MMA Ranking Talk

The site is now updated with several recent events. In looking over the rankings I noticed a few things that stood out to me and thought I might explore them in a bit more detail. Usually if something jumps out at me then I figure others have questions as well.

Do keep in mind that everything on this site is there for a reason, so if I don’t address a specific question you have, please feel free to ask.

Mirko “Cro Cop”

I’m sure this one jumped out at a few people. Somehow Mirko is still ranked “top 10″. This seems insane to some, and I have to confess that even I was a bit shocked by it. As usual though, I looked into it a bit more and here’s what I found…

- The first thing I noted was his relative rating to those around him. There are only about 13 rating points currently separating #9 and #13. Basically there are lots of fighters bunched up very closely around #10. If Mirko’s rating were just a couple points lower his “ranking” wouldn’t seem so far off.

- He didn’t lose to Alistair. I know that might sound silly, but on a personal level that fight resolves as a loss in my head. Much like how some still see Diaz as having a win over Gomi (or Gomi a loss to Diaz lol). In truth though, Cro Cop did *NOT* “lose” that fight. Had Alistair kept his knee out of Cro Cop’s groin and won the fight then the rankings would look at lot more “expected”. ie Cro Cop outside “top 10″ and Alistair moving up a bit.

- The rankings for heavyweights is pretty weak. This is probably the biggest point and can’t be stressed enough. When we look at Mirko’s all-time high rating we see it sat at 2126. Now his current rating sits at 1914. That is a drop of over 200 points. That is just an insane shift in rating.

At his peak Mirko was #2-3 in the world, yet even with the huge point drop he’s still sitting at #10. Why is that? It is because other heavyweights aren’t putting together wins. There are basically two ways to “drop” in rankings. You go down, or your opponents go up.

What makes Mirko’s case so interesting is that although he’s personally dropped an absolutely incredibly amount of rating, other fighters simply haven’t stepped up. There are a few reasons for this. Some fighters like Tim Sylvia and Randy Couture have had rating drops as well during this period. Additionally, some of the other fighters that could have passed him haven’t been given the proper match ups for it.

To get a better perspective on this, consider where Mirko’s current rating would place him in some of the other weight classes.

LHW – At Light Heavyweight a rating of 1914 would barely be good enough for 15th. Well outside of the top 10.

MW – At Middleweight a 1914 rating wouldn’t even crack the top 20.

WW – At Welterweight right now you need almost 2k to even be top 10, 1914 isn’t even good enough for Top 20.

LW – 1914 is the exact same rating Joe Stevenson currently has. That rating has him at 23rd.

When we look at this it becomes clear that Mirko’s rating really isn’t that far off. Looking at other fighters with similar ratings Mirko fits in (sadly for some I know, but look at his recent performances). Where it becomes an “issue” for some is that despite his rating having significantly dropped his overall ranking hasn’t shifted a lot due to how others have performed recently as well.

- The loss just happened. Before Mirko’s next fight it’s very likely at least one fighter will pass him. That is simply a function of how spread out MMA fights are. Much like how looking at the standings saturday after one team plays and before another team plays monday can show a different picture. Although Mirko is “top 10″ today, odds are quite good that won’t last for very long.

- “top 10″ doesn’t really matter. Another important point, but one that gets overlooked. You’d think with how much I rail against “top 10″ I’d be immune to such flawed thinking, but no. What it really comes down to is his rating and performance and the truth is Mirko’s currently rating is quite reflective of his performance.

Yushin Okami

Another fighter that helps illustrate the difference in rating vs ranking is Yushin Okami. He sat at #2 on the MW list for awhile. He was rumored to be getting a title shot. He is 7-1 in the UFC. His only 2 losses in the last five years both came against former title holders. However, he’s been inactive all year (last fight 2008-12-27), and now some other fighters are closing the gap and passing him.

In this case Yushin’s rating hasn’t gone down. Like we talked about above though, other fighters’ ratings are going up. As a poor analogy imagine a hitter in baseball that continues to hit .325 and sits in first, but eventually some other hitters get hot and raise their batting averages higher. It’s not that Yushin has gone “down” so much as the other fighters have gone “up”.

This situation is interesting because it’s almost the exact opposite of what happened to Cro Cop. In Yushin’s case they haven’t lost and their rating has gone down at all, but they’ve slipped several places in the rankings. On the other hand, Mirko has done almost everything he could to tank his personal rating, but still sits moderately high in the rankings.

‘kos’ Vs Twinkle Toes

This is another case where I had things wrong in my head. When I first heard the match up I assumed Kos was much higher rated than Trigg. Looking at the numbers though Trigg was actually a bit higher. Immediately I looked a bit deeper.

Kos – Lost 2 of his last 3. Only 3-3 in his last 6
TT – Won 4 in a row. 5-1 in last 6.

The truth is historically these two fighters are close enough that one of them getting into a bit of a slump (1-2 in last 3) at the same time one of them gets hot (4 in a row) is enough to shift their overall position.

Looking at the head-to-head fighter comparison I linked above you can see just how similar these two fighter’s careers have been.

- Win/loss percentage very close
- Edge to Trigg in (t)KO%
- Edge to Kos in Sub%
- Both lost to GSP

In the head to head Kos has the win, has the more recent win, and is rated/ranked higher.

Where these two fighters will go from here will be interesting to see. Both have gotten close, but never broken 2k rating. Both have had WW title shots, but never won. Either way, both have had solid careers and will hopefully continue to be healthy and give us fights we enjoy watching.

Moral of the story

Don’t just look at the rankings. This site provides us with far more useful and far more powerful information than “1)A 2)B 3)C”, it’s silly to ignore that. Yes, even I mess up sometimes and fall back into the old way of looking at things.

If something looks “off” then dig a little deeper and you will almost always find an answer. No, you might not always agree with it, but it’s an answer none the less (much like asking out a hot chick). If you see something that looks completely off, then please feel free to ask.

Tags: cro cop, site, system

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 20th, 2009 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.