Fight Matrix

Tracking the progress of The Ultimate Fighter 4 contestants – Part II

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Oleg

Last week, I examined the progress of the middleweight fighters who participated in The Ultimate Fighter 4. Lets now take a look at the welterweights of Season 4.

The welterweights were a very experienced group of fighters, with a combined record of 139-62-13 prior to the show. Two of the welterweights – Matt Serra and Rich Clementi – took charge of their respective teams, becoming the unofficial team captains. Even though Serra ended up winning the entire Season 4 tournament while Clementi was eliminated in the first round, today they are still the highest ranked fighters of the Season 4 welterweight group.

Keep Reading

MMA Rankings Updated: 10/20/08

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Jason

Notable Info

Bouts added to database w/ recent shows from UFC, KOTC, and some minor organizations.
Added some old bouts from minor organizations.

Featured Upcoming Bouts (Outside of UFC)

Thursday, December 31st 2026: Rizin FF Super Rizin 6: Shiwasu no Owarinagoya Gekokujo Matsuri

[#1 W105] Natalia Kuziutina

[#4 W105] Saori Oshima

Last Fight Date: 9/10/2026 [Rizin Fighting Federation]
Last Opponent: [#18 W105] Rena Kubota
Last 5: W W W W W

Last Fight Date: 7/18/2026 [Rizin Fighting Federation]
Last Opponent: [#13 W105] Ye Ji Lee
Last 5: L W L W W

Sunday, December 13th 2026: Deep - 135 Impact

[#3 SW] Sukai China

[#4 SW] Jo Arai

Last Fight Date: 5/04/2026 [DEEP]
Last Opponent: [#6 SW] Sora Sugiyama
Last 5: W W W W W

Last Fight Date: 9/13/2026 [DEEP]
Last Opponent: [#23 SW] Daichi Kitakata
Last 5: L L W L W

Sunday, December 13th 2026: Deep Tokyo Impact 2026 6th Round

[#6 SW] Sora Sugiyama

[#10 SW] Goal Makino

Last Fight Date: 9/20/2026 [DEEP]
Last Opponent: [NR] Musashi Musashi
Last 5: W W W L W

Last Fight Date: 9/06/2026 [DEEP]
Last Opponent: [#42 SW] Toshiya Takashima
Last 5: W W W W W

Featured Fighters

[#18 W125]	Lucia Szabova	[#1 WW]	Islam Makhachev
[#18 LW]	Renato Carneiro	[#1 FW]	Alexander Volkanovski
[#13 LW]	Tom Nolan	[#26 WW]	Jacobe Smith
[#102 W125]	Tainara Lisboa	[#1 LW]	Justin Gaethje
[#2 LW]	Ilia Topuria	[#23 LHW]	Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyaev

UFC 89 Review

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Oleg

UFC 89 took place in Birmingham, England, marking the third UFC event in England for 2008. The event was broadcast on Spike TV with a tape delay. The main event was a middleweight bout between Michael Bisping and Chris Leben – the fight that was originally scheduled to take place at UFC 85 but was scratched from that card as Leben was serving a brief jail sentence stemming from a probation violation. The remainder of the televised portion of the card was split up between the welterweight and lightheavyweight divisions, with two matchups in both weight classes.

Marcus Davis vs. Paul Kelly (170 lbs)

The broadcast began with a welterweight matchup between undefeated Paul Kelly and ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ alumnus Marcus Davis, fresh off his first loss in twelve bouts. Davis controlled the action in the first round with superb footwork, staying out of Kelly’s range while landing punches and kicks from the outside. Davis took Kelly down late in the round, and was briefly caught in a guillotine before working out of it and pounding Kelly on the ground. Kelly got back to his feet but still lost the round.

In second round Kelly tried to unload on Davis but once again had a hard time dealing with Marcus’ footwork and finding his target. Kelly slammed Davis with an explosive takedown; Davis responded with a guillotine of his own and Paul Kelly was forced to tap out.

Aftermath: Back on the winning track, Marcus Davis asked to fight on UFC’s upcoming event in Dublin, Ireland in his post-fight interview. Considering how frequently Davis appears on UFC’s European events, his request is virtually a given, and Chris Lytle will be his likely opponent. Paul Kelly was dealt his first professional loss; he too will likely appear on the Dublin card and should face David Baron, who was choked out by Jim Miller on the same night in an untelevised preliminary bout.

Fight grade: 3/5

Keep Reading

Tracking the progress of The Ultimate Fighter 4 contestants – Part I

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Oleg

After the third season of ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ reality series showed a significant drop-off in talent level from the previous two seasons, UFC decided to switch things up for Season 4. Instead of having sixteen up-and-coming MMA fighters compete for a chance to fight in the UFC, Season 4 featured sixteen veterans of the sport competing at a shot at the UFC title in the middleweight and welterweight divisions. Though all of the featured fighters have competed in the Octagon in the past, most of them had below .500 records in the UFC and have never come close to winning a title. Season 4 offered these fighters another chance to earn the gold, and was dubbed ‘the comeback season’.

Season 4 did not focus as heavily on the coaches as the previous seasons: instead of having two coaches mentoring the opposing teams, the show featured a number of UFC fighters and trainers who were made available to all contenders. Though the fight teams did not have an official leader, welterweights Matt Serra and Rich Clementi emerged as de-facto captains of their teams. I will take a look at the middleweights first, and examine the welterweights next week.

Keep Reading

October Archives Updated

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Oleg

Fightmatrix.com MMA rankings archive has been updated with the rankings as of October 6, 2008.

MMA Rankings Updated: 10/13/08

Posted on October 13, 2008 by Jason

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.

MMA Rankings Updated: 10/06/08

Posted on October 6, 2008 by Jason

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!

Elite XC Review

Posted on October 5, 2008 by Oleg

The latest installment of Elite XC’s ‘Saturday Night Fights’ on CBS was scheduled to feature the abysmal main event of Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock. In a bizarre turn of events, Shamrock received a cut to his eyebrow while sparring in preparation for the bout. The laceration required stitches, and the Florida Athletic Commission barred Shamrock from participating in the event. This left EXC scrambling for a last minute replacement to salvage the main event; they ended up pitting Kimbo against Seth Petruzelli, a lightheavyweight who was scheduled to face Aaron Rosa on the untelevised undercard.

Murillo Rua vs Benji Radach (185 lbs bout)

The televised portion of the event began with a #1 contender bout for the Elite XC’s middleweight title, which will be defended by Robbie Lawler against Joey Villasenor on November 8th. Radach came out of the gates swinging, throwing relentless hooks that staggered Rua and dropped him to his knees. Rua recovered and fired back, and twice in the first round both fighters found themselves knocked down simultaneously for a moment. Rua secured a takedown late in the round and worked for a leg lock, but Radach resisted and survived the round.

In the second, Rua seemingly figured out Radach’s stand up game, and was landing flying knees to the body of Benji, backing him up against the fence. Rua threw another flying knee; Radach countered with a jab which knocked Rua off-balance and dropped him. Rua was slow to cover up, and Radach landed several huge punches to his downed opponent, knocking ‘Ninja’ out cold. A great brawl to start off the evening.

Aftermath: Radach will go on to face the winner of the Lawler-Villasenor for the title – that is if the Elite XC organization survives beyond the November event. Rua suffers a very brutal knockout, another setback to his rollercoaster of a career.

Fight Grade: 5/5

Keep Reading

EliteXC 10/4/08: How they stack up?

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Jason

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.

MMA Rankings Updated: 9/29/08

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Jason

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.