Time For Another UFC Rankings Dump, But At Least This One Has A Picture!

A picture, just as the headline promised. Apologies that it's not The Lovely Chandella nude. I know that's been a hot topic in some places. You'll just have to settle for this still from the UFC 143 main event, which popular opinion suggests was won by Interim Welterweight Champion Carlos Condit.

 

With the much-anticipated UFC on Fuel event just hours away, I felt it was important that I get the latest batch of UFC “ZUFFA” rankings out there. (Especially since I don’t intend to update these immediately following the Fuel show, so why create unnecessary confusion?) These were compiled right after the UFC 143 event and, well, I just didn’t get around to posting them until now. I’ve been working on some other stuff regarding college hoops and fantasy baseball and just haven’t gotten around to throwing the stuff up here. That is, until now. So, while you’re counting the seconds until a bunch of fights that you’re statistically unlike to be able to see, further titillate yourself with the series of Excel-produced tables which await after the break.

UFC Rankings Dump Following UFC on Fox 2

Enough time has passed since the dreadful Fox show that I can now revisit these bad boys. And I had to do it soon, with UFC 143 coming up this weekend. So here are the glamour-free updated “ZUFFA” rankings for all weight classes. (The what?)

In Deference To The Recently Retired Brock Lesnar, This Post On The “ZUFFA” Heavyweight Rankings Through UFC 141 Shall Be Colon-Free

This two-day exercise (explained here) finally draws to a close with the heavyweights. If you missed any of the other weight class rankings, I covered the bantamweights here, the featherweights here, the lightweights here, the welterweights here, the middleweights here, and the light heavyweights here. So, you know, have at it.

Similar to my Chuck complaint in the last one, yes, I’m aware Brock Lesnar has announced his retirement from mixed martial arts and probably doesn’t belong in the rankings. He’s still on the roster page and has still fought in the UFC in the last four years, though, so you’ll see his name in the rankings. Have a look.

Don’t Blame Me For Chuck: The Light Heavyweight “ZUFFA” Rankings Following UFC 141

Only two weight classes left, and they both have heavyweight in their name (groundbreaking stuff here). Let’s have a quick refresher before getting down to business: This is the latest in a series of posts I’ve done over the past couple days ranking the various UFC weight classes based on the equation/algorithm/time waster I detailed here. Yesterday, I covered the bantamweights here, the featherweights here, the lightweights here, and the welterweights here. Today, I added the middleweights, and now, the light heavyweights.

Well, in a moment the light heavyweights. First, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that Chuck Liddell is still listed on the active roster on the UFC web site. That’s why he’s ranked here. That’s the best way I have of keeping track of the UFC roster for the purpose of this exercise. I know he’s retired. I am also somewhat perplexed that Royce Gracie appears on the UFC active roster, but hey, whatever.

Sorry to get all defensive on you. Here, have some more rankings as a peace offering:

Yes, There’s More: The Middleweight “ZUFFA” Rankings Following UFC 141

We’re heading down the home stretch now with these posts ranking the various UFC weight classes based on the equation/algorithm/time waster I detailed here. (Will I be able to muster enough cliches to finish the job?! Stay tuned!) Yesterday, I covered the bantamweights here, the featherweights here, the lightweights here, and the welterweights here. Alert readers may have noticed a pattern, and can probably guess which weight class will be tackled next. Failing that type of deduction, one could also just have a look at the title of the post and rest assured that he or she (probably he, let’s be real here) has not been hoodwinked.

On, then, to the middleweights!

You Get The Idea By Now: “ZUFFA” Welterweight Rankings Following UFC 141

We’re now more than halfway through the rankings for the various UFC weight classes based on the equation/algorithm/time waster I detailed here. So far, I’ve covered the bantamweights here, the featherweights here, and the lightweights here. Now it’s on to the welterweights! Who’s the lucky fighter to have placed second behind the dominant-turned-injury-prone GSP?!

It Persists: The “ZUFFA” Lightweight Rankings Following UFC 141

We’re in full swing of things now with the posts containing the rankings for the various UFC weight classes based on the equation/algorithm/time waster I detailed here. I already started with the bantamweights here, then added the featherweights here. Now it’s time for the lightweights. As noted in the explanatory post, these rankings — unlike the bantam and featherweight rankings — do not include fights held in WEC.

It Continues: The “ZUFFA” Featherweight Rankings Following UFC 141

As promised in a previous post (actually many of them, but that one most recently and most extensively), it’s time to begin churning out rankings for the various UFC weight classes based on the equation/algorithm/time waster I detailed in that post. I already started with the bantamweights here, and now it’s on to the featherweights.

It Begins: The “ZUFFA” Bantamweight Rankings Following UFC 141

As promised in a previous post (actually many of them, but that one most recently and most extensively), it’s time to begin churning out rankings for the various UFC weight classes based on the equation/algorithm/time waster I detailed in that post. I should note that there is one thing I probably forgot to mention, and that is that with UFC’s apparent absorption of Strikeforce’s heavyweight division, those fights will get the WEC lightweight treatment — that is, the Strikeforce fights will not be counted towards these rankings. That’s bad news for the Fabricio Werdums of the world, but that shouldn’t matter too much right now since I’m supposed to be addressing the bantamweights. So, without further ado…

The Explanation of My (Not So) Much-Anticipated (Blog) UFC Ranking System

I’ve been meaning to do this for months (it might actually be closing in on a year now), but what better time than now — several days before yet another UFC event that will render these outdated — for me to publish my UFC rankings on this here blog?

The reason I’ve been dragging my feet for so long on posting these is, basically, because I feel obligated to explain the process behind the tabulation of the ratings. And that’s the purpose of this particular post — the rankings themselves will come later. The super short explanation goes like this: I’ve applied the same principles FIFA uses to rank international soccer sides to UFC fights. What this means, essentially, is that I take four years worth of fight results, weight them based on how recent the fights are (multipliers range from 0.2 to 1.0 based on the 12-month period in which a fight falls) as well as the quality of opposition, and come up with a numerical value for each fighter. Because MMA and soccer have some inherent differences, however, I had to tailor some of the multipliers involved in terms of fixture/fight prestige, as well as how victory is achieved. In the case of soccer, the results-based multipliers (blatantly copied and pasted from Wikipedia) are as follows:

Result	Points
Win (no penalty shootout)	3
Win (penalty shootout)	2
Draw	1
Loss (penalty shootout)	1
Loss (no penalty shootout)	0

The easy way to do this probably would’ve been to just disregard anything related to a penalty shootout. But the prevailing mentality in UFC, or at least those running things there, tends to be that it’s better for fighters to finish fights and keep their fate out of the hands of the judges. It makes perfect sense, and therefore I concluded that I would award the 3-point multiplier to fighters who finished their opponent, and award a 2-point multiplier to victors through decision. The rest is fairly straight-forward: a draw is a draw, and keeps its one-point multiplier while a loss, even in the case of a decision, is worth 0. Just to be clear about all of this, I’ll create a table of my own. (That is, I’ll type this into Excel and then copy it over here so as to make it look nothing like the Wikipedia table.):

Result	Points
Win (Knockout or Submission)	3
Win (Decision)	2
Draw	1
Loss	0
No Contest	0

There shouldn’t be any real big surprises there. The area that could be up for greater debate is the values I’ve assigned for fight status. First, a look at the FIFA version:

Match status	Multiplier
Friendly match	x 1.0
FIFA World Cup and Continental cup qualifiers	x 2.5
Continental cup and Confederations Cup finals	x 3.0
World Cup finals match	x 4.0

Obviously, there aren’t any cup matches in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, so I needed to determine what the equivalents to each of these events was. The easiest equivalents I came up with were prelim fights as friendlies and championship fights as World Cup finals equivalents. The rest is probably open for debate, but here’s what I came up with: