It’s been a while since we had a post that was strictly based on analysis, so I thought it was a good time to provide one. I decided to take a look at average opponent strength between 2007 and 2009. We’ll look at which fighters have had the best average opponent strength, and although I wanted to also post who had the worst, it was really hard to filter the list in a way that did not only contain obscure fighters or those who just now reached their lofty ranking. Before consuming the lists, please consider the following qualifiers and notes:
- Fighters must have had at least four qualifying fights between 1/1/2007 and 12/31/2009, an average of one fight per nine months. I did not want to bring this to the current day due to the next point.
- The opponents’ current FightMatrix division dominance ratings are considered, not their pre-bout ratings or regular ratings. I wanted to use the current division normalized status of the opponents to show what they’ve become, not what they were, or what the rating system thought they were. So, to limit the direct effect of points gained by the opponents who beat the listed fighters, I stopped the date range short of this year.
- No contests are excluded as are female fighters.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s take a look at the list.
Top 10
1. Forrest Griffin
2. Matt Hughes
3. Chuck Liddell
[#6 W125] 
[#5 FW] 
[#16 FW] 
[#6 HW] 
