Conor McGregor: Just how overrated is he?
I realize the UFC has to hype fights, but from a Fight Matrix rankings perspective, Conor McGregor may be one of the most overhyped fighters in MMA history.
He is basically even money with Jose Aldo for their fight.
From an All-Time perspective, McGregor ranks as the #49 Featherweight in history, sandwiched between Josh Grispi and Robbie Peralta. If you think this is harsh, please consider that approximately half of McGregor’s fights have taken place at Lightweight.
Despite having beaten the currently ranked #5 Featherweight, McGregor finds himself at #6 — you can argue that we should be performing adjustments based on events since two fighters matched up, but we don’t. Even if we did, he would probably find himself no higher than #5.
Recently, he got his poster hung from the ceiling at the TUF gym. While some may consider this a mecca of sorts for the UFC, it is certainly one or both of two things; foreshadowing, absurd.
Your thoughts?
All-Time Rankings: The Black Holes at #3 – Part 2: Middleweights
Middleweight
1 – Anderson Silva (23-5-0, 11*, 26)
2 – Chris Weidman (12-0-0, 3*, 6)
I know what you’re thinking… it is not a sure thing and perhaps way too premature to put Weidman at #2. Our All-Time Rankings suggest otherwise and even if you disagree, Weidman is the only fighter in the vicinity with a claim that is on the ascent.
Our #3 and #4 are tied. Nate Marquardt (25-8-2, 0*, 3) saw early and lengthy success, while Rich Franklin (6-3-0, 3*, 4) saw larger success later but spent much, much less time there. Dan Henderson (7-5-0, 1*, 2) is another popular choice, but he’s on a similar wavelength as Franklin. Some great performances, but not a lengthy tenure. Like Franklin, Henderson couldn’t quite decide on a division.
Fight Matrix #3 (tie) – Nate Marquardt, Rich Franklin
[poll id=”21″]
Record/Status Legend
(W-L, A*, B)
W-L = Division Record
A = Major Title/Tourney Wins in Division
B = Quarterly #1 Rankings in Division
All-Time Rankings: The Black Holes at #3 – Part 1: Heavyweights
A short time ago, Sherdog put an article out debating the Top Lightweights of All-Time and today, put another article out debating the same for Welterweights.
Granted, this is an interesting debate now that we’re getting close to two decades where weight classes actually started being acknowledged, but in plenty of divisions, the top fighter is obvious. Furthermore, in many and perhaps more cases, the top 2 is obvious even if the 1-2 order is arguable. In my opinion, the #3 position is completely up for grabs in every division. In a sport where rankings mean so much, it seems unusual for this rift so close to the top. Certainly, arguments like this have to start somewhere, but #3 is where the questions start to arise.
Heavyweight
#1 – Fedor Emelianenko (34-4, 5*, 29)
#2 – Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (34-9-1, 3*, 8)
Here at #3, we’ve got several possibilities. Certainly, Cain Velasquez (13-1, 4*, 8) is a great choice, but his constant inactivity may yield to another current top fighter, Junior dos Santos (17-3, 2*, 7). Though Velasquez has the 2-1 lead in their series, dos Santos remains a little more active and somehow, Velasquez has fought only two different fighters in his past five fights. This kind of repetition isn’t great for a career retrospective.
If you want to go back in time, you’ve got Josh Barnett (33-7, 1*, 0) and Randy Couture (13-7, 7*, 0) who are also reasonable choices.
Fight Matrix #3 – Cain Velasquez
[poll id=”20″]
(X-Y, A*, B)
X-Y = Division Record
A = Major Title/Tourney Wins in Division
B = Quarterly #1 Rankings in Division
The Best Lightweights in MMA History: All-Time Rankings (Updated)
In response to this article posted at Sherdog today, I thought I’d show All-Time MMA Rankings for the Lightweight division in detail and how it has trended in the past 3 years (using current version):
| 3 Years Ago | Today | Diff | |
| BJ Penn | 2790 | 2944 | 5.5% |
| Frankie Edgar | 2300 | 2845 | 23.7% |
| Takanori Gomi | 3249 | 2714 | -16.5% |
| Ben Henderson | 263 | 2709 | 930.0% |
| Gilbert Melendez | 1470 | 2141 | 45.6% |
| Shinya Aoki | 2061 | 2136 | 3.6% |
| Anthony Pettis | 48 | 1795 | 3639.6% |
| Joachim Hansen | 1509 | 1521 | 0.8% |
| Vitor Ribeiro | 1463 | 1460 | -0.2% |
| Eddie Alvarez | 860 | 1340 | 55.8% |
Everyone that stayed steady or increased slightly only saw fluctuations based on changes in ratings of key opposition or additional points earned between then and the end of their Lightweight runs.
Gomi got hit hard, because the system thought he was basically done three years ago. On today’s run, it re-considered and suggested he was still at or near his prime when it saw him under-perform once hitting the UFC; essentially proving that he wasn’t all he was cracked up to be at one time. Note: I try to disqualify post-prime failures, but it is not completely preventable.
In the past month, we’ve worked on some tweaks for the All-Time Rankings. As fighter careers last longer (time-wise) we’ve seen the need to put more weight on quality and less weight on quantity. Honestly, this is pretty subjective, but there’s no great way to do All-Time Rankings unless you look at sums or peaks and neither works great on its own. Nevertheless, the same version was used in both sets provided above.
EDIT: Re-posted and re-explained. Today values were incorrect.
The Rise and Fall of Tim Sylvia
With the news that Tim Sylvia was unable to fight this weekend, because he failed his medicals — weighing in at 371 pounds probably didn’t help matters — I decided to use our Generated Historical Rankings to show the rise and fall of Tim Sylvia using his rank in the Heavyweight division through time.
The format of the horizontal series labels is Year – Fights – Age, as of the first and midpoint of the year (no contests excluded). The major gridlines represent the first and midpoints of the year.
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 6 (Final)
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1 | #25 – #15
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2 | #14 – #10
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3 | #9 – #5
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4 | #4 – #3
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 5 | #2
If you missed the first parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#1…
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 5
#25 – #15: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#14 – #10: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#9 – #5: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
#4 – #3: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4
If you missed the first parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#2…
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4
#25 – #15: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#14 – #10: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#9 – #5: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
If you missed the first parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#4 – Chad Mendes (Rep Avg: #121.3 | Fight Matrix: #48)
Mendes is taking the Jon Fitch road, but at 145. Practically glued to the Top 5, tons of top-quality fights and wins while fighting for the UFC, but just can’t get over the hump to win the gold. Having him outside of the Top 100 is absolutely ridiculous.
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
#25 – #15: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#14 – #10: The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
If you missed the first parts, you can visit w/ the links above.
#9 – #5
#9 – Mamoru Yamaguchi (Rep Avg: #120 | Fight Matrix: #70)
Small man bias in full effect here — Yamaguchi is a part of the three-headed Japanese dragon that has ruled the All-Time MMA Rankings at Flyweight, here on Fight Matrix. For us, DJ is set to high jump over this tandem in the near future, but he apparently already had sometime ago for mostly everyone else. The “pick and choose” process is very strange when it comes to acknowledging MMA success in the early years.
The Most Underrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#25 – #15: The Most Underrated 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.
As I complete the list, I can’t help but think of how great this series could have been and how sad it is that reasonable lists like this are practically non-existent. If you come across any, please let me know.
#14 – #10
#14 – Miguel Torres (Rep Avg: #65 | Fight Matrix: #39)
Torres is still our Top Bantamweight of All-Time. With Barao recently losing and Cruz taking all the time off, Torres should hold this position for a little longer.
The Most Underrated 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 an effort to mix it up heading into the new year, I’ve decided to compare our All-Time Absolute list to an average of a few other lists that I’ve found on the Internet, in order to bring attention to fighters who I believe are the most underrated in the history of MMA.
I feel an analysis of underrated fighters is more objective than an analysis of overrated fighters, as many fighters are given lofty positions in subjective lists due to an over-friendliness bestowed upon pioneer fighters, especially those who were under-sized. As you probably know, our lists are based on actual results and it goes without saying that being the #1 Welterweight in 2014 means much more than being the #1 Welterweight in 2004 (for example).
Not surprisingly, it was tough to find (seemingly) reputable lists:
Crowd-sourcing Representative: Tapology Top 100 (2014-12-18)
“Peak” Mathematical Representative: MMA-ELO Top 25 (2014-11-01)
“Cumulative” Mathematical Representative: Sports-Ratings Top 250 (2014-03-31)
I would have loved to have added an “Expert” representative, but I could not find one readily available.
All-Time Bantamweight Career Rankings Progression
With a major Bantamweight fight happening on Saturday, I thought it’d be an opportune time to post a graphical representation of the Bantamweight All-Time rankings and their progression since late 2011.
All fighters listed were at one point or another, in the Top 10 since late 2011. The rank next to their name represents their current All-Time ranking in the Bantamweight division.
As you can see, Barao has had a meteoric rise toward #1 Torres, but Dillashaw’s victory over him temporarily deterred him from gaining the top position.