Current MMA Rankings Updated (05-22-2014)
Notable Info
- Intermediate update to resolve bug found in P4P ratings. Rin Nakai was the only ranked fighter of either gender that was affected. As a result of the fix, she is no longer ranked.
Fight Odds: Brown vs Silva
Let me start off by saying that I don’t bet on MMA fights. Mixed Martial Arts is often an unpredictable sport. With so many different ways to win, a fight can be over in a blink of an eye, and a fighter who was dominating early might find himself on the canvass staring at the arena lights and wondering what happened. The unpredictability is a big part of what makes MMA fun to watch… but not so much to bet on. Even when you’re absolutely certain that your guy (or girl) will win, fights often happen to go the distance. At which point you might as well flip a coin, at least that what is seems like the judges do sometimes, judging by how many bizarre decisions and inconsistent scorecards they turn in. On top of that, the bookies who set the betting odds do this stuff for a living and don’t like losing money, so you have to assume that the odds-makers kind of know what they’re doing. Taking all that into consideration, it ‘s not easy to make money betting on fights. In fact you may just be better off trying your luck at GameVillage Bingo, or spending some time here.
That said, every now and then a fight comes along where the betting odds just don’t seem to mesh with the reality. And I believe that the welterweight match up between Matt Brown and Erick Silva, coming up this Saturday at UFC Fight Night in Cincinnati, is one of those fights. [#11] Matt Brown holds a significant rating advantage over [#26] Erick Silva. The official UFC rankings concur (with Brown at #7 and Silva #14). Brown is on a six-win streak, five of those T/KO stoppages inside of two rounds. Silva on the other hand has been alternating wins and losses in his UFC fights, and suffered a brutal KO courtesy of Dong Hyun Kim prior to his most recent win over Takenori Sato. While losses to Kim and Jon Fitch are nothing to be ashamed of, the list of opponents that Brown defeated is more impressive than Silva’s. And Brown is far more experienced in the UFC Octagon. And yet, all major sports betting sites have Erick Silva as a 2-1 favorite over Brown, with odds as high as (-250) Silva and (+206) Brown.
Current MMA Rankings Updated (04-09-2014)
Notable Info
- Refinement of veteran profiling adjustment due to results of objective analysis.
Current MMA Rankings Updated (04-06-2014)
Notable Info
- The latest rankings include the initial iteration of “veteran profiling”, which will help prevent continual overrating of experienced fighters. Although code is in place to prevent this from a general perspective, some experienced late-career fighters creep back up the rankings with incremental point bursts without ever fighting top competition again only to perpetually drop the ball against lower rated competition.
The belief is that if they did fight top competition, they would lose and have their progress reversed or at least halted more often. This is evidenced by multiple losses to lower-rated competition, which have been treated consistently across the board… this will no longer be the case, though this initial version is very mild in its effects.
Nick Newell’s title opportunity
Nick Newell, the one-armed man, was just named the next fighter to fight for the WSOF lightweight title. So I checked the Lightweight Rankings filtered to WSOF and found, not surprisingly, that Newell is ranked #12 in WSOF, which means there are quite a few fighters more deserving of a title shot than him.
It’s an obvious publicity trick by WSOF, trying to get attention through Newell’s uniqueness, and not his fighting record. I’m just disappointed with the MMA media which didn’t see fit to call this, and for the most part just reported the news as if it was just another MMA title fight.
Current MMA Rankings Updated (03-27-2014)
Notable Info (Intermediate Release)
- Fixed bug which affected some newly ranked women to be incorrectly interpreted as men for rating calculation purposes. Due to division differences, this caused some newly ranked women to be rated higher than they should’ve been for their debut ranking. This always resolved itself on the second run, but now it is no longer an issue.
- Very minor tweak with regards to handling of super-elite fighters with a habit of fighting sporadically while keeping a strong opposition profile.