Most Improved Fighter of the Year: Alex Morono
Morono bursted onto the scene with a perfect 4-0 record in 2015, skyrocketing up the rankings and earning himself a spot on UFC 195.
2015 Awards: Upsets of the Year
Note: We have two ways that we derive biggest “upsets” based on points difference between winner and loser.
“Most Noteworthy” (X minus Y)
“Most Lopsided” (X divided by Y)
Most Noteworthy: Luke Rockhold TKO(4) Chris Weidman
While not a huge upset by betting odds, Weidman had amassed nearly a 1,000 point lead over Rockhold in the rankings.
Honorable Mentions: Alistair Overeem TKO(2) Junior dos Santos, Uriah Hall TKO(2) Gegard Mousasi, Frank Mir TKO(1) Antonio Silva
Most Lopsided: Uriah Hall TKO(2) Gegard Mousasi
This fight is more truer to the definition of an actual “upset” than the one above, but this is why we slice this award in two different ways.
Honorable Mentions: Frank Mir TKO(1) Antonio Silva, Tony Johnson SD(3) Alexander Volkov, Frankie Saenz UD(3) Iuri Alcantara
2015 Awards: Most Noteworthy Match of the Year
Most Noteworthy Match of the Year:
Luke Rockhold TKO(4) Chris Weidman
The “most noteworthy” match of the year is a pretty basic calculation — a sum of quality if you will, taking a look back at the fights within the calendar year using the standing of the fighters involved at the end of the year. In this case, it wasn’t close. What more can you say? The twice conquerer of Anderson Silva against the current Middleweight champion and top P4P fighter. Not much else to say.
2015 Awards: Comeback Fighter of the Year
As a refresher, our “Comeback” award is about coming back from inactivity or major injury (that we know about) and in doing so, really impressing. You can see more details at the bottom of the post about specific qualifiers.
In this category, it was fairly slim pickings this year…
Comeback Fighter of the Year: Sergio Moraes
Nearly two years off from the sport, he had two UFC fights in the calendar year of 2015 and was victorious in both of them. Now ranked within the Top 50 in his division, it’s tough to argue against Moraes as the top selection for this award.
To qualify, fighters must be in an active status at the end of the award year and did not have a fight in the previous calendar year or are coming off of a known major injury that caused an inactive period of 15+ months.
Eight Straight, No Title Shot?
In the opening bout of the Pay-Per-View portion of UFC 194, Max Holloway defeated Jeremy Stephens by unanimous decision. It was in my opinion the least spectacular fight on the main card, and with two new champions being crowned later that evening, it’s understandable that this fight didn’t receive much press. However there is something about this fight worth mentioning: Holloway earned his eight consecutive win in the Octagon, entering a five-way tie for the fifth most consecutive wins in UFC history.
The other four fighters that share this accomplishment are Jon Fitch, Gray Maynard, Lyoto Machida, and Donald Cerrone. They all have something in common: winning eight consecutive fights earned them a shot at the title (Machida got his after the seventh win). Fitch and Maynard failed to win the belt, and we will see how Cerrone fares in his rematch with the champion Rafael dos Anjos next Saturday, but that is beside the point. The point being that if Holloway’s next fight is not for the featherweight gold, he will become the first fighter in history to reach the 8-win streak benchmark in UFC and not be rewarded with a title shot.
Stat Fun with the Generated Historical Rankings
In case you didn’t know, every week or so we re-compile the Generated Historical Rankings with the latest version of the ranking system and the latest data. This is a quarterly ranking since 1/1/1994 to the latest quarter beginning. We may eventually expand this to an earlier date, but prior to the last quarter of 1993, there was only Shooto and independent events.
There -is- some funny business in the early quarterlies, where some weight classes weren’t “recognized”, so they’re filled with fighters based on where they weighed in assuming we even have this data. There’s also some quarterly sets where there just wasn’t enough data to provide a Top X. There’s more about this latter issue in the description at the top of the rankings pages.
Anyway, I thought it’d be interesting to run some statistics based on the latest run, so here it is:
Most Quarters at #1 (By Division)
| Pound-4-Pound | Fedor Emelianenko | 25 |
| Division Dominance | Georges St. Pierre | 14 |
| (W) Pound-4-Pound | Tara LaRosa | 17 |
| (W) Division Dominance | Ronda Rousey | 12 |
| Heavyweight+ | Fedor Emelianenko | 29 |
| Light Heavyweight | Jon Jones | 19 |
| Middleweight | Anderson Silva | 26 |
| Welterweight | Georges St. Pierre | 25 |
| Lightweight | Takanori Gomi | 12 |
| Featherweight | Jose Aldo | 24 |
| Bantamweight | Miguel Torres | 19 |
| Flyweight | Mamoru Yamaguchi | 17 |
| Strawweight | Rambaa Somdet | 17 |
| (W) Featherweight+ | Cristiane Justino | 21 |
| (W) Bantamweight | Jennifer Howe | 21 |
| (W) Flyweight | Tara LaRosa | 19 |
| (W) Strawweight | Yuka Tsuji | 18 |
| (W) Atomweight | Satoko Shinashi | 13 |
The Most Overrated MMA Fighter of All-Time
#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#10 – #6: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
#5 – #4: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4
#3 – #2: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 5
If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#1
#1 – Kazushi Sakuraba (Rep Avg: #96.7 | Fight Matrix: #269)
But.. he beat Rampage Jackson! Yes, at a point when he was supposed to. But he beat Vitor Belfort.. true, although he was only 6-1. But he beat Ken Shamrock.. when he was over the hill. He beat lots of Gracies — most of which, get him props for the name and not necessarily the MMA value. I could go on forever. How many times did he not have the home advantage? Yes, Sakuraba was often out-sized and yes, his record is full of name power… most of whom are in the win column against him. In hindsight, the first half of his career (other than the ass kickings) was probably one of the best managed portions of a fighter career in history.
The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 5
#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#10 – #6: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
#5 – #4: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4
If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#3 – #2
#3 – Renato Sobral (Rep Avg: #83.3 | Fight Matrix: #139)
As we hit Babalu, I am surprised the gap is quite as wide as it is. He does have some solid wins, but in the end, no major titles is an unfortunate stain on a very solid career.
EDIT: Sobral got inserted too high into the list. He should actually be in the bottom of the Top 10.
The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4
#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#10 – #6: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#5 – #4
#5 – Dan Severn (Rep Avg: #63.3 | Fight Matrix: #120)
Nostalgia is respectable, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to super stardom. While 101 wins is nothing to downplay, the last 90 wins or so were of far lesser quality than the first 10. In some ways it is like Severn gave up the high profile fights and was then OK with mediocrity.
The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#10 – #6
#10 – Mark Kerr (Rep Avg: #103.7 | Fight Matrix: #169)
Kerr, undoubtedly a credible heavyweight for a short period, simply doesn’t have the substance to justify a ranking at the threshold of the Top 100.
The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
If you missed the first part, you can visit it w/ the link above. It has all of the details about how this list came to be.
#15 – #11
#15 – Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (Rep Avg: #80.0 | Fight Matrix: #117)
Not a huge leap from #117 to #80. To be at the 14 spot in this list and to only see this kind of gap, either speaks volumes about how representative our all-time rankings are, or vice versa. The area around #100 is REALLY crowded with “almost greats”.
The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
For those of you who do not know, in addition to our Current MMA Rankings, we also feature an All-Time MMA Rankings that is updated every month (usually on the 2nd).
In a previous post, I took a look at the most underrated fighters of all-time. At the time, I said I wouldn’t look at the most underrated — but what the hell? This list required some additional thought and rules to make sure fighters listed are notable, but here it is…
Not surprisingly, it is still tough to find (seemingly) reputable lists:
Crowd-sourcing Representative: Tapology Top 150 (2015-09-09)
“Peak” Mathematical Representative: MMA-ELO Top 100 (2015-09-09)
“Cumulative” Mathematical Representative: Sports-Ratings Top 250 (2015-01-03)
I would have loved to have added an “Expert” representative, but I could not find one readily available.
When compared to the last series, all of the lists above have since been updated — although the “Sports Ratings” list is still out of date. Furthermore, I went deeper on the Top X for two of the three sites and the All-Time Rankings here has seen (at least) two relatively major updates in order to increase the precision of some calculations.
Methodology & Notes
- I am taking the average of a fighter’s ranks in the above three lists. If a fighter is not in one of the lists, that rank is the list maximum + 1.
- I am then subtracting the above average from the Fight Matrix ranking as of the last run. A negative result = overrated.
- Finally, I am valuing “higher” ranks more than “lower” ranks. Example: A fighter with a representative average of #15 that we rank at #40, is a slightly more overrated fighter than one with a representative average of #90 that we rank at #230. The break-even point is close to this though.
- I removed women from the lists — men and women don’t belong in the same list.
- Sports-Ratings has a fighter named Jesper Hallberg at #217. Sherdog has him as having zero professional fights, so he is removed from contention.
- Fighters must be in the Top 250 at Fight Matrix and be in at least two representative lists to be considered.
Value Formula (How they are ranked): (502 / SumOf3RepRanks) * DiffOf3RepRanksAvgFromFM
502 = Max Sum of 3 Rep Positions seen in all fighters considered
An honorable mention…. well two.
Due to the minimum qualifications of the list, Rickson Gracie was left off. I felt it necessary to list him, as he easily would’ve made the top spot. Ironically, #2 would’ve been Renzo Gracie. Says a lot for name power, doesn’t it?
#26 – #15
#26 – Norifumi Yamamoto (Rep Avg: #118.7 | Fight Matrix: #152)
I had every intention of starting out the list with #25, but with Yamamoto at #26, I had to include him. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard gripes about him not being listed in one of our All-Time Top 25s. The answer is simple; the guy never accumulated much worth at a single division. Instead he bounced between 3 of them and didn’t do enough in any one.
HBO reportedly uses Fight Matrix for domestic violence statistic
Recently, the War Machine drama was covered on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, along with some other tidbits regarding domestic violence in sports.
In the episode somewhere around the 21 minute mark, they made reference to the fact that American MMA fighters ranked in the Top 200 were over twice as likely to be arrested for domestic violence when compared to a relevant segment of the general population.
I saw no citation or reference, but where else would they get this info? Jordan Breen assumed as much and Jonathan Snowden from Bleacher Report, apparently got the official confirmation that Fight Matrix was the source.
Not a big deal, but still cool. I recommend catching the episode as the interview with Mayhem Miller is alone, worth the time spent.
Conor McGregor: Most Similar Career Arcs
Since the Conor McGregor hype train is still screaming down the tracks, I thought I’d take a look at fighters with the most similar career arcs.
The methodology:
- I used data from the Generated Historical Rankings which are recorded in quarterly snapshots.
- I took Conor’s ranking data from his 5th appearance until current.
- I ensured that fighters only qualified if they had at least the same amount of appearances.
- I took the absolute value of the difference between his ranking in each appearance to other fighters’ ranking in that same appearance. The lower the overall average, the closer the career arc.
Most Similar: Kyoji Horiguchi
Record At 17th Appearance: 13-1-0
Average Time In Between Fights
Some quick stats….
For Fighters Ever: 203.2 days
For Fighters Since 1/1/2010: 222.2 days
For Fighters With Consec. Fights in UFC: 170.9 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in UFC: 177.0 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in UFC and at least 1 being a Title Fight: 206.0 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in UFC and both being a Title Fight: 201.7 days
For Fighters Between Their 1st and 2nd Pro Fights: 295.9 days
For Fighters Between Their 2nd and 3rd Pro Fights: 233.2 days
For Fighters Between Their 3rd and 4th Pro Fights: 208.7 days
For Fighters Between Their 4th and 5th Pro Fights: 196.9 days
For Fighters Between Their 5th and 6th Pro Fights: 186.8 days
For Fighters Between Their 9th and 10th Pro Fights: 165.0 days
For Fighters Between Their 19th and 20th Pro Fights: 143.4 days
For Fighters Between Their 29th and 30th Pro Fights: 145.6 days
For Fighters Between Their 39th and 40th Pro Fights: 119.0 days
Some more…
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in the United States: 219.6 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in Japan: 193.7 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in Brazil: 228.3 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in Russia: 204.8 days