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: Andrei Arlovski KO(1) Antonio Silva

Arlovski turned back the clock in an unbelievably unexpected win against Silva.  I’m not sure Arlovski himself saw this one coming.

Honorable Mentions: Anthony Johnson UD(3) Phil Davis, Ben Rothwell TKO(1) Alistair Overeem

Most Lopsided: T.J Dillashaw TKO(5) Renan Barao

When you’re roughly a 9.5-to-1 favorite as Barao was, you’re just expected to go out there and take care of business.  Well, that didn’t happen and hopefully the sequel is on tap for early-mid 2015 as Cruz has again proven to be weak in the knees.

Honorable Mentions: Andrei Arlovski KO(1) Antonio Silva, Ben Rothwell TKO(1) Alistair Overeem

Most Noteworthy Match of the Year: Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida

Weidman is on the winning side of the equation for two years straight.  There’s not much to say here.  This award is about combined relevance and this was a UFC Title Match featuring the undefeated champion and one of the best fighters in history.

Honorable Mentions: Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes, Jose Aldo vs. Ricardo Lamas

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.

Comeback Fighter of the Year: Tito Ortiz

The award was wrapped and already assigned to Dominick Cruz, but it just doesn’t feel right giving him the award, as he once again tore his ACL.  This is something of a disqualification as he is on the shelf again.

So, with a dominant win over the undersized, though huge favorite Alexander Shlemenko and a decision win over Stephan Bonnar, Tito Ortiz wins the award on a technicality.

Honorable Mention: Thiago Alves

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.

Last weekend, in the co-main event of the UFC Fight Night 51 in Brazil, lightweight competitor Gleison Tibau scored a split decision victory over [#41] Piotr Hallman.  This was  not a highly anticipated or hyped fight; a contest between two middle-of-the-road lightweights both ranked outside of Top 25 in their division (the win propelled Tibau from #27 up to #22, while Hallman’s ranking was not affected).  What was most notable about this fight is that it marked Tibau’s 23rd UFC bout, and his 15th win in the Octagon.    This puts Tibau in a tie for the fourth place for both most wins and most bouts in the UFC history.

To put things in perspective, the record for most wins in UFC is currently  held by Georges St. Pierre (19), followed by Matt Hughes (18).  The third place is shared by Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell, and Randy Couture, all with 16 wins a piece.  Gleison is tied for #4 with Tito Ortiz, Josh Koscheck, and Michael Bisping.  In the most bouts category, Tito Ortiz (27) holds the lead, followed by Matt Hughes (25) and Randy Couture (24).   Tibau shares the fourth place with Chuck Liddell, BJ Penn, Frank Mir, and Josh Koscheck.

Take another look at these names.  All except for Koscheck, Bisping, and Tibau are former UFC champions and legends of the sport.   In fact, they have a combined record of 61-26-1 in UFC title fights!  Even Josh Koscheck has had a shot at UFC gold, and Michael Bisping had several “top contender” bouts, though he fell short each time.  Tibau on the other hand has never had a title shot or even a #1 contender bout.  He was never ranked in the Top 10 of any weight class, coming closest at #12 after his 3-fight win streak in 2011.  I certainly would have never expected the kid who got plastered by Nick Diaz in his UFC debut (as a welterweight), to ever be mentioned in the same sentence with the all-time greats, in any context.

What’s more is that at 31, Gleison is not showing any signs of slowing down.   After dropping down to lightweight in his second UFC bout, he has been steadily chugging along for eight years, fighting on average 2.75 times a year, and winning around 68% of these fights – or 1.875 fights a year.  If he continues at this rate for another two years, by the end of 2016 he should be tied for the top spot in both the total number of UFC fights and total wins, or may even hold the record in both categories.   The only active fighters who may give him a run for the total number of fights are Frank Mir and Josh Koscheck – both on extended losing streaks and the verge of retirement.  In the wins column, there is Michael Bisping – but at 35 he too  is four years older than Tibau, and is likely past his peak judging by his recent fights.   There is a very real possibility that Tibau may soon hold both records.  He is also at #7 for the most total fight time in the UFC.  The only currently active fighters on the roster with more minutes clocked in the Octagon are Frankie Edgar and Diego Sanchez.

Last Posted in December 2011

– Male Only
 

Since the last post approximately 2.5 years ago, the “estimated” count of all active fighters over the “starter” rating has increased from 10,560 to 11,975 (+13.4%).  Remember, these counts are ignoring active fighters of the “bottom feeder” variety — i.e. fighters who haven’t proven themselves to be any better than the average debuting fighter.

Divisionally, there are massive changes from 2.5 years ago.  The net proportional change looks at the difference in the division pool, after taking into account that the overall size of the fighter pool increased as shown in the previous statement.  Although Lightweight added 115 fighters, the increase in overall fighter pool suggests the division is still not as deep as it was in comparison to the entire sport.

Also in December 2011, I deduced that the average fighter weighed in at about 169 pounds.  Now, it seems to be about 163 pounds.

The above table shows the average age for fighters in the category spread as of May 14, 2014.  Only male fighters with known birthdays were considered.  The trend supports some “common knowledge” in that.

• People tend to gain weight as they get older.
• A fighter’s prime is in the late 20’s to early 30’s.

Does it support the: “Age isn’t as much of a factor in the heavier divisions as it is in the lighter divisions” thought?  I’m not sure.  If this was the case, I’d expect higher ranked fighters to be younger than their unranked counterparts.  But their are two issues with this — it takes accomplishments to gain a higher ranking which takes time AND an older fighter is more likely to retire or change divisions.

We see a little bit of noise at Feather and Bantam, likely because the UFC recently opened these up and some of the older heads at divisions above have trickled down.  Strawweight appears to an outlier, but I suspect this division is a last ditch effort for some older Asian Flyweights to extend their careers as it is such a terribly weak division.

With another loss, I couldn’t help but think that Melvin Guillard is one of the most inconsistent long-time fringe contenders that I can recall.  Does this mean he’s inconsistently good or consistently good?  After all, he keeps on keeping on, continually reaching a status of top-level journeyman after losing.

Using the Generated Historical Rankings as analytical fuel, it turns out that Melvin Guillard is 1 of only 10 fighters to have at least 25 quarterly rankings in the Lightweight division, with none of them in the Top 5 or below the Top 150 and an average ranking equal or better than #50.

Keep Reading

We have declared (at least for our historical purposes) that Renan Barao vs. Urijah Faber II will continue the Bantamweight Championship lineage.

Although they fought before, we did not believe (via our rankings) that it was definitively the best match-up possible in the division, whereas now, it most definitely is.  With Cruz out of the picture (again) and having relinquished the only organizational championship that matters, it only seems accurate that the winner of this fight would become the new “lineal” champion.

About a year ago, I posted the second update to my original post.

I feel the need to keep revisiting this as we get more data, because every few months I see this topic bubble up to the top of various sites and forums.

In summary, we started tracking weigh-in weights, and I wanted to see if the heavier fighters won more often than lighter fighters.  Using the same ideals as before, with an even larger data set:

• In 1,123 non-draw official pro fights where both fighters weighed in at different weights, but above 210 (our Light Heavyweight limit), 556 were won by the lighter fighter, and 567 won by the heavier fighter (50.5%).
• When you allow for mismatches and include matches in which only one fighter had to weigh above 210, the total tally increases to 1322 and the heavier fighter only won 651 (49.2%).
• For the record, across the board, the heavier fighter has won 52.6% of the time.

The results are nearly identical to before, though the heavier fighter (again) gained ground in all three statistics.  There are a few possibilities to explain this and it could be a combination of:

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Men’s Fighter of the Year: Demetrious Johnson

The “safe” pick for this award is probably Chris Weidman, but Johnson eeked it out for us, having defeated three quality challengers and putting the icing on the cake by stopping Joseph Benavidez by KO in the first round.  Not only that, but Johnson was the top-ranked Flyweight for the entire calendar year.  He is well on his way to surpassing the three-headed Japanese dragon (Yamaguchi, Urushitani, Kojima) in the All-Time Flyweight rankings.  Some would argue that he has shot past them already, but for us, he needs more tenure in the division.

2nd Place: Chris Weidman

Many will doubt one of his wins against Silva and some would doubt both, but you can’t argue that he scored two official wins over one of the top two or three greatest fighters in the history of the sport.

3rd Place: Cain Velasquez

Solid contender “Bigfoot” Silva and easily the next-best in the division, Junior dos Santos, really had nothing for Velasquez in the two 2013 matchups with the champion.  Velasquez is now one of the top several Heavyweights in history and it will be interesting to see how close he can come to the legendary Fedor.

Women’s Fighter of the Year: Ronda Rousey

Rousey, a repeat winner, defended her universally recognized title twice in the calendar year.  Although by our ratings, she didn’t face the strongest contenders available — actually not even close, Rousey remained #1 by a wide margin for the entire year in the strongest division in Women’s MMA.

2nd Place: Barb Honchak

Perhaps forgotten about, in 2013, Honchak scored strong victories against the currently ranked #2 and #3 fighters in her division.  She also won and defended the only title in the division that actually matters.  It’s tough to do more than that.

3rd Place: Cris Cyborg

Cyborg returned from inactivity to go 2-0 on the year and again, prove that she is easily the best fighter in her division.  Here’s hoping she can somehow shed 10 pounds and make the fight with Rousey happen sometime in the near future.

Most Noteworthy Match of the Year: Chris Weidman vs. Anderson Silva II

No surprise here.  A rematch consisting of undefeated, defending champion Chris Weidman against one of the greatest fighters in history, Anderson Silva.  Not much more needs to be said on the matter.

Honorable Mentions: Chris Weidman vs. Anderson Silva I, Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos III

Most Improved Fighter of the Year: Albert Tumenov

The future looks bright for 22 year old, Albert Tumenov.  Previous to this year, the recent UFC signee was making a career out of fighting and beating unknowns.  Now 12-1, Tumenov took out a respectable journeyman in Yasubey Enomoto, to become a Top 75 fighter in a packed Welterweight division.

Honorable Mentions: Mateusz Gamrot, Derek Anderson