Notable Info

• Bouts added to database w/ recent shows from EliteXC, Warriors Collide, UWC, SuperFights, and some other minor promotions.
• Added some old bouts from minor circuits.

Notable Info

• Bouts added to database w/ recent shows from EliteXC, Shooto, Cage Gladiators, TKO, Freestyle Cage, and others.
• Approximately 850 “old” bouts added to the database!

Up until this point, we’ve only taken a look at UFC cards.  However, I wanted to do a bit of a competitiveness study while outlining the EliteXC card.

When averaging the pre-fight ranking of the favorite and underdog for each match, we get these average match-ups for the past two UFC cards and the 10/4 EliteXC card:

UFC 88: [#27] vs. [#65]

UFC Fight Night 9/17: [#43] vs. [#107]

EliteXC 10/4: [#166] vs. [#254]

While calculating, it was going well for EliteXC, especially since they have women’s matches, where its harder to draw  abysmally ranked competitors.  Same goes for the lightest male divisions.  However, I hadn’t noticed that there are debuting fighters on the card, which absolutely trashed the average rankings, since I had to use the lowest rank possible to average with.

If you only take the top 7 matches (by average ranking) of each card, you get the following results:

UFC 88: [#26] vs. [#47]

UFC Fight Night 9/17: [#39] vs. [#81]

EliteXC 10/4: [#45] vs. [#90]

By using only the 7 most competitive matches (just enough to exclude the debuting fighters), you get a more accurate picture… or do you?  It’s awful sad that the EliteXC “main event” falls well below this adjusted average.

Elite XC 10/4

Heavyweight
[#67] Kimbo Slice vs. [#205] Ken Shamrock

Welterweight
[#5] Jake Shields vs. [#23] Paul Daley

Heavyweight
[#5] Andrei Arlovski vs. [#18] Roy Nelson

Women (Open)
[#9] Gina Carano vs. [#43] Kelly Kobald

Middleweight
[#19] Murilo Rua vs. [#54] Benji Radach

Women (Open)
[#17] Cristiane Santos vs. [#39] Yoko Takahashi

Lightweight
[#157] James Edson Berto vs. [#260] Conor Heun

Light Heavyweight
[#79] Aaron Rosa vs. [#80] Seth Petruzelli

Welterweight
[#290] Lorenzo Borgomeo vs. [NR] Mickey Gomez

Welterweight
[NR] Jorge Bouchat vs. [NR] Nicolae Cury

Bantamweight
[NR] David Gomez vs. [NR] Brett Jackowski

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.

Notable Info

• Bouts added to database from recent shows such as EliteXC, Shooto, GCM, M-1, PalaceFC, Sengoku, and some minor organizations.
• Approximately 400 “old” bouts added to the database. (Where do these things keep hiding?)

There were quite a few changes of the guard this week, especially within the lightest divisions.

Featherweight sees two GCM fighters enter the Top 10, while Wilson Reis established himself as a Top 5 Bantamweight.  At Flyweight, former Top 3 stalwart Yasuhiro Urushitani was finally defeated and sees himself dropped to #5.

Notable Info

• Rankings updated with effects from shows in the past week including DREAM, WCF, ECC, Strike Force, NAAFS, Cage Rage, SportFight, Caged Combat, and others.
• Historical shows added to database.
• Improved handling (bugfix) of losses in early career.

For the past month or so, Sherdog has added a ton of historical bouts, especially those from midwest circuits.  This has caused some fluctuations from week to week.  However, they look to have completed this project, so look for the “random”  fluctuations to be reduced.

Last week, I examined the state of the UFC’s heavyweight division.  Now, lets take a look at the state of the heavyweights in the rest of the world.

Once upon a time, Pride FC was home to the deepest heavyweight division in the sport.  When Zuffa bought out Pride, they failed to pick up many of the pieces, resulting in a very scattered division.  To date, no organization has been able to gather the majority of the heavyweights under one banner. Affliction’s first event featured the top four fighters on this list (three of them former UFC champions), but the subsequent cancellation of their upcoming event put the future of Affliction in question .  And so the heavyweights remain spread out among several organizations, with Dream being the biggest player in the division outside of UFC and Affliction.

[#1] Fedor Emelianenko

MMA Record:  28-1, 1 NC (14-0 Pride FC, 1 NC)

Last bout: Defeated Tim Sylvia by submission (rear naked choke) at Affliction: Banned

Current affiliation: Affliction/M-1 Global

Sambo and Judo master Fedor Emelianenko has been indisputably the top heavyweight in the world for most of this decade, and considered by many to be the best fighter in the world in any weight class.  The last Pride HW champion holds an almost perfect professional record, his only loss a controversial cut stoppage to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka that was later avenged with a brutal beating.  After Pride’s demise, Fedor was not able to come to a deal with the UFC, and fought very infrequently and against questionable competition – until a first round stoppage of former UFC champion Tim Sylvia in his most recent bout.  Rumors of a Emelianenko – Couture dream bout have been circulating for over a year, but with Couture back in the UFC this fight doesn’t look likely to happen any time soon, leaving Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett as the best possible opposition for Emelianenko.

Keep Reading

Notable Info

• UFC Fight Night and minor shows from the past 10 days added to the database.
• Missing bouts prior to 10 days ago added to the database.

The next ranking update will be during mid-week, after the DREAM show.