face the winner of Saturday’s bout in a title unification match some time in 2011.   It looks like he may be waiting a while longer: Maynard brutally battered Edgar in the first round but was not able to put him away, and Edgar rallied for the remainder of the fight, resulting in an unlikely split draw on the scorecards.  Edgar retains his title and his #1 ranking, though he slips a spot to #5 on the Division Dominance list, while Maynard rises 2 spots to #2 LW.  Meanwhile the back-log of contenders grows deeper as Clay Guida makes his way into the Top 10 with a second round submission victory over former Pride FC champion Takanori Gomi.  Gomi falls to #13 LW.

Notable

This is the second time a UFC title bout is judged a draw – and the first one was also in the lightweight division, when BJ Penn fought Caol Uno to a draw for then vacant title at UFC 41 in 2003.  Back then,  the UFC’s entire lightweight division was dismantled as a result of the draw, relegating 155 lbs and under MMA to Japan for many years.  Things could not be more different today, with over sixty active lightweights on the UFC roster, and several legit contenders for the title.

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