MMA Ranking Talk

Without question the most argued over fighter I’ve encountered during the history of this site is BJ Penn. There are some that feel he’s #1 and some that don’t think he’s top 10. Some that think he’s p4p king and some that think he’s a joke.

Given how often the topic comes up; I felt it might be useful to have some of the more common issues/facts available in one handy-dandy place. So let’s get started…

Pre-nup

Oh wait, before we get started there are a few things that need to be made clear. I (Evil Pooh) don’t personally give a rat’s ass what you think of BJ Penn. My intention with this rant is *NOT* to make you love him, not to make you hate him, not to make you buy Apple stock so I turn more of a profit. Nay~!!! My one and only goal here is to attempt to provide clear information that some may choose to use in making their decision about where they stand on the issue.

If you find yourself to be someone who doesn’t enjoy facts, decisions, logic, reading, thinking, and/or statistics then please just leave now. Seriously, go. You don’t “have” to read this. The last thing I need is someone skimming every 10th line to find a few words they can complain about while having no clue at all what the bigger picture is.

Having said that I think it is also important to note that what follows is in no particular order. I’m going to number some points in an attempt to avoid repeating myself and to make referencing a bit easier, “Nah dude, check what EP dropped last Wendz at ELO bout mah boi BJ, Numero Dos, Fer shiz” (feel free to adjust phrasing based upon target audience).

1) Achievement Vs. Ability

This needs to be its own rant, but I never get around to finalizing it. Despite what readers might think I actually do proofread these things. (scary I know). Anyway, the point here is that this site and sports in general are more about achievement than ability.

Ability is a great thing, it’s potential, it’s possibility, but at some point ability loses out to achievement. Sure it’s great that someone “might” do something great, but at some point it’s more about who actually did do something great.

If you want to talk, “coulda”, “shoulda”, “woulda” then again, I’m afraid you are in the wrong place.

2) First American…

One of the very first things people often mention about BJ Penn is that he is the first American to win the BJJ Championship. For some this is a very important point and adds to the “plus” column for those explaining BJ Penn’s greatness.

The thing many need to realize is that the statement usually places too much emphasis on “American” and not on the achievement that follows. What I mean by this is that BJ Penn wasn’t the “First” to do anything, he was the “First *AMERICAN*” to do something. Go ahead and remove “First American” and you see that BJ Penn won the BJJ Championship. That’s an accomplishment, no doubt. Does it sound like as big a deal though?

See the issue with “First American” is that it skews what happened. People in France don’t care that BJ Penn was the “First American” to do anything. People in Korea could care less. What should receive the emphasis is the feat that was achieved and *NOT* the nationality of the person doing it.

Think about it like this, have you ever heard anyone utter the phrase, “Michael Phelps is the ‘First American’ to win 8 gold medals at one olympics”? Ever? Nope, me neither, what I hear is “Michael Phelps is the first *PERSON* to win 8 gold medals at one olympics.” Sometimes it’s even phrased as, “Michael Phelps is the *ONLY* person to ever win 8 gold medals at one olympics.”

Do you see the difference between the two? People aren’t talking about what BJ Penn did, they are talking about who he is. If you are a strongly patriotic person then “First American” will no doubt stir up some emotion/pride/whatever, but should someone’s greatness hinge on the country they are from? Do people want to hear arguements that Hanz Gruber is the best baseball player of all time because he is the “First German” to hit over 500 home runs in MLB?

3)Activity

Since we looked at one of the points used to support BJ Penn, lets now look at one of the points used againist him. Activity in sports is one of those things that’s a bit hard to really gauge. Some athletes have amazing careers, but they get cut short. Some have a couple great years, but never can sustain that greatness. Whatever the case maybe it’s safe to say that for most fans activity (and usually consistency) are important factors in gauging overall ‘greatness’.

When we look at BJ Penn’s career we see:

2001/05/04 – First Fight
2009/01/31 – Last Fight
2009/03/18 – Today

Since BJ doesn’t have a fight scheduled within the next 2 months I’m just going to round up and say that BJ Penn has fought for 8 years. An “average” MMA fighter competes about three times a year. The math on that is somewhere on this site and if only I’d added cool numbers I could easily reference that. Shame on me, anyway, back to the math…

8 Years *TIMES* 3 Fights per year = 24 Fights.

Given an “average” rate of competition BJ Penn should have fought about 24 times at this point in his career. The actual number of times he’s fought is 19. That’s 13 wins, 5 losses, 1 draw.

19 *DIVIDED BY* 24 ~79.2% (I rounded up to further assuage any fears I’m Penn bashing)

As you can see BJ Penn simply hasn’t competed nearly as much as many would expect. For those maybe wanting a point or two of comparison here are a few other people BJ Penn is often compared to:

Fedor – 30/27 ~111% (I rounded down and that assumes no more fights before 2009/08/16 *AND* ignores the NC against Nog)

Spider – 27/27 ~100% (That assumes he doesn’t fight again before the 27th of May)

GSP – 20/21 ~95% (Going from 2002/01/25 to 2009/01/31 would technically be extra month and change between the 31st of January and today).

As you can see, the 3 fights a year holds pretty steady, yet BJ hasn’t even had 80% of the fights that he should given the length of his career.

Also note that the last year where BJ actually fought three times was 2004…He fought twice in 08, once in 07, twice in 06 and twice in 05.

Although activity is only one measure of achievement, for MMA it goes a bit deeper than that. People using this fact against BJ like to note that by not fighting as much BJ avoided a lot of strain on his body. He didn’t have to train as much, he didn’t risk injury nearly as much, etc.

4) Strength of Schedule

In response to those that argue BJ Penn hasn’t fought very much (See point 3 above) people often point out the strength of schedule that BJ has faced. You can find a pretty in-depth explanation of strength of schedule *HERE*.

Basically what strength of schedule does is give us a way to measure the level of competition BJ Penn has faced. People touting BJ Penn’s greatness like to point out that despite having relatively few fights (See point 3 above) those fights have been against very difficult opponents.

Taking a look at All-time Strength of Schedule we see that BJ Penn currently ranks #2. This shows that indeed BJ Penn has fought a lot of high ranked opponents and wasn’t simply bashing on cans.

In anticipation of the Anti-BJ Penn crowd, and to save another bullet point I’m going to mention here that BJ actually lost most of his matches against highly rated opponents. BJ Penn’s overall strength of schedule is about 1848, but the strength of schedule for opponents he actually beat is only about 1802. 1802 is still very good, but some would rightly point out that his overall strength of schedule is inflated by having lost to GSP twice and Matt Hughes (whom he also beat once).

5) Double Standards

There are several times where one standard is applied “for” BJ Penn and then later applied “against” other people. One of the issues some people have with this site is that it’s coldly logical. If you take Fighter A’s career and swap it with Fighter B’s, guess what happens? Yup, their ratings/rankings swap too. Sadly, this isn’t how it works for some people.

As a quick example, take a look at *THIS*.

What we see is a fighter comparison between BJ Penn and GSP. Now I need you to follow me *VERY* closely on this one. Right now when comparing BJ Penn to GSP we see that:

GSP:
More wins
Fewer Losses
More (t)KOs
Higher (t)KO%
Equal Subs

With those facts in mind (and the rest from the page I linked) there are some people that will say BJ Penn is greater than GSP. (Don’t freak out, I’m not even to the point yet)

They will ignore the win difference, they will ignore 250% more losses in fewer fights, they will ignore 2-1 vs Matt Hughes instead of 1-1, etc. They will ignore all of that and declare BJ Penn should be ranked higher.

Now, knowing that, if we *switched* the names at the top of that page so that BJ Penn: Had more wins, had fewer losses, had more (t)Kos, had a higher (t)Ko%, etc. Those same people would…wait for it……….*WAIT FOR IT~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Still say BJ Penn should be ranked higher than GSP

I know that might sound silly, but it’s true. On this site switching what fighters actually did would flip-flop where they stand, that’s because we don’t care about names, we care about results. Much like point #2 though (with a bit of point #1 thrown in), BJ Penn for some has become more about the name, than about what it represents. If GSP lost to Matt Hughes people would say GSP should drop. BJ loses to Matt Hughes and BJ is still Number 1. BJ loses to GSP, he’s still number one.

BJ Penn at one point dropped 2 fights in a row and 3 of his last 4 and people *STILL* wanted him to be ranked #1. As it stands right now Matt Hughes has dropped 3 of his last 4 and people don’t even want him in the top 10. *boggles*

Take a second to look at Dan Henderson. Dan actually held two belts in two weight classes at the same time, and yet when he dropped two fights in a row (to Rampage and Anderson Silva) some claimed he was a washed up has been and no longer top 10.

What about Cro Cop. After winning 5 in a row (something BJ Penn has *NEVER* done) cro cop lost 2 in a row. Immediately people wanted him out of the top 10, were calling him a can, were questioning some of his previous opponents, etc.

Maybe these fighters fell off, maybe they had a rough spot, but why is it ok to bash certain fighters for losing two whole fights in a row and then turn around and bash people that question BJ Penn for dropping 3 out of 4? That is just one example of the double standards used in the “BJ Penn Debate”.

5.0.1)Weight

I decided to throw in an extra number to break up the rant a bit. Here is another area where a double standard is often applied to BJ Penn. When people talk about BJ Penn’s greatness they *ALWAYS* talk about his wins over heavier opponents. Part of BJ’s mystique and the reason why he gets so much p4p talk is because he’s moved up in weight class.

We’ve all heard that BJ Penn beat Matt Hughes at 170. We’ve heard about his fights at 185 against Renzo (more on that later). Clearly some find that winning against a heavier fighter is a bigger accomplishment. My place here isn’t to judge, simply to point it out and then try to carry that logic forward.

The question this begs is, why does BJ get so much credit “beating” heavier guys, and no one mentions his fights against lighter fighters?

Jens Pulver is a 145lb fighter. Before his rematch with BJ Penn he even said win or lose he was going back down to 145lbs. This is where things get a bit confusing because if BJ Penn gets more credit for fighting heavier guys, why doesn’t he get less credit for fighting lighter guys?

Some don’t want to give GSP credit for beating BJ because the fight was at 170lbs, but BJ took the fight, he showed up and he lost. By that same token Jens took the fight at 155, showed up and beat BJ, then took another fight, showed up and lost. Why is it GSP gets no credit for beating a “lighter” fighter, but BJ Penn gets credit for not only beating a lighter fighter, but “avenging a loss” to a lighter fighter?

This is the double standard that confuses some people. If you believe that beating a “heavier” fighter is important and grants additional “greatness”, then why isn’t that standard applied across the board? Again, to make this clear, I take no stance on the “great weight debate” (that’s the topic for a different rant at a different time), but if you are someone that does place value in it, then value should be placed across the board, not in select circumstances.

5.0.2)Renzo Gracie

This is nothing against Renzo Gracie as a fighter, but it’s another “information” point that gets lost at times. Many people will mention BJ Penn beating Renzo Gracie and it seems as though this is another point where the name carries more weight than what it represents.

Again I want it mentioned that all I’m doing here is trying to point out facts and flush out some of the arguments I’ve heard on both sides of this argument. Here is some additional information about Renzo Gracie at the time of his fight with BJ Penn.

- 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

Now maybe this information doesn’t mean anything to some. That’s ok. It is true though and things like the above are facts that need to be understood by all regardless of which side they find themselves on.

6)#1 Lightweight

One argument I’ve heard a bit more of late is that BJ Penn is #1 at lightweight. They aren’t talking about his welterweight losses to GSP, or his Middleweight victories. What they contend is that BJ Penn is #1 at lightweight based purely upon his performance at lightweight. Let’s consider that a bit more…

If you remove BJ Penn’s fights above lightweight you do a few things:

- Remove 4 of his 5 losses
- Remove 4 of his 13 wins
- Remove 40% of his submission victories
- Drastically reduce his Strength of Schedule
- Drastically reduce his activity level

Looking only at lightweight fights BJ Penn is 9-1-1 in basically 8 years of competition. That’s not a bad record, but people need to ask themselves how it compares to some of the other lightweights out there. Be sure to keep point #5 in mind and realize that if you put BJ higher than someone with his 9-1-1 record you have to also be willing to say that if the situation were reversed and BJ were 20-3 (or whatever) and someone else were 9-1-1 that BJ would be ranked lower.

Fin?

Believe it or not there are many other points I didn’t get to discuss here. If there is any information I have wrong or simply mistyped please let me know. Please also let me know any additional arguments on either side that you would like to see included.