We’re on a roll with new features today – thanks forum member kedbecker for this suggestion!
In our fighter search, you can now quickly look up the highest a fighter has been ever ranked in our generated historical ranking sets. For example, if you search for ‘Sakuraba’ you can quickly see the highest ranking for one of MMA’s pioneers: Kazushi Sakuraba was ranked #1 Middleweight in October of 1998 (in case of ties, the heaviest weight class and the most recent ranking set are shown).
First, a run-down of the particulars:
Your current lineal Heavyweight champion is Alistair Overeem
The full history is below. Note, the colored backgrounds indicate a title change.
MMA Heavyweight Lineal Championship History
First, a run-down of the particulars:
Your current lineal Welterweight champion is Georges St. Pierre
The full history is below. Note, the colored backgrounds indicate a title change.
MMA Welterweight Lineal Championship History
First, a run-down of the particulars:
Your current lineal Lightweight champion is Shinya Aoki
The full history is below. Note, the colored backgrounds indicate a title change.
MMA Lightweight Lineal Championship History
First, a run-down of the particulars:
Your current lineal Featherweight champion is Jose Aldo
The full history is below. Note, the colored backgrounds indicate a title change.
MMA Featherweight Lineal Championship History
Bristol, England pugilist Alex Owen (19 – 1 – 0) (last ranking [#52FW] in July 2008) was going somewhere in MMA. From 2002 to 2007, Owen tore through the British featherweight ranks, scoring victories over top fighters such as [#50BW] Paul McVeigh (18 – 6 – 0) and WEC veteran [#27BW] Brad Pickett (20 – 5 – 0).
By then he was 19-0, 14 of those wins coming by stoppage. However, following his first loss to [*] Emmanuel Fernandez (9 – 4 – 1) (another talented yet inexplicably inactive fighter), everything changed. An excerpt from an article written by Chris Cork on mmahitpit.com gives some details on the situation:
“…Like most British fighters, Owen trained and competed part-time while holding down a full-time day job. For the past eight-and-a-half years he has paid the bills serving as a Police Constable with Avon & Somerset Constabulary – a job which permitted him to fight professional MMA. That was until July 2007 when, following a loss to Emmanuel Fernandez, Owen was told he would no longer be allowed to fight…”
Owen has not fought since.
Fighters who have the luxury to train full-time should feel fortunate. A story like this illustrates the harsh reality that only a select few will be truly successful in the fight game. If a talent like Alex Owen could be forced to leave the sport he loved (and did remarkably well in) due to financial issues, then it could happen to any fighter. We can hope that as MMA continues to grow as a global sport, less and less talented fighters will have to suffer similar fates as Owen.
At the end of the article, Owen talks about his possible return to the cage, but unfortunately the article was written in May 2010. Perhaps (and hopefully) we have not seen the last of Alex Owen in MMA.
Full Article: http://www.mmahitpit.com/news/alexowenonhiswayback
First, a run-down of the particulars:
Your current lineal Bantamweight champion is Dominick Cruz
The full history is below. Note, the colored backgrounds indicate a title change.
MMA Bantamweight Lineal Championship History
In the upcoming week or two, I plan to research all lineal championships from the beginning of MMA up until now, starting with Flyweight. I wanted to post this announcement in an effort to get any type of brainstorming from our members on how to consider particular types of scenarios. The challenges are:
These decisions and Flyweight.. coming soon.
The recently published historical ranking sets are now searchable using our Fighter Search page.
See for yourself: http://www.fightmatrix.com/fighter-search/?fName=Nogueira
On a side note, the historical rankings have recently been regenerated up until 7/1/2007, to resolve a few issues and to reflect recent data improvements.
The “Generated Historical Rankings” are now live and can be accessed via this link and through our nav menus. The first ranking set was created for 1/1/1994, with subsequent ranking sets created on a quarterly basis.
We plan on refreshing these rankings every so often, as the software and historical data continues to improve. The update frequency has yet to be determined.
Furthermore, I did my best to refine some past divisional data when I generated these rankings (which actually caused some changes on the All-Time Rankings). However, there is CLEARLY room for improvement. Items to consider are as follows:
Feel free to offer any suggestions to us for improvements.
In the near future, we will be releasing a new feature: Generated Historical Ranking Sets
This will allow you to view issues of divisional rankings which predate FightMatrix, that have been generated by a recent version of the software rating system. Ever curious what the Top 25 Heavyweight list looked like in 1999, or who the #1 Middleweight was in 2002? This feature will solve those problems.
However, let it be known that data in the early days (as well as the amount of fights) was extremely sparse. Expect some anomalies as a result.
Later down the road, we plan on creating fighter profiles that will leverage this data and display a timeline or historical ranking on a fighter-per-fighter basis.
If you don’t remember the first part of this article, you can find it here.
In September 2010, we looked at non-elite fighters who had been ranked for two years, and consistently won fights, but had become stagnant.
Revisiting the Top 5
1. Nick Penner (9/1/10 Rank: #77 vs. 9/1/08 Rank: #72 | [5-0-0 2yr])
Current Rank: Inactive (*)
We must have put the hex on Mr. Penner. He did the exact opposite of what we were looking for, which is go completely inactive.
Fightmatrix.com Mixed Martial Arts Rankings Archive has been updated with the rankings for March & April 2010.
We’ve made some technical improvements to our archives that should be transparent to our readers, but will allow us to update the archives more regularly.
