Today I want to take a closer look at the current lightweight rankings in MMA.
Disclaimer
My goal with this series of rants is to look at current MMA rankings in more detail. It is also an attempt to help people better understand the MMA ranking system used on this site. It would be nice if out of all of this more people understood the distinction between the MMA ranking system used on the site and the actual MMA rankings that we see. Keep in mind that matchmaking, judging, refereeing and commissions all play a role in the final MMA rankings that we see. If something looks “off” it’s not necessarily because of the system.
BJ Penn
Probably one of the biggest points of contention some people have when looking at the current MMA lightweight rankings on this site is where BJ Penn ranks. Please try to stay calm and I’ll try to explain this as best I can.
Performance *NOT* Potential
The first thing to keep in mind is that we have to look at the actual performance of MMA fighters when ranking them. MMA is a sport and as such it’s very important that we focus on what fighters actually do. There is no doubt that BJ has a ton of potential, but saying things like “BJ would beat xxx” carries no weight here. It is about what BJ *HAS* done, it’s who BJ *HAS* beat.
Activity
An often overlooked point is that BJ is not super active (especially at lightweight, more on that in a minute). An average number of fights for an MMA fighter is about 3 per year. If things go well then 2009 will see BJ Penn have three fights for the first time in awhile.
2009 – Three fights (hopefully)
2008 – 2 fights
2007 – 1 fight
2006 – 2 fights
2005 – 2 fights
2004 – 3 fights
Losses
It’s not as though activity is the only factor. Understand that despite not fighting a lot BJ has actually lost a fair amount.
2009 – 1 loss (1-1 so far)
2008 – 0
2007 – 0 (won his only fight)
2006 – 2 (yes he fought twice and lost twice)
2005 – 1 loss (1-1 for 2005)
Possible Exception(s)
What some people like to point out is that the majority of BJ’s recent losses have been against guys “bigger” than him. This point can be valid, but it needs to be carefully evaluated. If you are going to claim that BJ Penn’s losses at higher weights shouldn’t count, then their wins at higher weights shouldn’t count either. We are talking about a sport here and it’s not right for one fighter to go into a fight with a chance to make a huge gain in rating and not risk any rating in return.
As a note though, looking at BJ Penn’s career we see that his fights at higher weights have a net result of -19 rating points. In truth the numbers would actually be a bit lower, but if you just sum up the wins at higher weights and the losses, you get -19. That means the losses at welterweight (and above) are not pulling BJ’s ranking way down.
Putting it all together
The big problem that results from removing those fights at higher weight classes is that you also push down BJ’s activity even more. If we look at *ONLY* light weight performance in recent years we see:
2009 – 1 win…solid win over Kenny Florian
2008 – 2 wins…a win over Sherk and a win over Stevenson
2007 – 1 win (only fight) and it was against Pulver
After that you have to go all the way back to 2003 for another BJ Penn fight at lightweight. Again we find ourselves facing a decision. Many people seem to get hung up on recent performance, but in the last three years BJ Penn has…four wins at lightweight.
Of those wins, the first, against Pulver is almost nonsensical. This fight was a chance for BJ to avenge a loss and it took up part of the ultimate fighter, but the fight was silly. Many at this time still talked of BJ being #1 in the world at LW and here he was taking on a fighter that wasn’t top anything. On top of that, Pulver said before the fight that he was going to drop down a weight class.
As an honest question, if BJ was as high ranked as people said why on earth is he being given this fight? One fight for the *ENTIRE YEAR* and it’s against a fighter that though I respect, wasn’t on anyone’s ranking list. To put the Pulver fight in perspective…Jens had just lost to Joe Lauzon. Joe is a fun (and somewhat scary) guy, but he certainly wasn’t a major ranked fighter back then. Although I’m not one to look at after the fight results I know some do, for that reason note that Pulver’s career went:
- Lose to Joe
- Lose to Penn
- Win 1
- Lose 4
- Retire
What it comes down to is that going a whole year with only one fight hurts people’s ranking because it gives others a big opportunity to catch up. Having that one fight come against someone ranked significantly lower only makes it worse. As a poor, but not completely flawed analogy imagine if Tiger Woods only entered a single tourney for all of 2010 and it wasn’t even a major.
2008 was a good year for BJ and I take nothing away from it. Still only two fights, but two solid wins. I do have to point out that most had Sean Sherk ranked far lower than we did and as such some probably don’t think it was quite as big of a win.
Going forward
BJ has a fight against Diego coming up soon. I hope it’s a great fight, and I hope we see more fights from BJ is 2010. If BJ wins the Diego fight he’ll probably be ranked #2 (it depends what other fighters do as well), and there is no doubt that he could easily be ranked #1. Overall though, with so few fights, and everything else we discussed I think it’s easy to see why BJ isn’t currently #1. Not a lot will argue about his potential, but when we look at the actual results I think it’s understandable.
Shinya Aoki
Aoki being #1 in the current MMA lightweight rankings is a problem for some, but I think once we take a look at things in more detail it’s easy to see why. Since BJ Penn is the fighter people often compare Aoki’s ranking against I’ll try to factor that into my explanations to provide a frame of reference. Please keep in mind the potential Vs performance issue mentioned above.
Activity
Unlike BJ who only has four lightweight MMA fights in the last three years, Aoki has stayed busy.
2007 – 3 fights (BJ fought once)
2008 – 6 fights (and one NC, BJ fought twice)
2009 – 3 fights (plus one at welterweight, BJ fought once so far at lightweight)
Losses
Recently Aoki has had two losses. One to Hellboy in 2008 and one in 2009 to Mach. Note that the Mach fight was at welterweight, so if you are a person that ignores fights at other weights, please do so. However, it is interesting to note that when looking at 2009 so far we see:
BJ Penn – 1 Loss to a welterweight, 1 win against Kenny Florian
Aoki – 1 Loss to a welterweight, Wins against Hellboy, Shaolin and one win against someone far below him.
I know some people have a limited knowledge of MMA fighters (I don’t say it to hate, I say it because it’s true). Kenny Florian is a solid lightweight and BJ gets credit for beating him. However, Hellboy and Shaolin are both quality wins. Even if we ignore the third win so far this year for Aoki I think it’s easy to see his 2009 has been better so far.
Note that if BJ wins his fight against Diego that will likely push his 2009 ahead and that is a discussion we can have if/when it happens. 8) For now, does everyone at least see that so far for 2009 Aoki has had the better year (just to date)?
While talking about losses let us also take a look at 2008 for both fighters…
BJ Penn – Wins over Stevenson and Sherk, No losses
Aoki – Wins over Eddie Alvarez, JZ, and Uno…plus two wins against people far below him. There is also the 1 loss to Hellboy
Although I’m sure Stevenson and Sherk are the more households names I hope most people recognize that Alvarez and JZ are very good lightweights and that both were top 10 when Aoki beat them. The win over Uno wasn’t overly impressive, and the fights against weaker opponents can be ignored for the most part. They weren’t losses though, so they really can’t count against him. Aoki also got almost no points for beating them.
Looking at 2007 we see that it wasn’t an outstanding year for Aoki. He had 3 fights, 3 wins, but 2 of them were against very weak competition. However, 2007 is the year that BJ only fought once and that was against Pulver.
Strength of Schedule
Another point that sometimes gets brought up is BJ’s strength of schedule. There is not doubt that it’s one of the hardest ever, but it’s also that high in large part due to fighters outside his weight class. If people choose to focus on lightweight only fights then BJ’s strength of schedule doesn’t include multiple fights against Hughes and GSP. It’s still great, but it’s not like Aoki’s SoS of mid-1700′s is terrible (he’s currently around #22 on the SoS ranking list).
Somewhat confusing
To be perfectly honest I’m not sure how someone can look at the above indifferently and conclude that BJ should be light years ahead of Aoki. I know Aoki doesn’t look like he should win…but he does. I know BJ has a ton of hype and more potential than almost any MMA fighter. What it ultimately comes down to though is who *HAS* done what, who *HAS* the person beaten.
Sometimes people like to say BJ should be higher than Aoki because he’d win a head to head fight, but that isn’t how sport works. If the Red Sox win every game against the Yankees next year there is still a chance they won’t make the playoffs and the Yankees could repeat as champions. We have to look at the whole picture.
If BJ had fought two whole times in 2007, if he’d fought higher ranked fighters than Pulver, if he’d focused just a bit…just a BIT! more on the lightweight division instead of chasing welterweights, then I have no doubt he’d be #1 right now. The fact of the matter though is that he didn’t. BJ Penn didn’t care about dominating the division, he missed fights, he took bad fights and because of that is currently ranked in the 2-3 range. It’s easily fixable and I look forward to seeing the Diego fight and the matchups we get next year.
Takanori Gomi
Gomi is a fighter that many think is too high right now. Their is no doubt he hasn’t looked amazing in recent fights, but that’s not reason enough to drop him way down the list.
Gomi fell out of favor following back to back losses. The first thing to keep in mind is that this wasn’t the first time Gomi lost twice in a row. Back in 2003 he lost to Hellboy and BJ Penn. What followed was a 10 fight win streak that included only 2 decisions (both unaminous) and 6 (T)KOs.
Also, here are a few other fighters that have dropped two fights in a row at some point during their career:
Kenny Florian
Joe Stevenson (Twice)
Gabriel Gonzaga
Randy Couture (Thrice)
Matt Hughes (Twice)
Clearly losing two fights doesn’t doom you to the depths of mediocrity for the remainder of your career.
The other important thing to note is that Gomi still has the highest alltime MMA rating at lightweight. Prior to that two fight slide he’d won 14 of 15 fights against some very difficult competition (yes some weaker, but also some quite strong).
This is definitely one of those cases where Gomi’s personal rating has dropped significantly (well over 100 points), but others simply aren’t passing him. Whether that be due to inactivity on their parts, losing some fights or whatever.
Having said all that I’m very hopefully that we’ll see several good fights from Gomi in the coming year. If he stays inactive then he’ll fall off the list. It will also allow other fighters to pass him. In this case I really don’t have any specific fights in mind because there is a wealth of talent at lightweight and it is spread all over the place. Gomi can go fight wherever he wants as long as it’s against quality competition.
Jamie Varner
Jamie is a clear cut case of a fighter that needs to be given harder competition. You can see that in recent years his rating has gone up as he continues to win, but his level of competition really hasn’t.
The ranking system has responded by giving him fewer points for wins, but that only goes so far. There comes a time when a fighter needs to be thrown in the ring with tougher competition and that time for Varner was about a year ago.
Complicating matters for Jamie are the injuries he suffered during his last fight. At this point we are closing in on almost a year since he last fought. I hope he comes back healthy and determined, and I also hope he comes back to some solid competition. If that competition can’t be found in the WEC then throw him in the cage against Stevenson, Edgar or Florian. He will either prove he should be higher or he’ll drop down accordingly.
Either way I think a fighter with a 16-2 record, no losses in over three years and only two decisions on their record (their first two fights!…technically their last fight was a technical decision for a 3rd…still nothing for a lightweight) should get a bit more respect from fans. I’m not saying call him a BJ slayer or put him #1, but at least give the guy some credit.
Odds and Ends
Overall I think the lightweight division is just incredibly stacked. The fact that we have fighters across an array of organizations can complicate things a bit, but it also is a case where a ranking system can help us get a clearer picture.
Although I think a dart board or some dice can result in great matchmaking for lightweights I do have a few specific fights that I wouldn’t mind seeing. All of these are smart from a ranking point of view and I think all of them are pretty interesting from an entertainment point of view.
Joe Lauzon Vs Spencer Fisher
Both lightweights that seldom go to decision, both 2-1 in their last 3, both with similar ratings, both with similar strengths of schedule. Just seems like a great fight that could put someone a couple fights away from a title shot. Fights like these are where a fighter can really build moment so that a title shot becomes the obvious choice.
Kawajiri Vs Aoki
Soooo many reasons for this fight. Both fighters are highly ranked. LOTS of similar opponents in their fight histories. Just seems like a hell of a fight that is overdue.
Tyson Griffin Vs Gray Maynard
Gray tends to go to decision, but overall Tyson hasn’t (though he had a run of 7 in a row recently lol). Their only common opponent is Edgar with Gray having won and Tyson having lost. I think the winner of this fight could reasonably be given the winner of Diego Vs Penn.
Thomson Vs Melendez
This rematch was supposed to happen a few times and I’m honestly not sure if it’s going to happen or not. I think it should and I think the winner should fight…Eddie Alvarez…or maybe Gomi.
Last heading!
As I said, there are a lot of great fights possible, even with possible cross organization hangups. I’m quite certain we will see a lot of movement in the rankings in the coming months and I hope some of the explanations above help make things a bit clearer.
If you have any questions about the current lightweight MMA rankings that I might have missed, please ask below or on the forums. I’ll be back (hopefully) tomorrow with a look at the welterweights.
Tags: aoki, bj penn, gomi, lightweight, mma rankings