UFC 80 had the most notable effect on the ranking of the following fighters:

• BJ Penn moves from #6 to #3 in the Lightweight division after his victory over Joe Stevenson.  Stevenson drops from #10 to #16.
• Fabricio Werdum moves from #9 to #4 with his victory over Gabriel Gonzaga.  Gonzaga drops from #4 to #7.

Check out the complete, updated rankings!  We now rank the Top 50 in Lightweight and above; Top 25 in Bantamweight, Featherweight, and Women’s Openweight; and Top 10 in Flyweight.

Latest Rankings:

Heavyweight (206+ lbs)

Light Heavyweight (188-205 lbs)

Middleweight (176-187 lbs)

Welterweight (162-175 lbs)

Lightweight (146-161 lbs)

Featherweight (136-145 lbs)

Bantamweight (126-135 lbs)

Flyweight (under 126 lbs)

Women (Open Weight)

The first official release of the rankings have been released today. In future releases, the ranking pages will contain a movement tracker, displaying a fighter’s movement between the previous release and the present one. As for frequency of updates… we are still giving this some thought.

There is now a ranking page that will list the highest-ranked fighters without a division assignment.  If you would like to help us tackle this list and determine divisions for these fighters, we invite you to please help us out!!  If your investigation turns up anything, please e-mail jcs at fightmatrix.com with your findings, and information source, with this source preferably being weigh-in and/or organization profile information.

Lightweight and above have been expanded to Top 50.

UFC Lightweight Championship
[#6] BJ Penn vs. [#10] Joe Stevenson

Heavyweights
[#4] Gabriel Gonzaga vs. [#9] Fabricio Werdum

Welterweights
[#18] Marcus Davis vs. [#30] Jess Liaudin

Light Heavyweights
[#13] Jason Lambert vs. [#44] Wilson Gouveia

Middleweights
[#54] Kendall Grove vs. [#89] Jorge Rivera

Heavyweights
[#100] Antoni Hardonk vs. [*] Colin Robinson

Welterweights
[#115] Paul Kelly vs. [#150] Paul Taylor

Light Heavyweights
[#33] James Lee vs. [#65] Alessio Sakara

Lightweights
[#32] Sam Stout vs. [#49] Per Eklund

Ranking Note: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

– Due to some overly aggressive initial placements for recently debuting fighters, pre-bout calculation bonuses for quality performances in debuts have been reduced by 25-50% depending on the specific scenario.

In other words, debuting fighters who break onto the scene with a quality performance, are not given as much of a bonus as they were before. This will have small changes throughout the divisions.

– Heavyweight through Lightweight rankings have been expanded to Top 40s.

– Bantamweight, Featherweight, and Women rankings have been expanded to Top 25s.

Ranked fighters’ records are now displayed in the ranking pages. If you see a record that you think is incorrect, please e-mail jcs at fightmatrix.com.

Featherweight, Bantamweight, and Women (ALL), have been expanded from Top 15s to Top 20s.

We are taking the ranking expansion one step at a time, to verify that fighters entering the lists have the correct nationality and divisional settings. If you think a fighter is placed in the incorrect division, find a nationality error, or think a fighter should be ranked, but can’t find them, please write a comment in response to this post.

Lightweight and above have been expanded from Top 25 to Top 30.

Since the early development of the rating system, bouts labeled as “no contests” have been completely ignored.  This could cause some fighters to be wrongly classified as inactive.  As it stands, after 360 days of inactivity, a fighter’s rating will begin a gradual decline due to inactivity penalties. Furthermore, fighters inactive for a full calendar year (365 days), are not displayed on the rankings.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that completely ignoring no contests is fundamentally wrong. The purpose of the inactivity penalty is to reflect the assumption that the fighter is not practicing their craft on a competitive level. Even though these bouts did not have an official outcome, the fighters were still training, and did compete in a professional bout.

Due to this recent mental development, no contests are now considered bouts, albeit bouts without outcomes. This will affect the “last bout date” of a fighter, which may stave off inactivity penalties, and allow a fighter to be ranked as long as they had some official bout in the past 365 days. This will not affect the application of quality performance penalties, as no contests cannot be considered quality performances under any circumstances.

The only immediate effect on the rankings is that this change allows Takanori Gomi to be reinstated in the rankings as the #1 Lightweight, as he is no longer considered inactive.

We have expanded all of our rankings: 

Lightweight, and above, have been expanded to Top 25. 

Bantam, Feather, and Women rankings have been expanded to Top 15. 

Look for more expansion in the future!

Happy New Year everyone!

We just published a major ranks updates for all weight divisions.  We believe this is the most accurate and realistic rank to date.  Some notable changes were made:

1. More accurate bout database
2. The addition of Flyweight (under 126 lbs) division Top-10
3. Improved ranking software
4. Fighters who were not active in 2007 dropped from ranks for inactivity.  Most notably, Mark Hunt, Josh Barnett, and Takanori Gomi are no longer ranked.

Updated Rankings:

Heavyweight (206+ lbs)

Light Heavyweight (186-205 lbs)

Middleweight (171-185 lbs)

Welterweight (156-170 lbs)

Lightweight (146-155 lbs)

Featherweight (136-145 lbs)

Bantamweight (126-135 lbs)

Flyweight (under 126 lbs)

Women (Open Weight)

We rely on external sites to provide bout history for our rating system. It has recently been brought to my attention that there has been a lack of updates from our current provider, especially in the lower weights and for women altogether.

While our source has the best past history, a complete ledger of recent results are most important in providing an accurate current ranking system. If you noticed our ratings went haywire, it is simply because we switched providers.

Revision 1 will debut with all ratings updates.  The first change involves draws and is very minor.  Simply put, the effect of a draw has been amplified and its change can best be described with an example scenario using the lower-rated fighter.

Fighter A (150 pts) DRAW Fighter B (60 pts)

• Old Method for Fighter B > ((60*1.2) + ((150+60)/2)) / 2.2 = 80.45
• New Method of Fighter B > ((60*.6) + ((150+60)/2)) / 1.6 = 88.13

The calculation for the higher rated fighter experienced similar changes, but they are not as pronounced due to other factors involved.

The second change involves the quality performance decay, which requires fighters to have a quality performance in the past 12 months or else their rating begins to gradually decline.   The criteria for triggering of this decay were slightly modified in order to lighten the requirements for maintaining one’s rating.  This was also a very minor change.