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

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