Inactivity Watch: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mike Swick

Both Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (formerly #8 at heavyweight) and Mike Swick (formerly #13 at welterweight) last competed in February 2008, so they are dropped from the rankings due to inactivity. Brendan Schaub comes in at #15 at heavyweight, and Mike Pierce at #15 at welterweight:

HEAVYWEIGHT (265 lbs. limit) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at HW	Notes
1	Cain Velasquez	8-0	9-0	UFC heavyweight champion
2	Brock Lesnar	5-2	4-1
3	Fabricio Werdum	14-4-1	4-1
4	Antonio Silva	15-2	7-1	Moved from #11 to #4 following a win over Fedor Emelianenko at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva on 2/12/11.
5	Shane Carwin	12-1	5-1
6	Fedor Emelianenko	31-3	3-2
7	Frank Mir	14-5	3-2
8	Alistair Overeem	34-11	8-0	Strikeforce heavyweight champion (1 defense).
9	Brett Rogers	11-2	5-2
10	Junior Dos Santos	12-1	7-0
11	Cheick Kongo	15-6-2	4-3-1
12	Mirko Filipovic	26-8-2	4-2
13	Ben Rothwell	31-7	9-2
14	Jon Madsen	7-0	7-0
15	Brendan Schaub	7-1	7-1

WELTERWEIGHT (168-170 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at WW	Notes
1	Georges St-Pierre	21-2	6-0	UFC welterweight champion (5 defenses)
2	Jon Fitch	23-3-1	6-1-1
3	B.J. Penn	16-7-2	1-1-1
4	Thiago Alves	17-7	4-2
5	Jake Shields	26-4-1	4-0
6	Martin Kampmann	17-3	4-1
7	Josh Koscheck	15-5	6-3
8	Carlos Condit	26-5	5-1
9	Diego Sanchez	22-4	3-1
10	Matt Hughes	45-7	3-1
11	Paulo Thiago	13-3	7-3
12	Dan Hardy	22-6	7-2
13	Brian Ebersole	47-14-1	2-0	Moved to #14 following a win over Chris Lytle at UFC 127 on 2/26/11.
14	Paul Daley	27-9-2	9-3
15	Mike Pierce	12-3	9-2

Post-UFC 127 ranking update

Thanks to one major judging screw-up (Nick Ring’s “win” over Riki Fukuda, which I’m loathe to even count, but will for the sake of consistency) and two upsets (Brian Ebersole over Chris Lytle and Dennis Siver over George Sotiropoulos), we see some changes at middleweight, welterweight, and lightweight.

NB: I don’t know how many of Ebersole’s recent fights have been at 170 lbs., so I’m putting down “2-0” for his P3Y record, since I know that his wins over Lytle and Carlos Newton qualify.

MIDDLEWEIGHT (183-185 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at MW	Notes
1	Anderson Silva	28-4	6-0	UFC middleweight champion (8 defenses)
2	Chael Sonnen	25-11-1	5-2
3	Yushin Okami	26-5	5-1
4	Nate Marquardt	30-9-2	5-2
5	Demian Maia	13-2	7-2
6	Jake Shields	26-4-1	3-0
7	Alessio Sakara	15-7	4-1
8	Jorge Santiago	23-8	7-1 (loss avenged)	Sengoku middleweight champion (2 defenses)
9	Ronaldo Souza	13-2	7-1
10	Paulo Filho	19-2-1	4-1-1
11	Wanderlei Silva	33-10-1	1-0
12	Brian Stann	10-3	2-0
13	Nick Ring	11-0	4-0	Moved to #13 following a win (via widely criticized judge’s decision) over Riki Fukuda at UFC 127 on 2/26/11.
14	Mamed Khalidov	21-4-2	3-1-1
15	Michael Bisping	21-3	7-2

WELTERWEIGHT (168-170 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at WW	Notes
1	Georges St-Pierre	21-2	6-0	UFC welterweight champion (5 defenses)
2	Jon Fitch	23-3-1	6-1-1
3	B.J. Penn	16-7-2	1-1-1
4	Thiago Alves	17-7	4-2
5	Jake Shields	26-4-1	4-0
6	Martin Kampmann	17-3	4-1
7	Josh Koscheck	15-5	6-3
8	Carlos Condit	26-5	6-1
9	Diego Sanchez	22-4	3-1
10	Matt Hughes	45-7	3-1
11	Paulo Thiago	13-3	7-3
12	Dan Hardy	22-6	7-2
13	Mike Swick	14-4	3-2
14	Brian Ebersole	47-14-1	2-0	Moved to #14 following a win over Chris Lytle at UFC 127 on 2/26/11.
15	Paul Daley	27-9-2	9-3

LIGHTWEIGHT (154-155 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at LW	Notes
1	Frank Edgar	13-1-1	5-1-1	UFC lightweight champion (2 defenses)
2	Gilbert Melendez	17-2	5-1 (loss avenged)	Strikeforce lightweight champion (1 defense)
3	B.J. Penn	16-7-2	3-2
4	Shinya Aoki	26-5	11-2 (one loss avenged)	DREAM lightweight champion (1 defense)
5	Gray Maynard	10-0-1	6-0-1
6	Eddie Alvarez	21-2	9-1	Bellator lightweight champion
7	Kenny Florian	13-4	6-1
8	Tatsuya Kawajiri	27-6-2	7-2
9	Dennis Siver	17-7	7-2	Moved to #9 following a win over George Sotiropoulos at UFC 127 on 2/26/11.
10	George Sotiropoulos	14-3	7-1
11	Josh Thomson	18-4	4-2
12	Pat Curran	13-3	13-3
13	Roger Huerta	21-5-1	1-4
14	Sean Sherk	33-4-1	2-2
15	Melvin Guillard	27-8-2	7-1

UFC 127+ BAMMA 5 ranking preview

This coming weekend is a good one for competition between top-ranked MMA fighters. Though UFC 127 is being looked at as a minor card for the promotion, it’s got six bouts with top-15 competitors; add in the main event of Saturday’s British Association of Mixed Martial Arts (BAMMA) show, and you’ve got seven ranking-relevant fights in one night. Let’s take a look:

Light-heavyweight: #14 Alexander Gustafsson vs. James Te-Huna.

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing a series of short posts about weak points in my rankings–not, not points where I’ve made a mistake (perish the thought), but points where top-15 slots are occupied by fighters whose ranking does not appear commensurate with their current level of fighting ability (because they’re on the slide, or because they only got there by winning highly favorable style match-ups they’re not likely to get again, or for some other reason).

Had I started doing this before this past October, I would have zeroed in on Cyrille Diabate, a noted striker with a meager ground game who made it to the top 15 by knocking out Luis Arthur Cane in a fight which cemented Cane’s reputation as particularly susceptible to southpaws. Diabate was (and remains) a prime target for a competent grappler looking to break into the top 15 (pretend for a moment that anyone cares about my top 15, OK?).

But Alexander Gustafsson beat me to it, defeating Diabate by submission at UFC 120. Only one fight prior, he had been fodder for rising prospect Phil Davis; now he’s ranked well above him. Ironically, Gustafsson himself would now likely be viewed as a weak link the light-heavyweight top 15. For proof, consider that his fight is being aired only on ION TV. Anyway, enough rambling. Gustafsson is a heavy favorite and will probably win.

Middleweight:

• #13 Riki Fukuda vs. Nick Ring. Come to think of it, Fukuda might also go on a “weak links” list. He got his spot not by beating a top-ranked fighter, but by beating someone who drew with a top-ranked fighter (Ryuta Sakurai and Mamed Khalidov, respectively). He’s spent most of his career in Pancrase and DEEP shows (he’s the current DEEP middleweight champion), against fairly low-level competition. On the other hand, he’s distinguished himself by actually winning most of those fights, and he’s scored a couple wins on bigger stages too, going 1-1 in EliteXC and defeating Murilo Rua in DREAM. I’ve never seen him fight, and there’s only so much you can tell from someone’s record on paper. Still, his placement on the card (on the Facebook-streamed prelims against a UFC debutante and “Ultimate Fighter” alum) indicates that the promotion is hedging its bets. No idea what to expect from this fight; I didn’t watch TUF this past season either.
• #15 Michael Bisping vs. Jorge Rivera. Bisping is, in a way, the opposite of Fukuda: he’s a known quantity who’s undoubtedly more talented than his ranking might suggest; he tends to bounce between opponents who do little for his ranking or reputation, and higher-level challengers, to whom he tends to lose. There’s little doubt in my mind that Bisping could beat, say, #7 Alessio Sakara or #9 Ronaldo Souza. There’s also little doubt that he’ll beat Rivera, who falls squarely in the “little benefit to ranking or reputation” category. (No offense intended to Rivera, a fighter not unaccustomed to winning upsets.)

Welterweight

• #2 Jon Fitch vs. #3 B.J. Penn. You’d think that a #2 vs. #3 fight would be a number-one contender bout, but alas, life just isn’t that simple. Fitch and Penn have both lost decisively to champion Georges St-Pierre, to the point that many regard rematches with Fitch and Penn as uninteresting. Add in St-Pierre’s hinted-at move to middleweight to take on Anderson Silva, and no one has any idea where the winner of this fight really lands. It’s a fascinating style match-up, though: Penn’s superior boxing and jiu-jitsu against Fitch’s considerable advantages in size and wrestling (not to mention Fitch’s greater propensity for consistency in performance). Too close to call.
• #14 Chris Lytle vs. Brian Ebersole. Ebersole is a late replacement for #8 Carlos Condit. A Lytle win can be safely expected, but Ebersole is technically undefeated at welterweight, so he’ll rocket into the top 15 if he scores an upset.
• #15 Paul Daley vs. Yuya Shirai (at BAMMA 5). I’ve also never seen Shirai fight, but based on the fact that he’s a little-known fighter going against Daley in Daley’s home country, I’m guessing he’s being brought in to lose. (UPDATE: Paul Daley failed to make weight for this bout, coming in at 171 lbs. [this is a title fight, so the limit was a strict 170]. Shirai made weight, so a win will count the same for him; if Daley wins, it will not be recorded as a welterweight victory on his P3Y ledger.)

Lightweight: #9 George Sotiropoulos vs. Dennis Siver. Speaking of fighters being brought in to lose, I have to assume that that’s the rationale behind booking Sotiropoulos vs. Siver in Sotiropoulos’s native Australia. Not that Siver is a bad fighter–I’ve got him just outside the top 15–but rather that he’s another in a series of strangely low-profile opponents for Sotiropoulos, one of the few fighters at lightweight who stands out as a potential near-term title challenger. Sotiropoulos has won all of those fights with aplomb, and is probably expected to the same here.

Post-Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva ranking update

Fedor Emelianenko’s continued fall from grace, this time at the hands of Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, produces the following shakeup at heavyweight:

HEAVYWEIGHT (265 lbs. limit) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at HW	Notes
1	Cain Velasquez	8-0	9-0	UFC heavyweight champion
2	Brock Lesnar	5-2	4-2 (one loss avenged)
3	Fabricio Werdum	14-4-1	4-1
4	Antonio Silva	15-2	7-1	Moved from #11 to #4 following a win over Fedor Emelianenko at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva on 2/12/11.
5	Shane Carwin	12-1	5-1
6	Fedor Emelianenko	31-3	3-2
7	Frank Mir	14-5	4-2
8	Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira	32-5-1	2-2
9	Alistair Overeem	34-11	8-0	Strikeforce heavyweight champion (1 defense).
10	Brett Rogers	11-2	5-2
11	Junior Dos Santos	12-1	7-0
12	Cheick Kongo	15-6-2	4-3-1
13	Mirko Filipovic	26-8-2	4-2
14	Ben Rothwell	31-7	9-2
15	Jon Madsen	7-0	7-0

Quick note: Fedor Emelianeko vs. Antonio Silva at Strikeforce this Saturday

The first round of Strikeforce’s heavyweight grand prix begins this Saturday, and as far as rankings go, the fight to watch is #4 Fedor Emelianenko vs. #11 Antonio Silva. The big question here is how Fedor responds to his first genuine career loss. He’s 34 now, nearly 11 years into a career in MMA, and speaking openly of impending retirement. In his last fight, he walked into a Fabricio Werdum triangle choke while seemingly in a rush to get the fight over with. He still trains with low-level Russian fighters somewhere in Stary Oskol. Is his heart still in it?

Fedor fans may find comfort in the fact that Silva struggled a bit with the unheralded Mike Kyle in his most recent bout. Still, he’s a huge heavyweight, with acumen in both striking and Brazilian jiu-jitsu–certainly no pushover. This will be the fight where we’ll find out what a rebounding Fedor Emelianenko looks like.

Post-UFC 126 ranking update

Jon Jones’s win over Ryan Bader and Forrest Griffin’s return from inactivity against Rich Franklin produce movement at light-heavyweight, as Jones jumps from #14 to #5, and Griffin comes in at #7:

LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT (205 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at LHW	Notes
1	Mauricio Rua	19-4	3-1	UFC light-heavyweight champion
2	Rashad Evans	15-1-1	4-1-1
3	Quinton Jackson	31-8	3-2
4	Lyoto Machida	16-1	4-1
5	Jon Jones	12-1	12-1 (1 DQ)	Moved to #5 following a win over Ryan Bader at UFC 126 on 2/5/11.
6	Ryan Bader	12-1	6-1
7	Forrest Griffin	18-6	3-2	Came in at #7 following a return to active competition with a win over Rich Franklin at UFC 126 on 2/5/11.
8	Antonio Rogerio Nogueira	18-4	6-1
9	Thiago Silva	15-2	3-2
10	Rich Franklin	28-6	2-2
11	Rafael Cavalcante	10-2	6-1
12	Muhammed Lawal	7-0	7-0
13	Gegard Mousasi	29-3-1	4-1
14	Alexander Gustafsson	10-1	8-1
15	Cyrille Diabate	16-7-1	5-1

UFC 126 ranking preview

Tomorrow night’s UFC 126 show features five(!) bouts of interest for this here blog. And they are:

Light-heavyweight

• #5 Ryan Bader vs. #14 Jon Jones.
• #8 Rich Franklin vs. Forrest Griffin (#5 until going inactive on December 1st, 2010).

Middleweight

• #1 Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort.

Bantamweight

• #4 Miguel Torres vs. Antonio Banuelos.
• #7 Demetrious Johnson vs. Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto.

I don’t feel much like adding commentary this time around, so instead I’ll just offer some poorly-thought-out predictions that are bound to be widely off the mark: I’m taking Jones, Franklin, Silva, Torres, and Johnson, all by decision, except Jones, who will take advantage of Bader’s fading cardio in the third.

Inactivity Watch: Dan Henderson

Well, it’s now been over a year and half since Dan Henderson won his last fight at middleweight, a knockout of Michael Bisping at UFC 100. This means Henderson, formerly #11, goes inactive in the division. Oddly enough, none other than Michael Bisping now come in at #15:

MIDDLEWEIGHT (183-185 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at MW	Notes
1	Anderson Silva	27-4	5-0	UFC middleweight champion (7 defenses)
2	Chael Sonnen	25-11-1	5-2
3	Yushin Okami	26-5	5-1
4	Nate Marquardt	30-9-2	5-2
5	Demian Maia	13-2	7-2
6	Jake Shields	26-4-1	3-0
7	Alessio Sakara	15-7	4-1
8	Jorge Santiago	23-8	7-1 (loss avenged)	Sengoku middleweight champion (2 defenses)
9	Ronaldo Souza	13-2	7-1	Strikeforce middleweight champion (1 defense); moved to #8 following a win over Robbie Lawler on 1/29/11.
10	Paulo Filho	19-2-1	4-1-1
11	Wanderlei Silva	33-10-1	1-0
12	Brian Stann	10-3	2-0
13	Riki Fukuda	17-4-	9-1
14	Mamed Khalidov	21-4-2	3-1-1
15	Michael Bisping	20-3	6-2

Post-Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg ranking update + Reconsideration: Jorge Santiago

I’ve opted to do something slightly unusual with Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza’s win over Robbie Lawler. Prior to the fight, Souza was the #14 middleweight, with Lawler coming at #11. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t move Souza any higher than #11 with a win. But this got me thinking about the P3Y records of the fighters at #8-10: Paulo Filho, Dan Henderson, and Jorge Santiago.

Filho and Henderson are hanging on by a thread, with none of the wins that got them to their current position left in their P3Y records. Not so for Santiago, whose wins over Kazuo Misaki and Mamed Khalidov are still fresh. So why do I have him below them?

It makes more sense for Filho than for Henderson. Henderson is there not on the strength of his recent middleweight wins, but because he still had his one really strong middleweight win–also against Misaki, as it turns out–in his P3Y record when he returned to 185 lbs. in the UFC. Filho was the man to beat Misaki after Misaki dethroned Henderson in PRIDE, so it makes sense that Filho would be ranked above Santiago even after Santiago beat Misaki himself.

But what about after Santiago avenged his loss against Mamed Khalidov? By then, Filho’s win over Misaki had expired, as had Henderson’s. And Frank Trigg, who was at one time ranked above Santiago for having beaten Misaki first, fell out of the top 15 due to inactivity.

But that wasn’t enough quite yet. At the time he rematched Khalidov, there was still a buffer between the Santiago/Henderson pair and Filho, in the form of both Thales Leites and Alessio Sakara. Santiago couldn’t have leapfrogged them all.

But he should have leapfrogged Henderson, at least. And that would mean that by the time Santiago rematched Misaki this past August, he would have been right below Filho. Having won that fight, Santiago should have gone above Filho then and there.

So now, since I make these things up as I go along, I’m moving Santiago above Henderson and Filho. And with his win over Lawler, Souza’s got a better P3Y record than Henderson and Filho too.

Meanwhile, Lawler is all out of top-15-worthy wins in his P3Y resume, so he drops out of these rankings entirely.

Got all that? Here’s how it looks:

MIDDLEWEIGHT (183-185 lbs.) TOP 15

#	Name	Pro MMA Record	P3Y Record at MW	Notes
1	Anderson Silva	27-4	5-0	UFC middleweight champion (7 defenses)
2	Chael Sonnen	25-11-1	5-2
3	Yushin Okami	26-5	5-1
4	Nate Marquardt	30-9-2	5-2
5	Demian Maia	13-2	7-2
6	Jake Shields	26-4-1	3-0
7	Alessio Sakara	15-7	4-1
8	Jorge Santiago	23-8	7-1 (loss avenged)	Sengoku middleweight champion (2 defenses)
9	Ronaldo Souza	13-2	7-1	Strikeforce middleweight champion (1 defense); moved to #9 following a win over Robbie Lawler on 1/29/11.
10	Paulo Filho	19-2-1	4-1-1
11	Dan Henderson	26-7	2-2
12	Wanderlei Silva	33-10-1	1-0
13	Brian Stann	10-3	2-0
14	Riki Fukuda	17-4-	9-1
15	Mamed Khalidov	21-4-2	3-1-1

Quick note: Ronaldo Souza vs. Robbie Lawler at Strikeforce

Tomorrow night’s Strikeforce show has one fight of ranking interest: the Strikeforce middleweight title bout between #11 Robbie Lawler and #14 Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza. Given how Lawler fared against Jake Shields, it’s hard for me not to favor Jacare in this one. And that would be bad news for Lawler’s ranking, which is hanging on by a thread, with his one crucial middleweight win–over Frank Trigg in 2007–having long since passed the three-year expiration point.