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.

GSP

I would hope most don’t have a problem with GSP being #1 on the welterweight list. He’s almost universally considered one of the three best pound for pound fighters on the planet. In fact, I’m really only putting this section here because it’d be silly to talk welterweights and not mention him. Having said that…well there really isn’t much else to say.

Perhaps the only thing to note is that GSP has spoken about training for the Olympics. His recent fight activity has been a bit lower with only two fights in each of the last two years. Overall though his record and his rating are incredible. If GSP doesn’t fight very much or happens to suffer a loss and then focuses on the Olympics his ranking might drop. This isn’t an insult to him and I trust he would climb right back up the list *IF* he even drops in the first place.

Jake Shields

Possibly the most controversial ranking currently at welterweight is that of Jake Shields. Lots of MMA fans haven’t seen him fight and some that have didn’t enjoy the fights very much. Given that opinions are like assholes (meaning I don’t want to hear other peoples’…or however the saying goes) I’m going to focus on the facts.

Shields has now won 13 straight fights. Some of the people he’s beaten on that streak are:

Mayhem Miller
Robbie Lawler
Paul Daley
Nick Thompson
Carlos Condit
Yushin Okami

One thing that stands out from the above list is that half of the fighters are “middleweights”. This leads to some discussion of where Jake should be ranked at middleweight and how it might affect his welterweight ranking. Overall it seems as though welterweight is the best class for Jake, and since a majority of his recent fights have been at that weight he remains there. If Jake chooses to stay at middleweight though, then he will be removed from the welterweight list.

Regardless of the weight Jake chooses to fight at I think it’s a bit sad that he doesn’t seem to get as much positive attention as he should. I know some people find his fights to be boring at times, but I didn’t see anyone holding up “Wall”-”n”-”Stall” signs for Randy at UFC 105 and he’s still pretty loved. Remember that prior to the Miller fight Shields had ended 8 fights in a row via (t)KO/Submission.

My goal here isn’t to get people to “like” Jake Shields as much as it is to get them to acknowledge what he’s done. You don’t have to enjoy watching him or like him on any level, but at least be able to accurately discuss what he’s accomplished thus far in his career. Too often it seems a fighter being “liked” is grounds for being bumped up a few spots on the ranking lists.

Jon Fitch

Speaking of fighters that have done well, but some find boring…Heeeeerreeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssss Jon! You have to go back over two years to find the last time Jon didn’t go to decision. Some might not find that very impressive, but they probably didn’t see the GSP fight. I honestly have no idea how this guy made it to decision. He’s continually shown a willingness to keep going and I think that has slowly earned him more and more fans.

Prior to that loss to GSP Fitch had won 15 in a row, and since he’s had two solid wins against Gono and Thiago. The potential problem I see coming is who he’s being matched up against. From what I’ve heard his next fight is to be against Mike Pierce. I think Pierce is an interesting prospect, but Fitch is almost universally ranked between #2 and #4 at welterweight. Why he is being given an unranked 10-2 fighter is beyond me. Perhaps it’s just one more easy fight before a rematch against GSP, or maybe there’s more to it.

What I do have to point out though is that by having an “easier” fight it does open the door for others to pass him, even if just temporarily. We’ll have to see how the fight goes and who other fighters beat in the coming months. For me though, the risk vs reward for Fitch just feels off in this fight and I hope his next opponent is much higher ranked.

Dan Hardy

Speaking of moving up the ranks, here’s Dan Hardy. A win over Swick and he finds himself sitting at #4 currently in the welterweight rankings.

Time for a quick tangent to talk about Thiago Alves (sorry Hardy). Alves was sitting around #2 or #3 on most welterweight ranking lists for awhile. Thus far in 2009 he has just 1 fight and it is a loss. This is a case that shows the fluidity of the rankings on this site. We didn’t drop Alves off the list for a single loss. We didn’t do any wild leapfrogging with a 1-0 fighter. Rather, Hardy got hot and won a couple good matches recently and at the same time Alves suffered a loss and went inactive.

I point this situation out because it seems like at times people look at the rankings and assume they’ve been chiseled in stone for years and will never change. That is actually about as far away from the truth as you can get. If Alves were to compete at UFC 106 and score a solid win, they would hop back ahead of Hardy. When looking at the rankings on this site, please always keep in mind the timing of things. A fighter is going to be a bit lower following a loss. At the same time, a fighter on a winning streak will be higher.

One other thing we can see from the Hardy’s current ranking is that it’s reasonable for him to get the title shot. I know some blast the mma-elo system because they think #2 always has to fight #1 and that we’ll never see certain fights and blahblahblah. That, again, is simply untrue. What the system promotes is reasonable fights, competitive fights, respectful fights. That doesn’t mean the #2 guy has to always get the title shot or that a fighter should keep getting rematches against Anderson Silva until the Spider takes 400 rating from them.

In this case we see Shields at #2 (not in the UFC), we see Fitch (recent title shot, loss) at #3 and Hardy at #4. I think giving Hardy the title shot makes perfect sense in this case. It would be nice if he’d had just one more win to get his rating up a bit higher prior to the GSP fight. When making matches for fighters like GSP/Anderson/Fedor though it’s hard at times and this is certainly acceptable.

I didn’t really say much about Hardy in this section, so I’ll just point out that he’s currently on a seven fight win streak and that is the longest of his career. If GSP beats Hardy that would push his current win streak to seven, which would tie the longest of his career.

Diego Sanchez

Diego is currently still showing at welterweight despite his last two fights being at lightweight. Following his fight against BJ Penn (in December *crosses fingers*) Diego will be moved to the lightweight rankings.

Matt Hughes

Hughes currently sits at #7 on our current list of MMA weltweights. Some people feel this is too high, and some think Hughes should retire. The thing I find interesting is who Hughes has lost to recently. He lost to GSP (just like everyone else, but at least he still has one win against him), he lost to Alves (#2-#4 ranked welterweight) and five years ago he lost to BJ Penn. That’s it, those are Hughes “recent” losses.

Matt is obviously getting older and I know some think the sport has passed him by. What I always find amusing though is how some people perceive losing to someone great as somehow meaning you suck. Look, if I go into a double elimination tennis tourney and pull Nadal and Federer as my first two opponents, I’m going to lose badly. That doesn’t mean I’m horrible (I am, but ignore that for now), it doesn’t mean I’m not top 10 (I’m not), it just means I lost to some really great people. Technically speaking I could be the third best tennis player in the world (still not), but I happened to face those couple people that are just better than me.

The situation I speak of with Matt certainly isn’t unique to him either. It seems to have become common place for a fighter to lose and then be dubbed “a can” or some other storage container. The logical part of my brain (the whole thing) at that point beings to hurt. You see, if someone is a “can” and someone else beat them…how the hell is that an accomplishment!?. Seriously, here we have Fighter A…they just defeated Fighter B…we now call Fighter B a can. If Fighter B isn’t any good then why the hell is everyone drinking Fighter A flavored kool-aid all of a sudden?!?

In the situation above I’m not saying Fighter A isn’t good, I’m not even saying Fighter B doesn’t suck, I’m just trying to point out the reasonable level of confusion some might have. If I walk up to a girl at a bar wearing my “Yes, I’m Evil Pooh” T-shirt and she shoots me down and my response is “she was ugly”, doesn’t that mean I just got shot down by an ugly chick?

How does that help my case!? Wouldn’t it be better if I went, “damn, that girl was WAYYYY out of my league, an 11, three time Miss-Redheadtopia”. In much the same vein, wouldn’t it behoove people to *PRAISE* the fighter that just lost. Something like “Wow, Fighter B is amazing, still has it, only lost to top guys and I think this helps show that Fighter A really is one of the top guys now”. Again, I’m throwing together fortune cookie scraps here, but I hope you get the idea.

Hughes’ activity (bet you didn’t think I remembered who I was talking about) has gone down considerably in recent years. With only one fight in 2009 and a single fight back in 2008 you have to wonder how many more fights he’ll have. Overall though I don’t think his losses to top 3 guys in the division are proof of his demise and I think there are a lot of newer fighters working their way up that Hughes would still give a challenge to.

Paulo Thiago

Since I’m ranting about things that don’t make sense to me, I’m now going to jump down to Paulo Thiago. Currently on the site he’s ranked #24. This is a pretty big contrast to some sites that have him ranked as high at #5 (last I checked).

Where things get interesting is when we look at this next fight. He is currently scheduled to face Jakob Volkmann at UFC 106. Volkmann is an interesting up and comer with a 9-0 record and only a couple of decision. Having said that, why the hell is the “#5 welterweight” facing a 9-0 prospect? If Thiago really is “top 5″ then this fight is horrible, it makes no sense, and people should vehemently object.

If we consider another possibility though…What if Thiago really is just a top 20(ish) level fighter right now? Looking at his record we see he is 11-1. That’s a pretty good record. Where things get interesting is looking at his progression. Here on this site his progression has been steady over the past couple of years as he pieced together a solid 11 fight win streak. On other ranking lists he basically never got mentioned until he beat Josh Koscheck. As soon as he did that on other lists he immediately shot into the top 10.

Following that win, Thiago took on Fitch (see above) and lost the first fight of his career. On mma-elo he’s got a solid rating and is still working his way up the list. On other sites he’s sitting very high and I honestly can’t fathom how killing Jacob Volkmann with mind bullets 0.1 seconds into the fight would possibly help his ranking.

This really seems like a case where a fighter had a big win and then an almost expected loss. I don’t think Paulo’s current ranking on the site is insulting to him and I think it’d be quite easy for him to move back up the list. Beating Volkmann would be a solid win and after that he would hopefully be given a step up in competition again.

Other Possible Matchups

Much like I did with the lightweights the other day these are just a few random matchups that seem to make sense from a ranking point of view and might yield interesting (and meaningful) results.

Fitch Vs Alves 2

This seems like a solid rematch. The first time they fought was almost three and a half years ago. Both have lost to GSP, both have beaten Hironaka.

Rumble Vs Paulo Thiago

We spoke about where Paulo really “fits” in the current welterweight rankings and I think this fight would be interesting. Rumble is a fighter on his way up and I think both fighters stand to gain from this fight.

The Heat Vs Semtex

Karo seems to be floating out in the ranking abyss somewhere. He almost got a title shot, had some issues, and things have just been “off” ever since. With Karo’s last fight ruled a no contest and a slew of decisions prior to that Karo really needs to get some momentum going.

In a very different situation is Paul Daley. Daley has won four straight since losing to “The Goat”. He just won his UFC debut against Kampmann and his style is sure keep UFC fans interested. His upcoming fight against Condit should be entertaining and maybe “heat vs semtex” could follow?

Shields Vs ???

None of these are likely to happen, but I think some matches that would shed some light on the welterweight rankings would be…

Shields Vs Hughes
Shields Vs Karo
Shields Vs Fitch

Most of those might not turn out to be the most entertaining fights for some people, but I think they’d help clear up the welterweight picture quite a bit. A slightly more likely, and also beefier fight might be Shields Vs Dan Henderson at 185.

Is there no one else?

As with yesterday’s rant, please let me know anyone I left out. If there are any fighters that still seem out of place or that you would like a more detailed explanation of, please don’t hesitate to ask. One of the biggest benefits of the ranking system used is that everything is clear, fair and consistent. I’ll try to get middleweights done by Thursday, so if you have specific questions, please get them in now.

-Evil Pooh

A majority of the complaints I get regarding this site tend to boil down to “Fighter A is too high”. Usually I respond to this by simply stating that if someone would beat them they’d go lower. However, I often understand where the person commenting is coming from. I’ve contended for awhile that if I could just make a fight or two here and there it’d help “clean up” a lot of the data. With that in mind I thought I’d start up a new little segment called, “Monday MatchMaker”. (insert corny it’s mmm mmm good blurb here)

Matt Hughes Vs. Jake Shields

I’ll start right out by saying this isn’t the fight I planned to mention today. However, with the result from this weekend’s Strikeforce card (Is the spoiler alert supposed to go before or after you give away information? *shrugs*) the fight became even more interesting in my opinion.

Shields

Shields is a fighter that has been on a tear for awhile now, but seems to get no respect. People constantly think he’s rated too high, but he just keeps winning. A solid win over a fighter like Matt Hughes would likely make more people finally take notice.

Hughes

Hughes is an all-time great who’s career is starting to wind down. I personally felt that professionally he should have retired several years ago because there simply was nothing left for him to do. There is no doubt that Hughes has the hunger to continue competing though and the chance to avenge the recent loss of a training partner is an extra little incentive. (Spoiler alert? Bleh, I’ll work on it)

The Fight

I know some fans will be weary of a fight that has very little chance of a standing KO finish, but this match could be explosive. Hughes’ BJJ continues to be underrated, and Shields is more tenacious/explosive than many realize. Since both fighters excel in the same areas it would be interesting to see who was able to impose their will on the other.

The fight also balances out nicely is that whichever fighter won, would be ranked higher (on this site, and likely others). This means both have something to gain, and both have something to lose (a topic I’ll discuss more in the coming weeks).

Fighter Comparison – Matt Hughes Vs. Jake Shields

Brock Larson Vs. Josh Koscheck

Since the above match isn’t very likely due to the organizational differences between the fighters, I figured I’d throw in an extra matchup. This is another welterweight showdown, but in this case both fighters are currently in the UFC.

Brock Larson

Similar to Shields mentioned above Brock is a fighter that some think is “too high”. Again though, he continues to win. One of the obvious knocks on Brock is that he hasn’t faced very difficult competition. Looking at:

MMA ELO – Current Welterweight Rankings

we see that although Brock is ranked quite high currently his Strength of Schedule is the fourth *lowest* of the fighters in the top 25. (Evil Tip – You can sort the rankings pages by the various columns by clicking on the column heading, in this case “strength of schedule”).

Taking on a tested fighter like Koscheck would show whether Brock is ready to hang at the upper levels of the welterweight division.

Josh Koscheck

Josh is a fighter that needs to get back on a roll. After winning five in a row (including giving Diego Sanchez his first ever loss) Kos lost a decision to GSP (big understatement). He came back from the loss to win two in a row, but then lost another decision to Thiago Alves. Following another win was…you guessed it, another loss.

Kos needs to get back on the right track and a solid win over an experienced fighter would be a great start.

The Fight

I have to confess that I haven’t a clue where this fight would go. Truth be told I think these two could fight 5 times and have 5 different outcomes and they’d likely each win at least one. Brock has only gone to decision 3 times in 28 fights, so it’d be interesting to see how he would handle things if the fight went into the later rounds.

Fighter Comparison – Brock Larson Vs. Josh Koscheck

The first of many?

So there you have it, a quick little breakdown of a couple potential (though not overly likely) match-ups. I personally see both fights as being interesting, reasonably marketable, and sound from a rankings standpoint.

Other than fixing the intro, please let me know what you loved/hated. If I don’t get too much hate mail for this I will do it again next week. 8)