Friday – Fresquez Promotions

Women’s Bantamweight
[#17] Christina Domke L-(TKO2) [*] Holly Holm
Holm’s debut. She is the #1 current Women’s P4P boxer and likely Top 5 in women’s boxing history.

Light Heavyweight
[#26] Keith Jardine W-(TKO1) [#252] Aron Lofton

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Saturday – Strikeforce

Light Heavyweight
[#7] Dan Henderson vs. [#10] Rafael Cavalcante
Henderson recently moved to #9 in our All-Time Absolute list.

Women’s Bantamweight
[#1] Marloes Coenen vs. [#4] Liz Carmouche
Carmouche was our 2010 Women’s Rookie of the Year.

Middleweight
[#20] Tim Kennedy vs. [#29 LHW] Melvin Manhoef

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Saturday – BellatorFC 35

Welterweight
[#21] Jay Hieron vs. [#74 MW] Anthony Lapsley

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Saturday – Chicago Cagefighting Championship

Featherweight (140lb)
[#56] Chase Beebe vs. [#274 LW] Steve Kinnisen

Featherweight
[#263] Jens Pulver vs. [#285 BW] Wade Choate

Welterweight
[#9] Martin Kampmann vs.  [#12] Diego Sanchez

Middleweight
[#24] Mark Munoz vs. [#30] CB Dollaway

Middleweight
[#15] Alessio Sakara vs. [#123] Chris Weidman

Bantamweight
[#4] Brian Bowles vs. [#64] Damacio Page

Lightweight
[#50] Joe Stevenson vs. [#78] Danny Castillo

Light Heavyweight
[#35] Cyrille Diabate vs. [*] Steve Cantwell

Lightweight
[#49] Shane Roller vs. [#80] Thiago Tavares

Bantamweight
[#15] Takeya Mizugaki vs. [#49] Reuban Duran

Middleweight
[#126] Dong Yi Yang vs. [#178] Rob Kimmons

Middleweight
[#22] Rousimar Palhares vs. [#38] Dave Branch

Light Heavyweight
[#99] Igor Pokrajac vs. [#130] Todd Brown

Top 5 Highest Ranked FightMatrix Fighters not on Sherdog Rankings

(#6 FW) Kazuyuki Miyata
(#6 LW) Clay Guida
(#8 WW) Paul Daley
(#8 LHW) Randy Couture
(#8 BW) Zach Makovsky

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Top 5 Largest Rank Difference between Sherdog Ranked and FightMatrix

(-16 HW) Roy Nelson
(-10 FW) Dustin Poirier
(-10 BW) Brad Pickett
(-10 LW) Sean Sherk
(-9 BW) Demetrious Johnson

We decided to exclude Rambaa Somdet, as he is technically a Mini-Flyweight fighter, Dan Henderson, who we rank in different divisions, and Wanderlei Silva, who was recently dropped off of Sherdog’s list for inactivity.

Please share your thoughts in the Comments.  If we missed someone, please let us know.

Notable Info

• Welterweight and Lightweight expanded to Top 400.

Friday – DEEP 52 Impact

DEEP Bantamweight Championship
[#16] Hiroshi Nakamura UD(3) [#6] Masakazu Imanari (C)

Women’s Flyweight
[#8] Seo Hee Ham UD(3) [#9] Saori Ishioka

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Friday – MFC 28 (HDNet)

Light Heavyweight
[#28] Ryan Jimmo vs. [#51] Dwayne Lewis

Light Heavyweight
[#48] Emanuel Newton vs. [#50] Rodney Wallace

Lightweight (160lb)
[#50] Drew Fickett vs. [#89] Matt Veach

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Saturday – BAMMA 5

Heavyweight (215lb Catch)
[#33] Ricco Rodriguez vs. [#161 LHW] James McSweeney
Rodriguez missed weight by 2 pounds.

Saturday – G-Force Fights

Lightweight
[#6 FW] Luis Palomino vs. [*] John Robles

Saturday – Cage Warriors FC 40

Women’s Super Flyweight
[#4 BW] Roxanne Modafferi vs. [#6] Rosi Sexton
Modafferi’s first fight below 130 lbs.

Welterweight
[#3] Jon Fitch vs. [#4] B.J. Penn

Middleweight
[#10] Michael Bisping vs. [#32] Jorge Rivera

Lightweight
[#8] George Sotiropoulos vs. [#41] Dennis Siver

Welterweight
[#11] Chris Lytle vs. [#82] Brian Ebersole

Middleweight
[#49] Kyle Noke vs. [#92] Chris Camozzi

Lightweight
[#68] Spencer Fisher vs. [#94] Ross Pearson

Light Heavyweight
[#26] Alexander Gustafsson vs. [#54] James Te Huna

Middleweight
[#21] Riki Fukuda vs. [*] Nick Ring

Light Heavyweight
[#191 HW] Anthony Perosh vs. [*] Tom Blackledge

Featherweight
[*] Zhang Tie Quan vs. [*] Jason Reinhardt

Heavyweight
[#67] Chris Tuchscherer vs. [#159] Mark Hunt

Lightweight
[#82] Maciej Jewtuszko vs. [#451] Curt Warburton

In our next release, we will be expanding the Welterweight and Lightweight divisions to the Top 400.  After this expansion, we will re-evaluate the current limits of all divisions and possibly expand another time or two.  However, this upcoming expansion may be the final one for the foreseeable future.  We apologize for non-uniform expansions, but we are attempting to expand based on divisional strength alone, within the confines of the rating system’s optimal performance zone.

It’s been a mostly uneventful week, with only one significant occurence in the rankings: former #1 ranked flyweight Jussier da Silva suffered the first defeat of his career when he lost a unanimous decision to the WEC veteran Ian McCall.   McCall was formerly ranked at #95 bantamweight, and landed at #4 in the flyweight division, with Jussier falling to #6 and Yasuhiro Urushitani and Mamoru Yamaguchi in a virtual tie for the newly vacated #1.

Here’s what the flyweight Top 50 looks like after this weekend: Flyweight (Under 131 lbs) fighter ranks.

Ranking Expansion

Once again, we expanded our lightweight, welterweight, and middleweight rankings by 50.  See who is in the Top 350’s:

Middleweight 301-350

Welterweight 301-350

Lightweight 301-350

Notable Info

• Middleweight, Welterweight, and Lightweight expanded to Top 350.
• Slight modification to blocking routine which forgives those who lose to aggressively placed early career fighters.

He is now only one spot away from taking the Absolute crown away from Fedor.  With Fedor’s sudden sharp decline, this changing of the guard appears to be inevitable.

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