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

WEC Lightweight Championship
[#12] (C) Benson Henderson vs. [#39] Anthony Pettis

WEC/FightMatrix Bantamweight Championship
[#1] (C) Dominick Cruz vs. [#6] Scott Jorgensen

Lightweight
[#46] Donald Cerrone vs. [#150] Chris Horodecki

Lightweight
[#58] Bart Palaszewski vs. [#71] Kamal Shalorus

Lightweight
[NR] Danny Downes vs. [#121] Tiequan Zhang

Lightweight
[#63] Shane Roller vs. [#88] Jamie Varner

Bantamweight
[#92 FW] Ivan Menjivar vs. [#33] Brad Pickett

Bantamweight
[#95] Ken Stone vs. [#15] Eddie Wineland

Lightweight
[#112] Danny Castillo vs. [#162] Will Kerr

Lightweight
[#77] Yuri Alcantara  vs. [#45] Ricardo Lamas

Bantamweight
[#40 FW] Renan Barao vs. [#51] Chris Cariaso

With his latest victory, GSP moves up to #5 on the Absolute All-Time Rankings.  He is also within striking distance of Hughes with regards to the #1 Welterweight position.  Another 12-18 months at the top should see GSP displacing Hughes on that list.

The only other jump on the mid-month update was Jussier da Silva moving up the Flyweight list.  Thanks to some new (old) records from Brazil, he jumped from #10 to #7.

Notable Info

• Some old bout maintenance accompanied these updates, so there will be some fluctuations throughout.

UFC Welterweight Championship
[#1] Georges St. Pierre vs. [#5] Josh Koscheck

Heavyweight
[#69] Sean McCorkle vs. [#41] Stefan Struve

Lightweight
[#8] Jim Miller vs. [#53] Charles Oliveira

Lightweight
[#124] Mac Danzig vs. [#19] Joe Stevenson

Welterweight
[#11] Thiago Alves vs. [#50] John Howard

Lightweight
[#57] Mark Bocek vs. [#81 WW] Dustin Hazelett

Middleweight
[#57] Joe Doerksen vs. [#26] Dan Miller

Welterweight
[#148] Sean Pierson vs. [#60] Matt Riddle

Middleweight
[#133] Jesse Bongfeldt vs. [#84] Rafael Natal

Welterweight
[#26] Ricardo Almeida vs. [#36] T.J. Grant

Lightweight
[*] Pat Audinwood vs. [#193] John Makdessi

Lightweight (Ultimate Fighter Tournament Finale)
[#121] Jonathan Brookins  vs. [#102] Michael Johnson

Welterweight
[#45] Stephan Bonnar vs. [#89] Igor Pokrajac

Middleweight
[#47] Kendall Grove vs. [#8]  Demian Maia

Welterweight
[#30] Rick Story vs. [#34]  Johny Hendricks

Featherweight
[#29] Leonard Garcia vs. [#79]  Nam Phan

Lightweight
[#188] Cody McKenzie vs. [NR]  Aaron Wilkinson

Featherweight
[#15 BW] Ian Loveland vs. [#63]  Tyler Toner

Lightweight
[NR] Kyle Watson vs. [NR]  Sako Chivitchian

Bantamweight * Nick Pace was unable to make weight, weighting in at 138 lbs.
[#71] Will Campuzano vs. [NR]  Nick Pace

Featherweight
[NR] Pablo Garza vs. [#56]  Fredson Paixao

Middleweight
[#76] Rich Attonito vs. [#45]  Dave Branch

Light Heavyweight
[#6 MW] Dan Henderson vs. [#13] Renato Sobral

Welterweight
[#11]Paul Daley vs. [#36 MW] Scott Smith

Middleweight
[#12] Robbie Lawler vs. [#46] Matt Lindland

Heavyweight
[#40 LHW] Mike Kyle vs. [#11] Antonio Silva

Light Heavyweight
[*] Benji Radach vs. [#53] Ovince St. Preux

Notable Info (Things Beyond the Top 10)

• Dan Henderson is on the cusp of the Top 10 “Absolute” list.  A win over Babalu should help propel him into #10 within the next few lists, displacing Chuck Liddell.
• Yushin Okami has moved up to #13 on the Middleweight list.  At only 29, it seems likely he will quietly make the Top 10 someday.
• Although it’ll still require a decent amount of work, B.J. Penn is trying to become the 3rd fighter to appear on more than one divisional list, along with Couture and Henderson.  Its still in the distance, but possible.  He has few fights in the division and that is what is holding him back.  A win over Fitch and a charge at the title, could see him challenging for a Top 10 spot in the next couple years.

I’ve seen a great amount of negative feedback from posters on a popular forum about the Welterweight placement of B.J. Penn.  They apparently do not understand, or do not care about how our site rankings work.  Either way, I wanted to explain a few things.

• Our system is a software-based ranking system that has been in existence for nearly three years.  As such, it has been developed to handle the “norms” in MMA and is still evolving.
• When something abnormal happens, we do our best to handle these scenarios programmatically, if there is enough data involved to ascertain an appropriate course of action.  No human intervention is ever taken on a per-bout basis.
• Every time the official ratings are posted, the system analyzes the entire database chronologically, from the very first bout, to the most recent bout.  When a fighter debuts, they start with a rating of 10, and carry one rating throughout their career.
• Current ratings are division-ADJUSTED.  When a fighter moves up a division, their rating is reduced.  The opposite occurs when they move down a division.   This is based on the “norm” and does not account for abnormalities, such as a fighter severely draining themselves and moving down in weight.  A fighter does not start at ground zero at a new division.

Our philosophy is that it is 100% illogical to give a fighter zero credit for moving into a new division and it is also nearly impossible to handle in a software system.  In the case of B.J. Penn, how can you not give him SOME credit at Welterweight before fighting Matt Hughes, even with the “traditional” divisional ladder-based ranking philosophy?  Although much time has passed, Penn holds an arguable loss to GSP, and a prior win over Matt Hughes — two of the greatest Welterweights in history in their primes.  Not to mention, he is/was still a top ranked Lightweight, only one division below Welterweight.

To make a long story short, Penn, who was ranked #3 at Lightweight, would have been ranked #8 at Welterweight based on his pre-bout point total.  He beat #7 Welterweight Matt Hughes in the first round, thus creating the eventual movement which placed Penn at #4, and Hughes at #12.