It’s been another slow week, with the Strikeforce Challengers 13 the only major event to make a small blip on the rankings radar. The bigger news of the past week was the announcement of another Strikeforce event – or rather a series of events: an eight-men single elimination heavyweight championship tournament, or Strikeforce World Grand Prix.

While Strikeforce has a number of top heavyweights on their roster, they received plenty of criticizm in the past year for not being able to put together matchups due to injuries, suspensions, contract negotiations, scheduling conflicts, and a slew of other issues. CEO Scott Coker took the criticizm in stride and promised big things to come in 2011. The announcement of the tournament lays out the planned matchups for the next year, and is a huge step towards legitimizing the Strikeforce heavyweight division and title.

The current heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem will defend his title in a rematch with Fabricio Werdum in the first round, and the title will be subsequently defended in the tournament semi-finals and finals.

Here’s how the Grand Prix participants stack up according to FightMatrix rankings:

Bracket I

Rank	Fighter	Record	Points
3	Fabricio Werdum Last Fight: 6/26/2010 [Strike Force]	14-4-1	594
8	Alistair Overeem Last Fight: 12/31/2010 [K-1]	34-11-0	289

Rank	Fighter	Record	Points
4	Fedor Emelianenko Last Fight: 6/26/2010 [Strike Force]	31-2-0	493
11	Antonio Silva Last Fight: 12/04/2010 [Strike Force]	15-2-0	211

Keep reading for the second bracket & alternate bouts:

Keep Reading

When considering upsets for the list, we took the winner’s rating at the first of that month and divided it by the loser’s rating at the first of that month.  Fighters coming back from inactivity, and previously undefeated winners (up-and-comers) are excluded.

Biggest Point-Based Upsets by % – (Loser with rating above #20 in assumed division /#20 overall female)

1. Jadamba Narantungalag UD(3) Akihiro Gono

2. Darren Uyenoyama TKO(2) Shuichiro Katsumura

3. Eric Schambari SD(3) Matt Horwich

4. Jimmie Rivera SD(5) Abel Cullum

5. Luis Palomino SD(3) Jorge Masvidal

6. Matt Horwich SUB(4) Thales Leites

7. Fabricio Werdum SUB(1) Fedor Emelianenko

8. Amir Sadollah UD(3) Brad Blackburn

9. Rafael Cavalcante TKO(3) Muhammed Lawal

10 Marloes Coenen SUB(3) Sarah Kaufman

The past week more than made up for the lull in MMA action over the holidays, as three major events went down in the books.   In Japan, Sengoku closed the year out with the ‘Soul of Fight’ on December 30th, and K-1 rang in the new year with the annual ‘Dynamite!!’ event on the 31st.  State-side, the UFC made 2011 official with ‘UFC 125: Resolution’.  As a result, a few of our divisional rankings in the current update look like someone took an eggbeater to them (thank our reader Chromium for the apt analogy).

Here is how some of this weekend’s events affected the FightMatrix rankings:

UFC 125: Resolution (or lack thereof?)

As the UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar took on Gray Maynard – the man responsible for the sole loss on Edgar’s record – the final WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis watched patiently.  Pettis was tentatively slated to face the winner of Saturday’s bout in a title unification match some time in 2011.   It looks like he may be waiting a while longer: Maynard brutally battered Edgar in the first round but was not able to put him away, and Edgar rallied for the remainder of the fight, resulting in an unlikely split draw on the scorecards.  Edgar retains his title and his #1 ranking, though he slips a spot to #5 on the Division Dominance list, while Maynard rises 2 spots to #2 LW.  Meanwhile the back-log of contenders grows deeper as Clay Guida makes his way into the Top 10 with a second round submission victory over former Pride FC champion Takanori Gomi.  Gomi falls to #13 LW.

Notable

This is the second time a UFC title bout is judged a draw – and the first one was also in the lightweight division, when BJ Penn fought Caol Uno to a draw for then vacant title at UFC 41 in 2003.  Back then,  the UFC’s entire lightweight division was dismantled as a result of the draw, relegating 155 lbs and under MMA to Japan for many years.  Things could not be more different today, with over sixty active lightweights on the UFC roster, and several legit contenders for the title.

Keep Reading

Main Card (PayPerView)

UFC/FightMatrix Lightweight Championship
[#1] Frankie Edgar (C) vs. [#4] Gray Maynard

Middleweight
[#41] Brian Stann vs. [#12] Chris Leben

Light Heavyweight
[#12] Thiago Silva vs. [#24] Brandon Vera

Welterweight
[#27] Dong Hyun Kim vs. [#25] Nate Diaz

Lightweight
[#9] Takanori Gomi vs. [#12] Clay Guida

Televised Prelims (ION TV)

Lightweight
[#46] Jeremy Stephens vs. [#64 WW] Marcus Davis

Featherweight
[#185 LW] Dustin Poirier vs. [#13] Josh Grispi

Middleweight
[*] Brad Tavares vs. [#244 WW] Phil Baroni

Untelevised Prelims

Featherweight
[#33] Diego Nunes vs. [#11] Mike Thomas Brown

Welterweight
[#108] Greg Soto vs. [#41] Daniel Roberts

Lightweight
[#20] Antonio McKee vs. [#49] Jacob Volkmann

In a recent interview with MMAFighting.com, UFC heavyweight Sean McCorkle was asked which opponent he’d like to face next, after suffering a first-round TKO loss to Stefan Struve at UFC 124.

His response: “I’d like to have the worst heavyweight in the UFC,” McCorkle said. “Unless that’s me, I’d like to have the second worst heavyweight in the UFC.”

With the announcement of McCorkle vs. Christian Morecraft being scheduled for UFC Fight Night 24, Sean may have just gotten his wish.

Here’s what the bottom of the UFC’s heavyweight division looks like according to our rankings:

Rank [Overall]	Fighter	Record	Points
25 [122]	Sean McCorkle Last Fight: 12/11/2010 [UFC]	10-1-0	34
26 [127]	Christian Morecraft Last Fight: 8/07/2010 [UFC]	6-1-0	33
27 [139]	Mark Hunt Last Fight: 9/25/2010 [UFC]	5-7-0	31
28 [142]	Kimbo Slice Last Fight: 5/08/2010 [UFC]	4-2-0	31
29 [143]	Rolles Gracie Last Fight: 2/06/2010 [UFC]	3-1-0	30
30 [155]	Mostapha Al Turk Last Fight: 4/10/2010 [UFC]	6-6-0	28
31 [196]	Anthony Perosh Last Fight: 2/20/2010 [UFC]	10-6-0	24

Keep in mind that the bottom four on this list are no longer eligible for the dubious honor of the “worst UFC heavyweight”: Kimbo Slice, Rolles Gracie, and Mostapha Al-Turk have all been released from the organization following their most recent losses, while Anthony Perosh will be dropping down to 205 lbs when he takes on Tom Blackledge at UFC 127.

Technically this makes the Pride veteran and K-1 World Grand Prix 2001 champion Mark Hunt the bottom rung of the ladder. Hunt’s spot on the UFC roster remains unclear: the only reason he was offered a fight after having been stopped in his previous five bouts was an outstanding contractual obligation stemming from Zuffa’s buyout of Pride FC. There has been no word from the UFC brass as to whether he will get another chance in the organization after losing his first fight. Anyhow, in the context of finding an opponent for Sean McCorkle, Hunt is not an option as it was McCorkle who defeated Hunt in both men’s UFC debut.

Of course, this leaves us with Christian Morecraft. Ask, and you shall receive.

Last week, I promised to make ‘The Week in Rankings’ column a weekly feature. Without any major events taking place since our last update, there is not much to report on this week. We did a maintenance realease that caused some minor fluctuations mostly due to data clean-up; other than that things have been quiet in MMA this past holiday week.

Since there has been no major ranking changes to discuss, instead lets take a look at the UFC’s recently expanded lightweight division. The 155 lbs weight class has got a recent influx of new blood from the UFC/WEC merger. The division is further bolstered by the additions of Antonio McKee and Willamy Freire, and the welterweight veteran Marcus Davis making a move to the lower weight class.

Here are some of the upcoming matchups we can look forward to:

UFC 125, 1/1/2011

• [#1] Frankie Edgar (C) vs. [#4] Gray Maynard for the UFC & FightMatrix Lightweight Championship
• [#12] Clay Guida vs. [#9] Takanori Gomi
• [#20] Antonio McKee vs. [#49] Jacob Volkmann
• [#46] Jeremy Stephens vs. [#64 WW] Marcus Davis

UFC Fight Night 23 (UFC Fight For The Troops 2), 1/22/2011

• [#21] Evan Dunham vs. [#38] Melving Guillard
• [#48] Cole Miller vs. [#58] Matt Wiman
• [#54] Willemy Freire vs. [#204] Waylon Lowe
• [#18] Yves Edwards vs. [#160] Cody McKenzie

UFC 126, 2/5/2011

• [#44] Sam Stout vs. [#70] Paul Kelly
• [#187] Gabe Ruedigger vs. [#116] Paul Taylor

UFC 127, 2/27/2011

• [#7] George Sotiropoulos vs. [#40] Denis Siver
• [#83] Maciej Jewtuszko vs. [NR] Curt Warburton
• [#64] Spencer Fischer vs. [#96] Ross Pearson

UFC on Versus 3, 3/3/2011

• [#47] Shane Roller vs. [#82] Thiago Tavares

UFC 128, 3/19/2011

• [#27] Gleison Tibau vs. [#28] Curt Pellegrino
• [#122] Edson Barboza vs. [#149] Anthony Njokuani

Date TBA

• [#14] Antony Pettis (C/WEC) vs. winner of Edgar/Maynard (C/UFC) for the title unification.

Keep reading for a combined ranking of the UFC’s lightweight division.
Keep Reading

Notable Info

• A mini-update prior to the holidays, just to tie up loose ends.

Just a quick comment regarding this topic.  Before reading on, please understand that with each ranking update, we re-analyze the entire database bout history from the earliest, to the most recent.  This allows us to take advantage of data improvements, past and present.

After compiling some recently excavated Brazilian fights from the past several years, courtesy of Sherdog, Jussier “Formiga” da Silva rose back up to #1 in the Flyweight division.  Before his win against Kojima, we thought he was 2-0 and very few had even heard of him.  He sure wasn’t in our Top 25 (now Top 50) Flyweight rankings.  Not even close.

Now, we believe he was 5-0 prior to that fight, and if we were to generate pre-fight rankings for their July 2009 fight with the data we currently have, Formiga would be respectably ranked at #11 in the division.

Supposedly, there are still two or three wins missing from his record.  Just imagine how many wins are missing from his opponents’ records, and their opponents’ records?  Just one more thing to consider when viewing our rankings.

I would like to introduce what I hope to make a weekly feature on FightMatrix.com: The Week in Rankings – an overview of some of the major happenings in the MMA world over the past week, and how they affected the FightMatrix rankings.

WEC 53

Of course the story of the week was the WEC 53: Henderson vs. Pettis.  On the verge of being folded into the UFC, WEC delivered one final event, packed with two title bouts and a number of lightweight and bantamweight bouts on the undercard.  For many of the fighters on the card, the outcome of their fight would determine whether they get a spot on the UCF roster, especially in the crowded lightweight division.

Bantamweight champion Dominic Cruz shut down and overwhelmed Scott Jorgensen for five rounds, en route to a unanimous 50-45 decision.  Jorgensen hung in there but couldn’t find an answer for Dominic’s reach, movement, and speed.  With the win, Cruz defended his WEC title one last time, and became the first UFC bantamweight champion.  He retains his #1 ranking, and rises 3 spots to #6 on the Division Dominance list.  Jorgensen falls 1 spot to #7 BW.

In the main event, challenger Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis sealed the close, back-and-forth fight in the last minute of the final round with an unbelievable off-the-cage-wall flying headkick.  The kick knocked down reigning champion Benson Henderson, but failed to put him away.  It did however weight the scales in favor of Pettis, who won a unanimous decision, becoming the final WEC lightweight champion and earning a shot at the UFC title.  Pettis rises 25 spots to #14 LW with the win.  Henderson falls 13 spots to #25.

In other televised fights, two former IFL lightweight standouts both lost their bouts, as Kamal Shalorus earned a split decision in a close contest with Bart Palaszewski, while Donald Cerrone stopped Chris Horodecki with a triangle choke.  Cerrone jumps 7 spots to #39 LW, and wants to fight #48 Cole Miller next.  Kamal Shalorus rises 14 spots to #57.  Palaszewski falls 5 spots to #63, and Horodecki 22 spots to #172.   Though Horodecki holds two controversial split decision wins over Palaszewski in the IFL, Bart has been more successful in the WEC and is much more likely to get a shot at the UFC.  Another rematch between these two would also make for a fun fight to show on Spike TV.

Keep Reading