Current MMA Rankings Updated (07-05-2015)
Things You Might Otherwise Miss
Our Recently Active page is good for these obscure tidbits, but just to name a few..
- We assessed our semi-annual population adjustment for the Japanese. This explains many of the seemingly unexplained rating drops for fighters that don’t leave Japan. Only men were adjusted as we just don’t have enough data for women.
- We also updated our All-Time MMA Rankings too. This is the 2nd week in a row that I’ve mentioned Miguel Torres, because in this update, he finally lost his #1 Bantamweight position as the current populous is simply catching up.
- Speaking of Japan, a strange fight took place in Pancrase. Our #1 Strawweight Mitsuhisa Sunabe faced off against then-ranked #401 Lightweight Takafumi Ito in an “open weight” bout. What’s even stranger is that the 5’8″ Sunabe, weighed in at 121.7lb, which is only about 2-2.5 pounds above what he normally weighs in at. Ito weighed in at 159.6lb, but the 37.9 pound weight advantage did not help him, as Sunabe tapped him out in the 3rd round.
Current MMA Rankings Updated (06-28-2015)
Things You Might Otherwise Miss
Our Recently Active page is good for these obscure tidbits, but just to name a few..
- Miguel Torres fought and lost to unheralded Kleber Koike Erbst, who was rated comfortably ahead of Torres before the fight. Torres was scheduled to fight Will Chope in a semi-final bout of a Featherweight tournament, but when Chope missed weight, Torres refused to take the fight and instead was moved into the finals. This gives our All-Time
#1#2 Bantamweight his 9th loss and certainly enough motivation to call it quits. How the mighty have fallen…. - Former UFC fighter, 40 year old Kalib Starnes fought and lost on Saturday. Loss #10 for him. On the same card, Rodney Wallace, one of the best fighters ever to go winless in 3 or more UFC fights, won.
- Celine Haga, again becomes the ranked fighter with (arguably) the worst record as she re-enters the Atomweight rankings. Though her career record is 7-13, she is 6-2 in her last eight fights with one of those losses being a split decision.
- Anyone notice Luis Rafael Laurentino and his 30-0-0 record?
Conor McGregor: Just how overrated is he?
I realize the UFC has to hype fights, but from a Fight Matrix rankings perspective, Conor McGregor may be one of the most overhyped fighters in MMA history.
He is basically even money with Jose Aldo for their fight.
From an All-Time perspective, McGregor ranks as the #49 Featherweight in history, sandwiched between Josh Grispi and Robbie Peralta. If you think this is harsh, please consider that approximately half of McGregor’s fights have taken place at Lightweight.
Despite having beaten the currently ranked #5 Featherweight, McGregor finds himself at #6 — you can argue that we should be performing adjustments based on events since two fighters matched up, but we don’t. Even if we did, he would probably find himself no higher than #5.
Recently, he got his poster hung from the ceiling at the TUF gym. While some may consider this a mecca of sorts for the UFC, it is certainly one or both of two things; foreshadowing, absurd.
Your thoughts?
Is Ronda Rousey the Most Dominant Athlete as SI suggests?
Unless you’ve been living under a stone or in a cave, you probably know that SI recognized Ronda Rousey as the most dominant athlete today. Let’s keep other sports out of it and focus just on MMA.
“Dominant” is quite subjective, as are most adjectives. However, we -can- use the “Division Point Dominance” rankings to see where she fits if we mixed the men and women lists. As they are based on proportional differences, they can be mixed together with the disclaimer that by volume alone, the men’s portion of MMA is much deeper.
Top 10 Divisional Point Dominance – Mixed Gender
| Rank | Name | DD Pts | Gender |
| 1 | Chris Weidman | 586 | M |
| 2 | Jon Jones | 510 | M |
| 3 | Jose Aldo | 396 | M |
| 4 | Ronda Rousey | 353 | F |
| 5 | Rafael dos Anjos | 349 | M |
| 6 | Demetrious Johnson | 344 | M |
| 7 | Frankie Edgar | 269 | M |
| 8 | Robbie Lawler | 240 | M |
| 9 | Luke Rockhold | 222 | M |
| 10 | Rory MacDonald | 215 | M |
If you follow our site, you’ll understand that the points above are as much about the fighter as they are about the division in which they fight. For example: Demetrious Johnson has had a longer tenure at the very top of a division than Rafael dos Anjos, but Lightweight is a much stronger division than Flyweight.
Our “P4P” ratings value the more cumulative aspect and remove the divisional aspect, but can be more influenced by the volume of history.
Top 10 Pound for Pound – Mixed Gender
| Rank | Name | P4P Pts | Gender |
| 1 | Jon Jones | 460 | M |
| 2 | Jose Aldo | 294 | M |
| 3 | Chris Weidman | 280 | M |
| 4 | Demetrious Johnson | 244 | M |
| 5 | Rafael dos Anjos | 171 | M |
| 6 | Fabricio Werdum | 137 | M |
| 7 | Anthony Johnson | 135 | M |
| 8 | Ronda Rousey | 130 | F |
| 9 | Robbie Lawler | 125 | M |
| 10 | Johny Hendricks | 125 | M |
Given the two lists above, Rousey is not the most dominant in MMA, but she’s in the conversation once you get past Jones, Aldo and Weidman.