All fighters are ranked using their FightMatrix rating points as of 4/6/09. Some of the bout histories for these obscure fighters are incomplete, especially those from the UK, but we decided to use the information that we have to provide a ranking of said fighters. There is some “grouping” of closely rated fighters, so we are presenting them in tiers.

Total Points

235 – 172

The Best of the Bunch

1. Che Mills

2. Kevin Knabjian

3. Mark Miller

Worth Keeping an Eye On

4. Jason Pierce

5. Damarques Johnson

Rounding Out the Top 10

6. Tommy Maguire

7. Ray Elbe

8. James Wilks

9. Alex Reid

9B. Frank Lester*

10. Nicholas Osipczak

Here for the Ride

11. Dean Amasinger

12. Ryan Biglar

13. Christian Fulgium

The Unranked

Kiel Reid, David Falkner, James Bateman

* – Added after the fact, not included in main point total.

As mentioned over at BloodyElbow.com, USA Today will now be featuring the monthly BloodyElbow Meta-Rankings in their online and print versions.  As you may or may not know, the meta-rankings are essentially an averaged list of the better MMA ranking sites out there, with us being one of them.

In addition, I assisted BloodyElbow by creating the normalization scheme that is necessary to properly weight the various rankings, in order to allow sites that only offer Top 10s and Top 15s.  This allowed them to expand the rankings and create a more accurate picture.

The first published release will be on Thursday.

I think most of us would agree that this fight is happening too late, and an approximate ranking history would agree.  Rua/Chuck looked like it would have been at its peak as 2005 came to a close.

The Excel trendlines (Poly.) suggest potential trending for each fighter.  These are not very scientific, and only suggest possible trends.  However, I will note that all similar trends suggested a decline for Liddell, while Rua’s trend was varied.  Since they will face each other in a few weeks, the trends presented are the only logical ones, with the exception being a draw.

Notable Info

• Database updated with shows from the past 10 days.
• Bug that was mentioned in the previous update notes has been further flushed out.  Affected functions have been re-tuned.

Notable Info

• A moderately significant mathematical consistency error was discovered within the rating system, so I decided to release an update mid-week, as there are no shows that necessitate an update for the upcoming weekend.  The error has been resolved, but the corrected function may likely require further tuning in the future.  The fluctuations caused by this fix are minor, as the problem was only encountered in a small number of bouts.