Four degrees of Evil Pooh

A couple days ago a friend of mine started talking to me about MMA (normally good). Then they started talking to me about BJ Penn (normally bad). During this conversation they quoted me some information a friend of theirs had relayed to them concern BJ Penn and GSP. The information sounded about right overall, but I was intrigued and sought to be told more.

Google FTW

I get back home and google for mmalinker and BJ Penn information. I finally find the post and note the author of the post says, “I found this on BJ Penn.com”. Ok, well I start reading the post and take note of some of the data. Overall it looks right, but it also looks…familiar. The article mentions it’s BF (Before Florian), so maybe I’ve already read this. Surely duplicate information is never posted on an MMA forum!!! I decide to continue my search…

Google…Take TWO!

I now set out to google down BJ Penn…on his website. Amazingly enough, there are some hits regarding BJ Penn!

I find the “original” article in question and begin reading it over. It’s basically the same thing and reading it again it just feels as though I’ve read it before. No! Not “before” as in 15 minutes ago on the other site.

Finishing up the article I see the comments and one of them mentions that the person writing the article didn’t “write the article”. You guessed it!

Google Three…This time…It’s not Google Two!

Now I’m back to google and I plug in the BJ Penn information and information from the comment and I find…

BJ Penn MMA Career by the numbers

I now start reading this article and I’m proud to say it only took me two and a half paragraphs to realize…I WROTE THE ORIGINAL FUCKING ARTICLE~!!!

Good god lol.

Normally I try not to comment on other people’s writing, but since I started this clusterfug, I figured I might as well do what my friend asked and offer up some feedback.

1) BJ Penn’s MMA Career and Time

Having reread the article (yes a third time, you think you have trouble with reading a rant once, imagine how I felt!) and some of the comments I noticed that many people seem to completely ignore time.

1a) Activity

For example, even though the article mentioned it was before Florian and the original article was clearly dated back in March, some still talked about the Florian fight. Additionally, some people are already talking about the Diego fight.

One reply I saw basically bashed the activity section because BJ “will” fight three times this year. How silly of me back in March to not know that he’d hopefully (a few weeks from now) actually have his third fight this year. It’s also amusing how a third fight (that still hasn’t happened) completely invalidates previous years of 2, 1, 2, and 2 MMA fights.

Look, when I wrote the article I never said BJ would *NEVER* fight three times in a year. I never even said that they hadn’t fought three times in a year previously. The only thing I was pointing out is that BJ Penn has low activity for an MMA fighter. For some people that matters. For others, it doesn’t. Whether it matters to you or not doesn’t change the fact it’s true. Let me put it to you like this: a friend of mine is a chubby chaser and I’m happy for them, but the fact remains that I wouldn’t let their other “half” sit in my comfy chair.

1b) At the time

Perhaps one of the biggest issues when talking about BJ Penn’s MMA career (and other fighters, sports, etc.) is the concept of at the time. It’s amazing how people can read something from months ago and use information since that time to somehow invalidate the points made.

Lebron Vs Melo

I think a good example of this happened a few years ago when Melo and Lebron were going for rookie of the year. At the end of the year Melo had more points, more rebounds, and went to the playoffs. Yes, Lebron had more assists and a worse supporting cast. Melo also had a higher shooting percentage and a higher three-point percentage as I recall (forgive me if I got that one wrong, I didn’t even remember my own rant from this year, 2003-2004 is even fuzzier).

Since I try to limit my fights to one at a time, please ignore who won, who you think should have won, etc. What I want to point out is that in the years since Lebron has become the “better player” in most people’s eyes. No problem with that…except some actually use that as grounds for him receiving the rookie of the year award back then.

The crucial thing to keep in mind is that when giving out the Rookie of the year award for 2003-2004 we are *NOT* looking at playoff performance in 2008. Seriously, the awards would be backed up 10+ years and they would give out all awards at your hall of fame ceremony. It’d be like, “congrats, here’s your hall of fame plaque, here’s a rookie of the year, two mvp’s…and one comeback player of the year award”. Seriously, shit doesn’t work like that.

Just because I have to mention it…Emeka Okafor won the rookie of the year award in 2004-2005. Is he the “best” current player from that year?

Fedor *WILL* Lose

I keep saying it and I honestly believe it’ll happen eventually. Whether I’m right or not I don’t know(I also mumble “hot redhead” under my breath every time the doorbell rings).

Here again I’d like to ignore Fedor being the “best” right now, or where he might be in six months or two years. What I want to focus on are the people that keep waiting for him to lose so they can “prove” Fedor was overrated three years ago. Once Fedor loses it won’t mean he sucks right now and it certainly isn’t going to invalidate the incredible run he has been on for years.

Back to BJ Penn

Now lets get back to BJ Penn. Where BJ Penn ranked in March was lower than where he ranks now. Know why? Because he won an MMA fight since then! Shocking I know. Wanna know something else? If he beats Diego in a few weeks…He’ll rank even higher!!!

Hold the gasps because you are going to want to yell at me in a second…*IF* Diego wins (via greasing, BJ taking him lightly, BJ under traininer, BJ overtraining, BJ giving him the win to setup the rematch, a bad ref decision, a bad judging decision, sniper in the rafters, someone spiking the water, altitude, BJ stubbing his toe on the way to the cage, a camera flash temporarily blinding him so he gets clipped, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc) IF…JUST IF then BJ Penn will move down some.

The last statement is really the one that gets some BJ Penn fans. Let’s finish up this section by looking at BJ Penn’s MMA Career at the time.

2006-09-23 – BJ Penn lost to Matt Hughes. This was his second loss in a row and his third loss in three fights. At this point in time (keep repeating that to yourself) BJ Penn hadn’t fought at lightweight since…2003-10-10. That’s right, almost 3 years without a single fight at lightweight. Despite this, some people still had him ranked #1 at lightweight. Even more impressive is that some still had BJ ranked *AT THE TIME* in the top 3 or 4 p4p (only the haters had him that low, clearly BJ was still #1) despite having lost three of his last four fights (more on that later).

2007-06-23 – BJ Penn now beats…Jens Pulver (<3 little Evil). Of course BJ Penn is now #1 at lightweight. I mean, 1 lightweight fight in over three years, and he took out a top...uhhhh (<3 little evil but...) a top...20? 15? Honestly what can I say, before the fight Jens even said he was dropping to 145. He also had just lost to a UFC newcomer who then went on the TUF show.

2009-03-18 - The day of the original rant. Since 2007-06-23 BJ had two solid wins at lightweight, and then went right back up to WW and lost to GSP...again. (because of the greasing, and the cage, and the lights, and the camera, and the weight, and the greasing and the cage andgreasingandtrainingandhistoeandsomeonestolehishatandthegreasing). It was after this fight against GSP "to the death" (stopped after the 4th round) that the rant was originally typed.

At that time BJ Penn had four wins at lightweight in the last *FIVE* years. During that time they also had *FOUR* losses at higher weight classes. They also only had a total of 11 fights, which is less than 75% of what you'd expect.

Yet somehow, *AT THAT TIME* people were still claiming BJ Penn #1 at lightweight and top 4 (or better) p4p.

I mean really, at each of those points in time and any other point inbetween that I didn't focus on was BJ Penn still #1 at lightweight and top four p4p? REALLY!?!?!?! Not a single point in time in the last five plus years where people can concede that maybe he slipped just a bit? Please just tell me at what point he cemented his status and why nothing he does can change it. People wait for Fedor to fall, some knocked GSP down for the Serra loss, some still look back at Anderson's earlier losses. Why is it that *NOTHING* changes BJ Penn's ranking. He can lose and it doesn't matter, he can go inactive and it doesn't matter.

2) BJ Penn’s MMA Career and Weight

Another hotly contested point about BJ Penn is his p4p status and how weight factors into things. As with the above and the original rant, I really just want to talk as factually as possible.

2a) BJ Penn’s weight

One of the big slashes in the pro-BJ Column is that he has fought bigger people. This is true and I’d expect even haters to admit such a thing. Where things get a bit blurry is just how that stacks up against other people.

Anderson Silva

Anderson has fought multiple times at light heavyweight now. Although many don’t rank Irvin overly high there are some that have Griffin in the top 5 range. Either way, Anderson has far more wins at his weight class, and a higher activity level.

GSP

One of the knocks I see on people against GSP is that he stays at welterweight. Although true, it’s not like everyone is the same size in that weightclass. GSP has mulitple wins against people that later held belts at middleweight. Where they stood at the time of the fight is unknown.

If we had more accurate information (that I keep begging for) we could also look at fighters within the division currently. Although I’ve heard reports of GSP at 190, I’ve also heard those dismissed and people say it’s closer to 180-185. Contrast that against fighters like Rumble and Thiago Alves. Both fighters have missed weight before. Both have been talked about in the 200+ range. Recently I saw something claiming Rumble was around 205 in the Koscheck fight.

Since we don’t have accurate information I’m not going to get into this too much, but I again plead for people to stop using “weight” and “weight class” interchangeably. If BJ Penn is 155 on the nose and GSP was 180 for their fight(s) that’s a 25lb gap. If GSP is 180 and Rumble is 205…that’s a 25lb gap!

Fedor

A situation where we do have some (slightly) more accurate numbers is Fedor. He usually weighs around 230-235. His fight against Rogers he weighed in at 232 (I believe). For this fight Rogers weighed in at 264 (I believe). The numbers might be slightly off, but I’m pretty sure the difference in weight was ~32lbs.

That’s a 32lb weight difference without Fedor cutting anything and possibly with Rogers cutting to make the 265lb limit. Again, don’t talk about “weight class” as though it’s the same as “weight”.

BJ has fought bigger guys, and it’s totally understandable to give him credit for that. However, if you give BJ credit for fighting bigger guys, then you can’t ignore other fighters that do the same. More accurate information would make this easier to see. Even without it though it’s clear that other fighters do fight “bigger” guys sometimes and that even within a “weight class” fighters have different “weights”.

2b) BJ Penn’s wins at higher weights

The theme of “talking fact, not smack” continues here. I have an incredible level of respect for BJ and all of the opponents I mention. Having said that, I think it’s important that we take a look at BJ Penn’s successes at higher weight classes.

Let’s start with a little exercise, grab a piece of paper (or open notepad or whatever) and write/type the name of the “best”(hardest) fight BJ Penn had at a higher weight. I’ll play along and although your list might be slightly different, just keep going. At first I’ll go with….

-GSP (the second time)

Ok, now add another name (or the same from a different fight) I’ll add Matt Hughes and my list looks like…

- GSP (the second time)
- Matt Hughes (second time)

Yours can look however, it might have GSP X2 or Hughes X2 or even Machida…just keep going a few more…

My list:
-GSP
-Hughes
-GSP

Ok lets go for “top 5″ because that’s a number most people like.

- GSP
- Hughes
- GSP
- Machida
- Hughes

Ok, there are my five…now draw a line (or put a hyphen) and list the fight outcome. Mine looks like:

Now, as I said, your list may look different. Maybe you’ve got Machida higher, or the two GSP losses grouped up, or maybe the Hughes win and the Hughes loss at the top. Any of those I think will match what most people have.

Did anyone put Renzo Gracie? If so, please read 5.0.2 of the original rant, understand:

- Renzo hadn’t fought in almost 2 years leading up to the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo hadn’t *WON* in over 3 and a half years before the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo had lost 2 in a row going into the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo had lost 5 of his last 6 going into the BJ Penn fight

Given that, please explain how Renzo was a higher end “fight” for BJ than any of the five above that most people have.

Maybe Rodrigo Gracie? They were 5-0 at the time and had beat Mach recently. Do you swap out Machida for that? Maybe a Hughes fight?

Here is what it comes down to, BJ Penn has some fights at higher weights and he has some wins at higher weights, the problem is most people confuse the two of them. Here is the list people quote of who BJ Penn has *FOUGHT* at higher weights:

“OMFGZORZ HE FOUGHT – Hughes X 2, GSP X 2, and Machida!!!”

Ok, that is actually true. Now lets look at a list of who he *BEAT* at higher weight:

Hughes (once out of two!), Rodrigo Gracie, Renzo Gracie.

Maybe some throw Bang in there as well, go for it if you want.

Does anyone spot the differences in the two lists!? Honestly question *RIGHT NOW*, I want everyone to take a second and think on this and then we’ll all blurt out our answers together here goes…

“After Matt Hughes, who is the second biggest win for BJ Penn outside of lightweight”

get ready…
3…
2…
1…
ANSWER…

Ok, what did you say? I went with Rodrigo, but I might be wrong.

Seriously, does this basic exercise on the paper help at all? BJ Penn has had 5(ish) BIG fights at higher weights. He’s fought Hughes X2, he’s fought GSPX2, and he’s fought a young Machida (had 5 fights at the time, but had already beaten Rich Franklin). Of those five “big” fights he’s won…One of them.

It seems I’m again forced to ask why it’s so hard for some to understand how others might question BJ Penn just a bit, just a little, just the teeeennnnnsssiiiiest bit. These people that question him concede he’s fought at higher weights, they just follow up by pointing out which of those fights he actually won.

Lock it up

The topic will never die and I’m sure seven or eight months from now someone will be talking to me about this rant…that someone mentioned…that someone posted…that someone saw linked…that someone copied from a piece of paper that was printed out that stuck to the bottom of their shoe with bubblegum while they were walking…..Or whatever.

What always strikes me about a “discussion” like this though is how both sides approach things. The “Pro” BJ camp seems unwilling to ever acknowledge he dropped in rankings, his losses don’t matter, his inactivity doesn’t matter, nothing does. He’s just #1, he’s been #1, and he’ll be #1.

On the “anti” BJ side, I see people talk about facts like inactivity, little details like losses, or a breakdown of those “BJ PENN FIGHTS BIGGER PEOPLE!!!!” arguements. Yeah BJ Penn fights bigger people, he also loses to them a lot. “BJ PENN HAS A HIGH STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE” No shit…he also…LOSES TO THEM A LOT. BJ Penn is #2 on SoS right now. If you remove the Hughes fight he lost and the GSP fights he lost, he’s suddenly right around #10 (still good mind you). Losing should matter, no one proclaims Yuji to be one of the best ever, but he clearly managed to lose to some high ranked people as well.

Look, BJ Penn has tons of potential, heaps. I don’t think anyone can argue it. At the same time, I don’t see how anyone can argue that he doesn’t fight often, that he does lose and that his “higher weight fights” are often overblown. He might win 5 fights next year and capture belts in three weight classes. When he does I’ll say that he did, he’ll rank high, and world peace will break out. Even if all that happens though, some people will (rightly?) still ponder how anyone could justify *ZERO* wins at a weight class in over three years as being #1 *AT THE TIME*.

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.

My goal with this rant is to hopefully provide some information that might otherwise go overlooked. If you hate Brock, then I’m sure you’ll find information here that further proves he sucks. If you love Brock, then I’m sure you’ll find information below that helps explain how he’s already better than Zeus. Really though, this rant is for those that fall somewhere between hater and hugger. For those people that want to take an honest look at what he’s done thus far, and how it compares to others.

Brock Lesnar’s Fight History

Let us start by taking a look at each of Brock’s fights thus far. We’ll see how Brock ranked after each fight and where others stood early in their career.

Min Soo Kim – Win

This was Brock’s first fight and honestly it was a pretty bad choice. At the time of the fight Min was 3-5 with a rating below 1500. Why you would pair a “future #1 HW” against such a weak opponent in their first fight is beyond me.

I’m a big advocate of Risk Vs Reward. In this case Brock’s name would have provided sufficient enough reward for him to fight a higher rated fighter. I’m not talking someone 2k rated, but he should have at least been given a solid veteran with more wins than loses.

Having such a weak first opponent definitely cost Brock some points early in his career. Still, he won the fight and earned a solid 48.

Where fighters stood after 1 fight

Here’s a table showing the highest fighter ratings after a single career fight.

Strength of Schedule gets a lot of discussion as well, so here’s a list of people who had the highest Strength of Schedule after a single fight. The chart basically says who fought the highest rated opponent in their debut. It also shows mostly people who got their butt kicked. 8P

Frank Mir – Loss

The most interesting thing about this fight is that Brock lost. That put him at 1-1. However, he lost to an experienced fighter and a former champion. As a result the mma-elo.com system didn’t ding him too hard for the loss.

Despite not being dinged hard for the loss, Brock did suffer in the sense that he missed an opportunity. A win over a reasonable opponent at this point would have been worth 50+ points.

The other thing to realize is that this fight took place 2008-02-02, that’s a full 8 months after his debut on 2007-06-02. I’ll get into activity more later on, but in case you don’t make it through the rest of the rant I want to note that 8 months is a long time. On average fighters compete every 4 months, and early in a fighter’s career they tend to compete even more frequently than that.

Where fighters stood after 2 fights

Let’s again take a look at where other fighters stood two fights into their career.

Definitely more household names on the above list. Now let’s look at strength of schedule.

Heath Herring – Win

Heath Herring is a solid veteran fighter. At the time of the fight Heath had a rating of 1860 (would put him about 20th in the HW division). Heath is definitely a solid win on anyone’s resume and even more so for someone with only two previous fights.

The most controversial thing about the Heath fight is probably what followed. Before we get into that though, let’s take a look at…

Where fighters stood after 3 fights

When we look at overall rating after 3 fights we see a few interesting names. Aleks sits at #2, BJ is up to #4 Cain at #9, Lyoto at #10 and Frank Mir at #23 to name a few. The reason Brock isn’t on the list at this point is because of his loss to Mir. Again, if that fight had simply been a reasonable win he’d have cracked the top 25 and likely around top 10.

Strength of Schedule at this point has a few interesting names. Including HMC (Fedor and Cro Cop within first 3 fights), and Zulu (Fedor and Nog within first 4 fights). Neither farred so well, but that’s still a pretty crazy schedule. 8)

Randy Couture – Win

This is probably the most controversial fight in Brock’s career thus far. Not because of the outcome, but because the match got made in the first place. Following a win over Heath Herring (top 20ish) and sporting a 2 win – 1 loss record, Brock was given a title shot in the UFC against Randy Couture.

I don’t think anyone believes Heath Herring (top 20ish at the time and 4-4 in his last 8) was going to get a title shot if he’d beaten Brock. Furthermore, Brock was coming off a loss and it’s possible a win by Heath would have resulted in Brock being cut. Certainly having one fight outcome be the difference between a 1-2 record and possibly out of the UFC versus a 2-1 record and a title shot is pretty crazy.

In the war between MMA and MME, this is definitely a battle that MME won. There’s no doubt Brock is marketable and some people wanted to see the fight. The fact that a 2-1 fighter would be given a title shot in the “best” organization in the world after beating a top 20(ish) HW and a “can” (with a loss thrown in) is just too much for some people to swallow.

What needs to be made clear though is that many of the people who object to the fight taking place don’t “hate” Brock. If it’d been a 2-1 Cain or a 2-1 Aleks or whomever many of these same people would have had the exact same problem. Seeing a 2-1 fighter get such an oppurtunity almost entirely because of outside the sport factors is insulting to the sport (and the other fighters).

I know some people will say, “But Brock won, so he deserved it”. That simply isn’t true. In many cases getting the title fight is the hard part. Some fighters win numerous fights against guys ranked well above 20th and still never get their opportunity. It needs to be understood that someone can give Brock credit for winning the fight, but still acknowledge it should have never happened in the first place. Much like if Lutter had beaten Anderson, or when Serra did beat GSP.

Where fighters stood after 4 fights

As we look at overall rating after 4 fights we now see Brock on the list (at number 12). Again, if he’d won his second fight he likely would be sitting at #1. Some other interesting names we see are: Filho(#1) I’ll never understand how this guy gets no credit from some people, King Mo (#2) the number of people taking notice seems destined to grow, Cain (#3) constantly overshadowed by Brock but off to a solid start, Hunt (#8), Mir (#10), GSP (#11), Hughes (#20).

For Strength of Schedule I just have to mention Pawel. In his first 4 fights he fought: Big Nog, Josh Barnett, Aleks. I honestly have no idea who’s wife he slept with, but damn they better have had red hair!

Additionally, we also now see Brock Lesnar on the list as his overall schedule overcomes the very weak first opponent. He comes in at #9.

Frank Mir – Win

Brock’s most recent fight was a rematch against Frank Mir. This time Brock was victorious. Avenging a loss is always a good thing, and doing it against a former champion (and current interim champion) only makes it better.

That puts Brock’s career record to 4-1. Let us take a look and see where other fighters stood five fights into their career.

Where fighters stood after 5 fights

With the win over Mir, Brock passed a lot of fighters and landed at #2 on the list. Barely ahead of Cain, but very close to #1. There’s no doubt that if he’d have won his second fight (making him 5-0) he’d have easily had the highest overall rating after five fights of any previous fighter in history.

Brock Lesnar also comes in second when we look at Strength of Schedule. The debut against a very weak fighter (sub 1500) was a bit too much for Brock to overcome. Still, #2 highest Strength of Schedule after 5 fights is pretty impressive.

Brock Lesnar Vs Shane Carwin

Brock’s next fight is scheduled to be against Shane Carwin. Obviously we don’t know who will win, but let’s see how things might look…Btw, isn’t it great have a reliable and predicitable system that allows something like this? lol I know some might hate it, but the fact that I can offer up information and analysis like this is pretty awesome imo. *shrugs*

Here is the table showing overall rating after six fights…

With a win Brock will gain 66 points, putting him to 1863, that is exactly 1 point behind where Cain stood after 6 fights (and currently still stands). The interesting thing about that is again, *BROCK LOST*. Had Brock won his second fight he’d have easily been #1 after six fights. However, even with the loss the strength of Brock’s five wins in this case would be basically equal to Cain’s six, even with the loss factored in.

In terms of Strength of Schedule it’s not even close. Here’s the currently list for fighters after six fights…

Brock’s Strength of Schedule will be over 1800 following the Carwin fight. As long as the fight happens Brock is guaranteed having the highest Strength of Schedule after six fights.

If he loses

If Brock loses he’ll still have the highest Strength of Schedule after six fights. However, his overall rating would drop to 1763. Still not too bad for six fights into a career.

Activity

I mentioned Brock’s fight activity above and now I’d like to explore it in deeper detail. Thus far for his career Brock has competed less than expected. How much less could be debated, but here’s some information.

On average an MMA fighter competes every 4 months (3 fights a year). Brock had his first fight on 2007-06-02 and his fifth fight on 2009-07-11. If Brock had fought once very 4 months he’d have had his fifth fight around 2009-02-02. Instead he didn’t have his fifth fight until over five months later.

The previously mentioned fight against Carwin is currently scheduled to happen 2009-11-21, which is about four months after his last fight. However, that still means Brock will be at least one fight behind for his young career.

I say at least because history shows fighters competing far more frequently early in their careers. Here are just a few random fighters I picked out from the assorted top 25 lists above that you might recognize:

King Mo – His second fight was barely a month after his first. His third was about two months after his second. With another fight about two months after that. In fact, King Mo now has five career fights as well and he did that in about 1 year (12 months). That’s about half as long as it’s taken Brock.

Cain – Things get a little interesting because Cain’s second fight was only about two months after his first. However, his third fight didn’t happen for over a year after that. Once he started fighting again Cain had breaks of about 3, 4 and 5 months between fights (not in that order).

BJ Penn – BJ Penn is interesting because overall for his career he has actually competed less than expected. When looking at the start of his career though we see that BJ Penn’s second fight was less than two months after his first. Following that he had breaks of about: 4 months, 2 months, 4 months, 4 months.

Obviously there are the people that go nuts like Jon Jones (8 fights in less than a year to start his career), but no one is talking about Brock competing nearly that much.

Why Activity matters

Some might be wondering why activity is so important. There are actually a few reasons for it. One is that MMA is an incredibly physical sport (obviously). It really is too common for a fighter to get injured during training. The training itself also takes a toll on fighters. The truth of the matter is that having more fights win or lose takes added toll on fighters.

From a ranking point of view we also have to realize how early in his career Brock still is. He’s at 5 fights now, should be at least six, and he lost one of those fights. A couple more wins would do wonders to boost his ratings. Not just in terms of this site, but also for fans still unsure of how he will continue to perform.

What If

All this talk about activity brings up an interesting What If situation. For the sake of discussion we will assume Brock already had that “missing” fight and that it was a win over Shane (sorry Shane). That would have put Brock’s rating to 1863 and I’ll assume in this case setup a match against Big Nog. A win against Big Nog (based upon Big Nog’s current rating) would put Brock up around 1950 rating. Obviously a lot can happen, but historically that high a rating would put him in the top 10.

As I’ve touched on a few times we also have the issue of that loss. Not for the small amounts of points it cost him, but for the missed opportunity to gain points. Had that fight been a win it is very possible that the hypothetical situation listed above would have put Brock over 2k rating. That is a *VERY* good rating and would have likely put Brock top 3.

What we know

We have looked at the opponents, at the fights, and at where other fighters stood early in their careers. With all of that information, what are some of the things we can conclude?

Tough Opponents

The first thing that jumps out is that Brock has had a very high strength of schedule thus far in his career. With the exception of his first fight all of his opponents have been solid veterans with decent ratings.

Brock lost and it cost him some

Looking at the numbers it’s clear that the loss cost Brock some. The system didn’t directly ding him too much for the loss, but it was a missed opportunity. It seems apparent that some completely ignore the loss, but that is silly. You are talking about someone who’s only fought for two years and only has five total fights. To ignore 20% of them and something that happened not that long ago is foolish.

Even if you don’t want to directly ding Brock because he was young or has a tattoo on his chest or whatever, you still should acknowledge the missed opportunity. A win in that fight would have given Brock 25% *MORE* Career wins. That is how small his fight history is, and that is why the fight needs to be acknowledged.

Frank Mir is 40% of Brock Lesnar’s Career to date

Frank is a solid fighter and a former champion, but he has had a spotty fight history. The fact that Frank Mir makes up such a large percentage of Brock Lesnar’s entire fight career is one reason some people remain skeptical.

Some people are living in the future

From the numbers above it seems as though some people are living in the future. In a time when Brock has already beaten Shane and possibly already beaten Big Nog. There is no doubt that those two wins would significantly increase his rating (and his ranking). For now though he is just 4-1 and that means beating Shane and Big Nog would be a 50% increase in his career win total.

Brock hasn’t fought nearly as much as he could have

The above point gets even more interesting when we consider it wouldn’t be that outlandish for Brock to have already beaten Shane and Big Nog (or at least fought them). His current fight pace is lower than expected and significantly below what we usually see for new fighters.

What we don’t know

Even though the above information sheds some light on a few parts of Brock Lesnar’s MMA career there are still some questions that remain.

Why hasn’t Brock competed more

He has been healthy, he is considered a major draw, there are plenty of opponents. Why is it that Brock has competed so infrequently to this point in his career?

To the haters

What is it going to take for Brock to be “legitimate” in your eyes? I’m not talking #1, I’m just talking acknowledgment that he is a professional fighter and no longer a WWE personality.

To the huggers

Is it really so hard to see that many who raise questions about Brock or have issues with certain parts of his career are not blind hatters? Brock *HAS* lost. I’m not saying crucify him for it for life, but understand that losing 1 out of 5 is quite a lot.

Also consider that Brock really hasn’t fought that much. If you hug him so hard, shouldn’t you want him to fight even more? If he had a couple more wins under his belt I think you’d see more people start to give him credit. MMA isn’t as fast as some like to think and some fans being hesitant about a 4-1 fighter isn’t uncalled for (think Sok).

Speaking of belt. Understand that there are many people who like Brock that still are able to acknowledge the title shot was a bit much.

Finally, for the people that put Brock top 3 or whatever, how can Brock be ranked so much higher than many of the people he’s beaten? Min wasn’t top anything, Heath was around top 20, Randy was 10(ish) and inactive for over a year and Mir was somewhere in the top 15-20 depending on who you ask (Brock is 1-1 against him).

What if a MW beats a 3-5 guy, loses to a top 20 guy, then beats another top 20 guy, top 10(ish) guy and then avenges his loss. Does that immediately make him a threat to Anderson? Does he leapfrog fighters like Okami, Henderson, and Nate?

Wouldn’t you want to see maybe one or two more fights before you put them into that upper echelon of fighters? Even if you don’t want to wait for a couple more fights, is it really so hard to understand that some might want to see a guy have just a couple more wins before declaring exactly where the sun rises and sets?

To all the others

If you made it this far and are still reading, please leave me a message and let me know why…