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: Stipe Miocic KO(1) Fabricio Werdum

Werdum had a massive point advantage over Miocic prior to the fight, but in this case, it meant nothing.

Most Lopsided: Emil Weber Meek KO(1) Rousimar Palhares

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.

Most Noteworthy Match of the Year:

Michael Bisping KO(1) Luke Rockhold

The “most noteworthy” match of the year isn’t about box office or the popular scene, instead it is a pretty basic calculation — a sum of quality if you will.  Luke Rockhold finds himself in the most noteworthy match for the second straight year, but this time on the losing end.  This is also the 4th straight winner in the Middleweight division, which speaks largely of its depth at the elite level.

Unleash your ninja skills with fighting games, which can really show people that they’re capable of more than they thought. Ninjas have been popular in the media for a long time, and they have a degree of more or less permanent popularity on the Internet. Lots of people want to be able to really get ahead with these sorts of fighting skills, even if they’re never going to use them in real life.

Fighting games aren’t really going to be able to prepare people for fighting in the real world, although lots of people think that this is going to be the case. Being able to unleash your ninja skills after playing a single game can really be an appealing prospect for a lot of people. However, it’s important to keep all of these games in perspective. Video games and games at websites like the Royal Vegas Online Casino can certainly help with a lot of very real physical skills. They can improve a person’s hand-eye coordination. They can also generally give people better spatial recognition abilities.

Keep Reading

Types of Hockey Bets and How to Benefit from Them

Hockey is quite popular among people who are interested in betting on sports, so it is not a secret that hockey fans make up a big part of traffic for sports books sites.  As a result, there are plenty of opportunities to place bets on this sport.  Some websites offer wagers not only on the major league games but also the minor ones.  There are many ways of placing online bets on hockey, and such diversity gives an opportunity to compare all of them and choose the most beneficial one. Since it is hard for amateurs to understand all the differences between the different bet types, we offer a small guide for that below.

Money Line

If you place a bet of this type, you are guessing which team will win the game. This is an extremely simple type of betting, which requires intuition rather than profound knowledge. You can bet either on positive or negative lines at bet-uk.com.

Puck Line

This type of bets is quite similar to money line betting; the only difference is there is an opportunity to win more if you bet on favorite.  If you place a bet on the favorite, you need them to win with the difference in score of two or more points; but bet on an underdog will be a winning one if your team loses by one point.  Puck Line betting is risky because teams can play to a draw.

Fight Matrix updates the Current MMA Rankings once a week. As the deepest and most inclusive ranking system in the sport, fights all over the globe can have a major impact on the rankings. Let’s take a look at the biggest risers in the divisional rankings. The number in parenthesis is the number of spots that the fighter moved up from the last issued rankings. For the purpose of this article, fighters who were unranked in the previous ranking iteration are excluded.

Heavyweight
Christian Colombo #123 (52)
Denmark’s Colombo moved up 52 spots after fighting to a draw with Jarjis Danho in his UFC debut. He is now undefeated in seven-straight bouts since falling to current UFC fighter Viktor Pesta in 2012.

Middleweight
Mauricio Alonso #152 (97)
Alonso last fought in the main event of Dragon House 23. There, he scored a unanimous-decision victory over Justin Baseman. The Brazilian fighter holds a 12-7 record as a professional. In his only really big show experience, he fell to Nick Pica on the undercard of Bellator 142 – Dynamite last September.

Welterweight
Ismail Naurdiev #273 (285)
Austrian fighter Naurdiev is now riding a six-fight winning streak after defeating Daniel Skibinski at World Free Fight Challenge 20 on Aug. 27. The 20-year-old fighter trains with Thaiboxing MMA Salzburg.
Keep Reading

Brock Lesnar tested positive for a banned substance by USADA right before his fight at UFC 200.

It appears obvious that Lesnar knew exactly what he was doing.  He did not test positive in any of the tests that the results of which came back long enough before the fight for the fight to get canceled, in which case he wouldn’t have gotten the money for the fight.  Instead, he took the banned substances for which he tested positive only when he knew that the results of the tests would come back after the fight, fought and got the money for the fight.

The question is, what should be done in order for that not to happen again in the future.

The situation now is that fighters who test positive for banned substances get suspended from fighting. This is, of course, a good solution for most fighters, for whom fighting is their main career.  By suspending them from fighting, they don’t get to pursue their goal of an MMA career (at least for a while); they don’t get the opportunity to continue being involved in competition and their livelihood is taken away from them for a period of time.

But for some fighters, an MMA career is not their goal anyway.  They are in for one big payday.  It happened before (James Toney), and it has never been more clear than this time with Brock Lesnar.

Keep Reading

Fight Matrix updates the Current MMA Rankings once a week. As the deepest and most inclusive ranking system in the sport, fights all over the globe can have a major impact on the rankings. Let’s take a look at the biggest risers in the divisional rankings. The number in parenthesis is the number of spots that the fighter moved up from the last issued rankings. For the purpose of this article, fighters who were unranked in the previous ranking iteration are excluded.

Heavyweight
Anthony Hamilton #40 (39)
Hamilton had the best striking performance of UFC career and finished Damian Grabowski in only 14 seconds. At #40 he has nearly returned to his Highest Quarterly Ranking which was #35 in 2014.

Light Heavyweight
Leonardo Silva de Oliveira #157 (59)
Oliveira last fought on June 25 when he scored a second-round knockout over Alexandre Nunes Brandao The Brazilian prospect is not 6-0 with five knockouts and one submission.

Middleweight
Trevin Giles #163 (70)
On Last Friday’s Resurrection Fighting Alliance show, Giles made his promotional debut and took home a submission victory over Josh Clark. The victory improved his professional record to 7-0 including four submissions and three knockouts. Giles is scheduled to return at Legacy FC 59 on Sept. 16 against Bellator veteran Isaac Villanueva.

Welterweight
Wendell de Oliveira Marques #215 (184)
Marques jumped up 184 spots in the rankings after receiving credit for his victory over Gilmar Dutra Lima at Imortal FC 5 “Road to Pancrase.” The X-Gym product has been competing professionally since 2006 and has built a 26-10 record. He has gone 2-1 since being released from the UFC in 2015 following losses to Santiago Ponzinibbio and Darren Till.
Keep Reading

This weekend there was a bout between two heavyweight prospects: Francis Ngannou and Bojan Mihajlovic. Ngannou had two fights in the UFC prior to this one, while for Mihajlovic this was his Octagon debut. Both were coming off of impressive win streaks outside of the Octagon, but as we know the real test is when they come to the UFC.

So basically, the UFC paired two unknowns with impressive win streaks who are in their initial stages of their UFC careers against each other. This is not the first time UFC has done this; they actually tend to do that quite often.

I don’t understand why they do that.  Of course, these fights have the potential of being fun fights, but that’s true for many fights. There is a lot of reason why not to do that, in my opinion.  I am not addressing specifically the Ngannou – Mihajlovic fight, but the recurring match making of two UFC newcomers on winning streaks.

First of all, these kind of fights don’t really tell us a whole lot, at the end of the day. I mean, those are two fighters who were successful outside of the UFC against mediocre or weak competition. They come to the UFC, where they can fight better competition, fighters that are known to be good or decent, at least. Instead the UFC pits them against one another. Well, what do we learn when one fighter who beat nobodys beats another fighter who beat nobodys? Not much. We don’t really know what any of them is worth. They might be the two best guys in the world, so the fact that one of them lost to the other guy who will be champion one day, doesn’t mean he is not good. And vice versa, they might both be really weak compared to UFC caliber competition, so the fact that one of them beat the other doesn’t mean they deserve to stay in the UFC.

Keep Reading

This weekend two high level promotions will put on shows in China. Road FC 32 takes place Saturday in Hunan, while on the same day One Championship hosts “Dynasty of Champions 6” in Anhui.

Several combat sports promotions have tried to make a big push into the county with limited success. Even the UFC tried with their regular trojan horse that is “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show and also promoted three events in Macau. The effort appears to have stalled with the release of the UFC’s Managing Director of Asia, Mark Fischer

Of course, one of the biggest issues with international expansion is finding a homegrown star who can both connect with fans and stay relevant in the non-predetermined world of MMA. Currently there are only 14 Chinese fighters in the Fight Matrix rankings, so finding that star will be difficult. Road FC and One Championship have taken different approaches to this task.

The undercard of Road FC includes a pair of UFC veterans with Chinese heritage, Jumabieke Tuerxun and Albert Cheng. The two combined to go 0-4 in the UFC. In the main event Aori Gele, a 320-pound Chinese Sanda fighter with a 1-2 MMA record, faces Bob Sapp.

During their trips to China, One Championship has appeared to focus on developing local talent. The cards often include tournaments of fighters with only a few professional fights. Assuming the plan is that the cream will eventually rise to the top, fans and promoters better be prepared to wait. Of the nine Chinese fighters on the card only two have more than one professional win.

List of Chinese Fighters in Fight Matrix Rankings