Featherweight, Bantamweight, and Women (ALL), have been expanded from Top 15s to Top 20s.

We are taking the ranking expansion one step at a time, to verify that fighters entering the lists have the correct nationality and divisional settings. If you think a fighter is placed in the incorrect division, find a nationality error, or think a fighter should be ranked, but can’t find them, please write a comment in response to this post.

Lightweight and above have been expanded from Top 25 to Top 30.

Since the early development of the rating system, bouts labeled as “no contests” have been completely ignored.  This could cause some fighters to be wrongly classified as inactive.  As it stands, after 360 days of inactivity, a fighter’s rating will begin a gradual decline due to inactivity penalties. Furthermore, fighters inactive for a full calendar year (365 days), are not displayed on the rankings.

Recently, I have come to the conclusion that completely ignoring no contests is fundamentally wrong. The purpose of the inactivity penalty is to reflect the assumption that the fighter is not practicing their craft on a competitive level. Even though these bouts did not have an official outcome, the fighters were still training, and did compete in a professional bout.

Due to this recent mental development, no contests are now considered bouts, albeit bouts without outcomes. This will affect the “last bout date” of a fighter, which may stave off inactivity penalties, and allow a fighter to be ranked as long as they had some official bout in the past 365 days. This will not affect the application of quality performance penalties, as no contests cannot be considered quality performances under any circumstances.

The only immediate effect on the rankings is that this change allows Takanori Gomi to be reinstated in the rankings as the #1 Lightweight, as he is no longer considered inactive.

We have expanded all of our rankings: 

Lightweight, and above, have been expanded to Top 25. 

Bantam, Feather, and Women rankings have been expanded to Top 15. 

Look for more expansion in the future!

Happy New Year everyone!

We just published a major ranks updates for all weight divisions.  We believe this is the most accurate and realistic rank to date.  Some notable changes were made:

1. More accurate bout database
2. The addition of Flyweight (under 126 lbs) division Top-10
3. Improved ranking software
4. Fighters who were not active in 2007 dropped from ranks for inactivity.  Most notably, Mark Hunt, Josh Barnett, and Takanori Gomi are no longer ranked.

Updated Rankings:

Heavyweight (206+ lbs)

Light Heavyweight (186-205 lbs)

Middleweight (171-185 lbs)

Welterweight (156-170 lbs)

Lightweight (146-155 lbs)

Featherweight (136-145 lbs)

Bantamweight (126-135 lbs)

Flyweight (under 126 lbs)

Women (Open Weight)

We rely on external sites to provide bout history for our rating system. It has recently been brought to my attention that there has been a lack of updates from our current provider, especially in the lower weights and for women altogether.

While our source has the best past history, a complete ledger of recent results are most important in providing an accurate current ranking system. If you noticed our ratings went haywire, it is simply because we switched providers.

Revision 1 will debut with all ratings updates.  The first change involves draws and is very minor.  Simply put, the effect of a draw has been amplified and its change can best be described with an example scenario using the lower-rated fighter.

Fighter A (150 pts) DRAW Fighter B (60 pts)

• Old Method for Fighter B > ((60*1.2) + ((150+60)/2)) / 2.2 = 80.45
• New Method of Fighter B > ((60*.6) + ((150+60)/2)) / 1.6 = 88.13

The calculation for the higher rated fighter experienced similar changes, but they are not as pronounced due to other factors involved.

The second change involves the quality performance decay, which requires fighters to have a quality performance in the past 12 months or else their rating begins to gradually decline.   The criteria for triggering of this decay were slightly modified in order to lighten the requirements for maintaining one’s rating.  This was also a very minor change.

FightMatrix.com now features a women’s mixed martial arts ranking.

Due to very sporadic competition in the women’s division, we are currently only able to generate an all-inclusive Top-10 list that covers all the women’s weight classes.

How the ranks work

Rank	Fighter	Points
1	Tara LaRosa Last Fight: 7/14/2007 [Bodog]	65
2	Megumi Fujii Last Fight: 11/8/2007 [Shooto]	44
3	Amanda Buckner Last Fight: 4/14/2007 [Bodog]	40
4	Gina Carano Last Fight: 9/15/2007 [EliteXC]	36
5	Seo Heui Ham Last Fight: 2/16/2007 [Deep]	31
6	Naoko Ohmuro Last Fight: 8/19/2007 [GCM]	29
7	Julie Kedzie Last Fight: 9/29/2007 [Hook N Shoot]	27
8	Rosi Sexton Last Fight: 8/24/2007 [Bodog]	23
9	Roxanne Modafferi Last Fight: 2/17/2007 [Fatal Femmes]	22
10	Hitomi Akano Last Fight: 4/14/2007 [Bodog]	22

By popular demand, FightMatrix.com now features Bantamweight (126-135 lbs) and Featherweight (136-145 lbs) mixed martial arts fighter ranks.

Due to limited competition at the lighter weight classes, we felt it best to only display a Top 10, rather than a Top 20.

How the ranks work
Featherweight (136-145 lbs) Top 10

Bantamweight (126-135 lbs) Top 10

WEC 31 did not have a big impact on our ranks, as we do not yet rank the 135 and 145 weighclasses and most of the heavier WEC fighters are not in the top 20.  The only weight class with significant changes was Middleweight (185 lbs), as Paulo Filho retains his title and the #2 spot in the ranks.  Chael Sonnen drops to #20 with the loss.

How the ranks work

Updated Top 20 Ranks:

Heavyweight (under 265 lbs)

Light Heavyweight (185-205 lbs)

Middleweight (170-185 lbs)

Welterweight (155-170 lbs)

Lightweight (145-155 lbs)