Notable Info
Back at the ‘The Joint’ in Vegas, WEC 35 brought us another championship triple-header: a rematch between Brian Stann and Steve Cantwell for the lightheavyweight title, a welterweight title bout between Carlos Condit and Hiromitsu Miura, and a lightweight championship match between Jamie Varner and Marcus Hicks. Here is how it went down:
Damacio Page vs. Brian Bowles (135 lbs bout)
The first televised bout of the night started out at a hectic pace, with Page slipping after throwing a high kick and ending up on his back with Bowles in his guard. Bowles attempts a guillotine; Page escapes and gains the top position. Page stands up and they go back to trading on the feet; Bowles attempts a takedown but Page sprawls. Page goes for a takedown of his own and is caught in a standing guillotine. He looks like he is trying to slam his way out of the hold, but his arms are trapped and Page is forced to tap out as Bowles pulls him down to the canvas.
Bowles improves his career record to 6-0 and positions himself as one of the top contenders for the 135 lbs title (currently held by Miguel Torres.)
Fight grade: 4/5
| Saturday, March 14th 2026: Pancrase - 361 | |||
 [#4 SW] Yuta Miyazawa | [#9 SW] Kanji Funada | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 11/09/2025 [Pancrase] Last Opponent: [#32 SW] Tateo Iino Last 5: W W L W W | Last Fight Date: 4/27/2025 [Pancrase] Last Opponent: [#51 SW] Takafumi Ato Last 5: W W W W W | ||
| Friday, March 6th 2026: RIZIN 52 | |||
| [#5 W105] Saori Oshima | [#11 W105] Keito Oyama | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 11/02/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [#1 W105] Seika Izawa Last 5: W L L W L | Last Fight Date: 11/02/2025 [Rizin Fighting Federation] Last Opponent: [NR] Bo Mi Lee Last 5: L W W W W | ||
| Sunday, March 8th 2026: Deep Osaka Impact 2026 1st Round | |||
| [#7 W105] Moeri Suda | [#10 W105] Namiko Kawabata | ||
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| Last Fight Date: 9/15/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#5 W105] Saori Oshima Last 5: W W W W L | Last Fight Date: 5/25/2025 [DEEP] Last Opponent: [#36 W105] Honoka Shigeta Last 5: L L L W W | ||
| [NR] |  Daniel Cormier | [NR] | Henry Cejudo | |
| [#1 LW] |  Ilia Topuria | [#1 WW] |  Islam Makhachev | |
| [#39 LHW] |  Aleksandar Ilic | [NR] |  Conor McGregor | |
| [NR] | B.J. Penn | [#1 LHW] |  Alex Pereira | |
| [#20 BW] |  Farid Basharat | [#26 W135] |  Klaudia Sygula |
Notable Info
Sherdog is still experiencing major issues with their database and with doing updates, so we are likely missing the results of some minor shows that occurred last week.
After their cluster-bomb of a CBS debut, Elite XC returned to network television, loaded with two title matchups: a middleweight rematch between the reigning champion Robbie Lawler and challenger Scott Smith, and a welterweight bout between Jake Shields and Nick Thompson to crown the organization’s first 170 lbs title holder. The third title match – heavyweight showdown between Antonio Silva and Justin Eilers – was left off the CBS card and instead headlined the preliminary card broadcast on Showtime.
Shayna Bazsler vs. Christiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos (140 lbs women’s bout)
In the first round, Bazsler aggressively goes for takedowns and submissions, getting a near heel hook at one point, but Santos escapes and batters Shayna with punches and knees. In the second 3-minute round, Santos completely takes over the fight, landing strike after strike from clinch until Bazsler collapses. Santos jumps on the top of the cage to celebrate, even though referee Steve Mazagatti did not stop the fight! A few seconds of confusion ensue; Bazsler gets back to her feet and Mazagatti orders the fighters to continue. Santos finishes what she started, knocking out the wobbly Bazsler with only seconds left in the round.
Fight grade: 4/5
Notable Info
The numerous fluctuations are due to the Sherdog problems mentioned within the 7/20 blog entry. Hopefully they will sort this out sooner rather than later.
With his 61-second knockout of James Irvin, Anderson Silva made a successful transition to 205 lbs, and also achieved something that very few fighters have done before him: seven consecutive victories in UFC bouts. Every single one of Silva’s seven UFC fights has been the main event, and every time he put his opponent away in under two rounds.
The record for most consecutive wins in the UFC is currently shared by Royce Gracie and Jon Fitch, at eight victories in a row each. Fitch’s streak is still active, however he will have to defeat the seemingly unstoppable Georges St. Pierre to pull ahead of Gracie. Should Fitch lose, Anderson Silva stands an excellent chance of achieving the record nine wins in his next two bouts.
The only other UFC fighter to hold seven consecutive Octagon wins is Chuck Liddell, who has accomplished it on two separate occasions. Former champions Randy Couture, Rich Franklin, and Pat Miletich have all won seven straight UFC bouts as well, but suffered losses in other organizations within the same time frame.
The MMA Rankings will be updated on Monday 7/21, due to the DREAM 5 card. This will be a huge update considering the cards that took place in the previous week.
However, there is also something else important to note. Sherdog, our main data provider, is doing some type of database-related maintenance. For the time being, they are experiencing glitches. One of which is causing some amateur and semi-pro bouts to be displayed on the event and fighter pages. This was a potential issue before w/ some bouts being incorrectly classified, but this latest glitch added thousands of amateur bouts.
Unknowingly, we synchronized our database with theirs, and unfortunately, they have no designator for us to properly classify the pro/amateur status of a bout. On a positive note, they should be rectifying this in the near future, but this rectification will also cause more fluctuations once we remove the amateur bouts. Either way, the effects on top ranked fighters are minimal, as they are far removed from their amateur days.
Last week, we tracked the progress of the heavyweight class of The Ultimate Fighter Season 2 contestants. Now let’s take a look at the other half of the equation: Season 2 welterweights.
While none of the welterweights have reached the truly elite level yet, Season 2 featured a diverse cast of memorable and entertaining fighters – from the eventual winner Joe ‘Daddy’ Stevenson and the unlikely runner-up Luke Cummo, to the alternate Jason Von Flue who, despite a spotty record, will be remembered for popularizing the arm triangle variant now know as the ‘Von Flue’ choke, to Marcus Davis who made one of the most amazing career turnarounds ever seen in the sport.
Fightmatrix.com historical ranking archive updated with the rankings as of July 6, 2008.
Notable Info
Stay tuned for a MASSIVE update in the upcoming weekend!
Obviously, opposition strength is an extremely important characteristic in determining who becomes a top-ranked fighter and who holds onto their high ranking in times of bad performances.
Here is the Top 10 list for fighters with the best opposition strength since 1/1/2007. The ratings were normalized by division and a minimum of 3 fights is required for listing.
1> Dan Henderson (161.8)
2> Forrest Griffin (126.6)
3> Yasuhiro Urushitani (122.7)
4> Jens Pulver (120.8)
5> Quinton Jackson (120.7)
6> Mamoru Yamaguchi (112.1)
7> Wanderlei Silva (108.9)
8> Matt Hughes (105.9)
9> Georges St. Pierre (104.1)
10> Gabriel Gonzaga (102.8)
After the inaugural season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series became an instant television hit, Spike TV and the Ultimate Fighting Championship quickly rounded up another load of up-and-coming MMA fighters and filmed another season. The second season of ‘TUF’ featured heavyweights and welterweights, and notably did not feature the usual feud between coaches. Instead, the coaches were friends, one-time training partners, and both UFC title holders at the time: Rich Franklin and Matt Hughes. Let’s look at how the careers of the participants turned out since then. I will examine the heavyweight class first, and the welterweights next week.
All in all, the heavyweight edition of TUF has been a failed experiment. Of the ten fighters who participated, only two are still fighting in the UFC and both dropped down to 205 lbs, as did Mike Whitehead who has had an impressive win streak outside of the Octagon. None of the true heavyweights of the group enjoyed great success in MMA since the Season 2 finale.
After the UFC lightweight title was on hold for most of the year due to the champion Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and the top contender Forrest Griffin coaching opposite each other on the seventh season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’, the two finally met in the Octagon at UFC 86. With all the hype on the main event, the rest of the card looked somewhat lackluster in comparison, with Cote-Almeida being the only undercard bout with immediate title implications.
Tyson Griffin vs Marcus Aurelio (155 lbs)
Griffin dominated Aurelio in standup, and avoided danger on the ground, through the entire fight. Aurelio was not able to find an answer for Griffin’s striking, never achieved dominant position, and while he threatened numerous submissions from his always-dangerous guard, none of them came close. Griffin won every round on every judge’s scorecard for a 30-27 unanimous decision.
Notable Info
We have a new king at Light Heavyweight and a new Top 10 entrant at Lightweight!
This is how UFC 86 stacks up. I will extend a word of caution for anyone looking to wager on Cote, as Almeida’s ranking is still volatile due to the fact he is only one fight off of a long bout of inactivity. He still needs to once again prove himself against a good opponent and has his chance to do so here.
UFC Light Heavyweight Championship
[#1] Quinton Jackson vs. [#4] Forrest Griffin
Middleweight
[#18] Patrick Cote vs. [#91] Ricardo Almeida
Lightweight
[#21] Joe Stevenson vs. [#60] Gleison Tibau
Welterweight
[#5] Josh Koscheck vs. [#36] Chris Lytle
Lightweight
[#14] Marcus Aurelio vs. [#15] Tyson Griffin
Heavyweight
[#7] Gabriel Gonzaga vs. [NR] Justin McCully
Lightweight
[#108] Jorge Gurgel vs. [#122] Cole Miller
Lightweight
[#121] Melvin Guillard vs. [#159] Dennis Siver
Lightweight
[*] Justin Buchholz vs. [*] Corey Hill
Ranking Note: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.
