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:

Keep Reading

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

Comeback Fighter of the Year: Ryan LaFlare

Guys like LaFlare wreak havoc on the ratings — but that’s OK.  Almost three years of professional inactivity didn’t seem to affect him at all.  He increased his level of opposition significantly and rattled off four wins, three of which were in the UFC.  Way to go.

Honorable Mention: Yancy Medeiros

To qualify, fighters cannot have had a fight in the previous year or are coming off injury that caused inactivity of 15+ months.

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: Phil Davis UD(3) Lyoto Machida

I begrudgingly dub this most noteworthy upset of the year.  Not only was this a big upset by points, but it was an upset that never should have happened.  With the judges asleep at the wheel, we saw Davis get an incredibly dubious decision against Machida.  How upsetting.

Honorable Mentions: Antonio Silva KO(3) Alistair Overeem, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira UD(3) Rashad Evans

Most Lopsided: Celine Haga UD(2) Naho Sugiyama

Although Sugiyama was coming off her first loss against Penne, having finally left Japan.  Who saw this?  Haga, formerly 3-11, beats Sugiyama, 8-1, after “Sugi Rock” returns to the comfortable confines of Japanese soil.

Honorable Mentions: Phil Davis UD(3) Lyoto Machida, Rustam Khabilov UD(3) Jorge Masvidal

Men: Steve Mocco

After going 3-0 on the year, with two of those wins coming by stoppage, Mocco has gained a respectable ranking (#87) at the year-end.  His wrestling pedigree is sure to see him vault higher up the rankings, but will his lack of height create an issue against the division’s giants?

Honorable Mentions: Mikhail Gazaev, Magomed Biboulatov

Women: Livia Renata Souza

Although listed as a Strawweight by Sherdog’s Fight Finder, she toiled in the barren wasteland that is the Women’s Flyweight division and managed to amass five wins against no losses in 2013.  Those performances accumulate to earn her a #6 ranking at year’s end.

Honorable Mentions: Faith Van Duin, Alida Gray

If you are a long-time viewer of the site, you are probably familiar with the term, “quality performance”.  If not, we made a blog post about it and the associated decay way back in 2008.  Simply put, a fighter registers a quality performance when they fight another fighter reasonably close to or above their own rating and they deliver an outcome that is not egregiously beneath what is expected based on the ratings difference.  So, it is important to know that quality performances are relative.

In other words, Fedor Emelianenko in his prime would not have registered a quality performance over #500 ranked Joe Schmoe, regardless of the outcome.  However, if Joe Schmoe managed a split decision loss against Fedor, Joe would earn the quality performance — so these CAN be earned even in losses.

When looking at fighters with at least 15 wins that have had winning records, one fighter stands way above the rest.

Keep Reading