Last week, I examined the progress made by fighters who competed in the light heavyweight division on the Season 1 of The Ultimate Fighter reality series. Let’s now look at the other half of the picture: the middleweight contestants from Season 1.

The middleweights turned out to be a talented group of fighters: five out of eight are still competing in the UFC, and hold a .700 or better record in the Octagon. Most of them were also a bit undersized for their weight division: only Chris Leben and Nate Quarry still compete at 185 lbs; the rest dropped one or more weight classes. Also, while the fighter with most prior experience went on to win the contest, the two fighters with the highest current rankings both only had 2 wins in professional MMA bouts prior to the show.

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Notable Info

• The usual.  Added some recent and old shows.
• Two very minor bug fixes.  Will cause some fluctuations low in the divisions where points are more scarce.

There is no question that the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series – better known as ‘TUF’ – has been the most influential vehicle for promoting the success of UFC, and to a lesser extent MMA in general, in North America. The careers of most contestants have been boosted like they could have never imagined. Even the ones who never came close to winning were still given a chance to prove their worth in the UFC, and many of the fighters released from the UFC were instantly picked up by smaller organizations simply because of the newly acquired name recognition.

With the show now in it’s seventh season, let’s take a look back at where it all started. The first season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ took place in 2005, and featured 8 middleweights and 8 lightheavyweights competing for two ‘six figure’ contracts with the UFC. Most of the contestants were virtually unknown in the MMA world at the time, yet all are now very familiar names for most fans. I will start with the light heavyweight division, and examine the middleweights next week.

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• Effects from recent and newly added shows.  Notable changes stem from Shooto 5/3

There is a virtual deadlock at the #1 Lightweight spot between Takanori Gomi and Shinya Aoki.  The recent Shooto show, and some recently added shows caused moderate shakeups in the lower weight divisions.

Notable Info

• Effects from recent shows such as Pancrase, Cage Gladiators, DREAM, and UWC can now be observed.
• Additions and corrections made to historical shows/bouts.

The #1 Lightweight spot is still Takanori Gomi’s, but by less than 1 rating point!  With Gomi’s decaying point total, lack of scheduled bouts, and the upcoming Sherk/Penn title match, it is an absolute certainty that Gomi’s reign at the top will come to an end, very shortly.

The next rankings update is scheduled for May 4th.

Notable Info

• Historical shows and a few recent minor shows added to the database.
• Notable changes are restricted to the women’s division (SmackGirl 4/26).

The next update will be on April 29th after the DREAM show.

Takanori Gomi’s relative inactivity and lack of recent achievements have left his point total stagnant.  In fact, his points have actually decreased approximately 7% since they were at their peak level, which was reached after he beat Ishida on 12/31/06.  This is not to say that this was him at his fighting peak as it is inaccurate to compare the value of a point between time (sort of like the value of the dollar), but with increased competition, the outstanding pool of points becomes larger.  This means that Gomi is essentially “swimming against the current”.

On April 29th the #2 Lightweight, Gesias Calvancante, squares off against the #6 Lightweight, Shinya Aoki.  If Calvancante were to win, he would take the top spot from Takanori Gomi.  If Aoki wins, his eventual point total would depend on the type of win.

Regardless of this outcome, the top spot may be in jeopardy again on May 24th, when #3 Lightweight, BJ Penn, squares off against the #5 Lightweight, Sean Sherk for the FightMatrix recognized UFC Lightweight title.

To follow-up on Oleg’s excellent Light Heavyweight articles, I decided to run the current code on the database, to simulate what the ratings would look like one year ago today.  The “Diff” column shows the ranking difference between then, and today.

Rank	Diff	Fighter	Record	Points
1	2	Chuck Liddell Last Fight: 12/30/2006 [UFC]	20-3-0	514
2	4	Mauricio Rua Last Fight: 2/24/2007 [PRIDE]	16-2-0	349
3	4	Sokoudjou Last Fight: 4/8/2007 [PRIDE]	4-1-0	290
4	NR	Dan Henderson Last Fight: 2/24/2007 [PRIDE]	22-5-0	286
5	3	Ricardo Arona Last Fight: 4/8/2007 [PRIDE]	13-5-0	206
6	5	Quinton Jackson Last Fight: 2/3/2007 [UFC]	26-6-0	177
7	5	Wanderlei Silva Last Fight: 2/24/2007 [PRIDE]	31-7-1	171
8	1	Tito Ortiz Last Fight: 12/30/2006 [UFC]	16-5-0	170
9	7	Ryoto Machida Last Fight: 4/21/2007 [UFC]	10-0-0	168
10	1	Antonio Rogerio Nogueira Last Fight: 2/24/2007 [PRIDE]	12-3-0	164

Ratings Run Date: April 22, 2007

While George St. Pierre solidified his position atop the welterweight division with a victory over Matt Serra, with six middleweight bouts UFC 83 had the biggest impact on the 185 lbs weight class.

• [#17] Demian Maia, [#18] Jason MacDonald, and [#20] Jason Day all blasted into the Top 20 with impressive stoppage wins.
• Michael Bisping made his middleweight debut at #30.
• Nate Quarry improved to #49 with a lopsided decision over Kalib ‘Running Man’ Starnes.
• [#50] Ed Herman, [#53] Joe Doerksen, [#57] Alan Belcher all fall to the bottom half of the Top 100.  Starnes falls to #80.
• [#5] Rich Franklin’s victory over [#41] Travis Lutter had no significant impact on either man’s rank.
• Former #99 Evan Tanner is displaced from the Top 100.

In the lightweight division, Mac Danzig makes his 155 lbs debut at #33.  Mark Bocek drops out of Top 100, while Rich Clementi and Sam Stout sit at #24 and #35 respectively after their bout.

In the official Fight of The Night, Jonathan Goulet improved to #25 in the welterweight division with a KO victory over Kuniyoshi Hironaka.  Hironaka falls to #61.

Notable Info

• Results from various recent cards have been added to the database.  Notable recent cards include those from UFC, Bodog, KOTC, and CageWarriors.
• Some historical bouts added to database.

As a result of UFC 83, Georges St. Pierre is now #1 on the Division Dominance list!

Last week, we examined the top light heavyweight fighters who are currently competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  As mentioned, the UFC has the 205 lbs division in a tight chokehold; according to our ranking, sixteen of  the Top 20 active light heavyweights call the Octagon their home.

With the UFC so heavily invested in the division, no other MMA promotion has been able to put together a competitive stable of light heavyweights.  Still, there are a few fighters not locked into Zuffa contracts who have the skills and talent to give the UFC’s best a run for their money, and the name recognition to pique the interest of MMA fans.  With Tito Ortiz claiming he is on the way out of the UFC as well, there may be an opportunity here for another promotion – if they are able to sign most of these fighters.

Here is a look at the six of the Top 20 light heavyweights outside of the UFC:

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The next rankings update will occur on 4/20/08.  This will undoubtedly be a big update, so make sure to check us out!

Notable Info

• Rating code updated to v1.17b.  Corrected bug related to transition between quality performance penalties and inactive penalties, in the event where a fighter qualifies for both.
• Database updated with recent shows.  Most notable changes result from the YAMMA show.  Note: Could not grab the Cage Rage 4/12 results as they were not readily available.  This happens pretty often, but just figured I’d mention it as we have some Cage Rage fans that visit.

When Zuffa – the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship – purchased and subsequently dismantled Pride Fighting Championship in 2007, MMA fans worldwide expected that majority of the best fighters in the world will be consolidated under the UFC banner.  So far, the results have been decidedly mixed.  While three out of five UFC title belts are held by former Pride FC fighters,  the heavyweight division is still as much in shambles as it was two years ago, and a number of middleweight (185 lbs) contenders are scattered throughout various organizations.  In the lightweight division, Marcus Aurelio is the only Pride competitor who has stepped inside the UFC Octagon to date.

The only place where Zuffa had an undeniable success of consolidating the top talent is MMA’s marquee division – the light heavyweights (205 lbs).  Not only is UFC the home to the undisputed champion of the world at 205, they also employ all of the Top 5, 9 of the Top 10, and 14 of the Top 20 LHW fighters, according to the latest Fightmatrix.com ranking.

This would be a great time for the UFC to hold a Gran Prix-style tournament.  Alas, Zuffa brass are staunchly opposed to the tournament format.  Fortunately for the fans, we get the next best thing to a tourney: except for Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, all of the UFC’s top light heavyweights are slated to step into the Octagon over the course of the next few events.

Here is a closer look at what is coming up for the warriors of the light heavyweight division:

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There are several important changes to take into account before viewing this update.

Notable Info

• Rating code updated to v1.17.
• Code Change: Removal of quality performance exemptions for those who are stopped in recognized title bouts.
• Code Change: Acceleration of fighters who have early career trends of decisively beating higher-ranked fighters without quantifiable weakness in results.
• Ranking Page Change: Fighters are now ranked if they have a bout in the previous 450 days (was 1 calendar year).  Calculation-wise, this only has an impact on the division dominance list.  However, for this update, it had no impact whatsoever.
• Ranking Page Change: Those in the inactivity penalty stage will now have mauve colored last bout information.
• Bouts added to database.  Total count is now approximately 48,200 professional bouts.

The reason for the code changes was a result of some former champions hanging onto higher positions than they deserved, and proven fighters being beaten by barnstorming “up and comers”.  These were perceived problems and were able to be isolated via programming logic.

As a result, this stirred up two controversial results.  Tim Sylvia and Wanderlei Silva both dropped out of their respective Top 10 lists.  We would be happy to discuss these instances in our forum.