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:

• Inception of the championship occured on 10/14/1993, the first “top contender” match-up that took place within this division.
• Vacancies after inactivity periods were fulfilled by the next “top contender” match.  Absence of such, was not a problem at Heavyweight.

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

Keep Reading

• Due to potential metric conversion issues and weight class changes, a limit of 206 pounds is observed for this list.
• Inception of the championship occurred on 12/21/1997.  The late start was due to the lack of guidance by an organization, with no semblance of matchmaking.  Before the UFC, the Light Heavyweight division was used a “stop gap” between Middleweight and Heavyweight.
• Only one period of inactivity was seen in this lineage.

Keep Reading

• Due to potential metric conversion issues and weight class changes, a limit of 187 pounds is observed for this list.
• Inception of the championship occured on 5/18/1989, the first fight in the division.
• Sporadic periods of inactivity were observed throughout the first half of the lineage.  Clear “top contender” matches took place to determine the next champion.

First, a run-down of the particulars:

• Due to potential metric conversion issues and weight class changes, a limit of 172 pounds is observed for this list.
• Inception of the championship occured on 1/13/1990, the first fight between two top fighters that resulted in a clear #1.
• Sporadic periods of inactivity were observed throughout the first half of the lineage.  Clear “top contender” matches took place to determine the next champion.

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

Keep Reading

First, a run-down of the particulars:

• Due to potential metric conversion issues and weight class changes, a limit of 161 pounds is observed for this list.
• Inception of the championship occured on 1/13/1990, the first fight between two top fighters that resulted in a clear #1.
• Sporadic periods of inactivity were observed throughout the first half of the lineage.  Clear “top contender” matches took place to determine the next champion.

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

Keep Reading

First, a run-down of the particulars:

• Due to potential metric conversion issues and weight class changes, a limit of 148 pounds is observed for this list.
• Inception of the championship occured on 3/27/1992, the first known professional fight taking place at or below 148 pounds.
• Only a period in the mid 2000s saw fighters leave the division without losing.  These situations were easily resolved in quick fashion by “best available” match-ups featuring 1/2, 2/3 or 1/3 ranked fighters.

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

Keep Reading

First, a run-down of the particulars:

• Due to potential metric conversion issues and weight class changes, a limit of 137 pounds is observed for this list.
• Inception of the championship occured on 7/29/1989, the fifth known professional fight taking place at or below 137 pounds, which included the first two winners of Bantamweight bouts in a previous event (the other two bouts were draws).
• Periodic inactivity was a sporadic issue in the Bantamweight division.  In early history, ranked fights were so sporadic, that the winners of these “best available” matches were used to fill gaps.  Idea is to not allow title vacancy for more than 2 years. In later Bantamweight history, only fights between established 1/2, 1/3 or 2/3 were used.

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

Keep Reading

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:

• Old divisional data is largely not available for early MMA — and often times, divisions were not at all considered.  If weights were available, I used that to derive a division.  Trust me when I say, I am an exceptional researcher — though I don’t always have the research material available.  For lack of complexity and confusion, I kept our same divisional ranges when generating the historical rankings.
• The Division Dominance lists aren’t always going to make sense due to the above.
• In almost all usually controlled instances, top fighters were not kept in their native division for making one-time unsuccessful stops in other divisions (Example: Rua getting Hammerhoused at Heavyweight) — the type of “common sense” stuff that is easier to keep track of for current rankings.  I’m more than willing to make these changes, but updates will only be reflected when the sets are refreshed.
• When tuning and updating the software, preference is always given to the present.  It’s possible that I “missed” a few items that should have been adjusted to the date of the generated ranking when generating them, though, we obviously aim for making the current rankings shine.

Feel free to offer any suggestions to us for improvements.