FACEBOOK TWITTER RSS APP PODCAST Opinion & Analysis : Staff Columnists COLUMN: Why a top ten ranking system will need to be left to a top media entity and not an official MMA entity

Feb 1, 2010 - 3:23:57 PM
BY JASON AMADI, MMATORCH COLUMNIST
By Jason Amadi, MMATorch columnist

If you look at any major sport in this world, there are plenty of numbers and facts that the hardcore fans love to discuss, and that participants even throw around every so often. As most fans know, the most important factoid discussed universally, among every sport is ranking.

Whether it be football, basketball, golf, there is always a way to tell who is superior through some sort of numerical hierarchy. That exists in MMA, but there is no credibility when discussing fighter rankings, because it almost always depends on whose list you're looking at.

There are certain fighters who are universally ranked at the top of their class, like Fedor, Georges St. Pierre, B.J. Penn, Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, and Jose Aldo. Beyond those select few, it becomes a complete mess.

If you follow the Welterweight Division's rankings for the past few years, for example, you'll have noticed that prior to his title shot, Jon Fitch was universally ranked number two in the world, second best to Georges St. Pierre. After his loss to GSP, he dropped to number three, while Thiago Alves, GSP's next contender, moved up to number two.

After Alves's destruction at the hands of the welterweight kingpin, the whole thing became a mess. Many rankings have him ranked number Fitch number two again; many have Alves ranked number two.

In a similar case last year, in January of 2009, Andrei Arlovski was thought to be the number two heavyweight in the world prior to his clash with Fedor Emelianenko, the world's top heavyweight. After his loss, he stayed at number two for months, until he lost to previously unranked Brett Rogers.

The whole thing is a colossal mess based mainly on individual opinion, yet every so often, you'll hear fighters in interviews make reference to how certain performances can impact their rankings, as if they were concrete, which is embarrassing for some, as often times when they talk about their ranking, hardcore fans often know that they aren't ranked in the top ten at all, among certain websites.

The only viable solution is for a governing body like the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts, to try to rank fighters, but once they got into the business of awarding championships, they lost almost all credibility, since Zuffa won't play ball with them, and they have six of the seven, number one ranked fighters in the world.

The UFC will likely never do a top ten list for each division, because they don't have all of the top ten fighters in each division under contract, despite having the majority in most cases. Also, it is unlikely any organization will ever acknowledge a top ten list on television because it would tie their hands for matchmaking purposes. It would make fights between unranked fighters seem irrelevant, and make number one contender fights like the one between Dan Hardy and Mike Swick recently seem illogical, when neither the number two nor number three fighters ranked fighters are involved.

It will likely take an already respected brand like ESPN to take a more vested interest in MMA and rank fighters in the top ten for there to be a legitimate and universally respected list. This is a shame considering the importance of rank in professional sports and the UFC's lofty goal of making MMA the number one sport in the world.

[Andrei Arlovski art credit Cory Gould (c) MMATorch]

ALERT: Every Tuesday night, listen to the MMATorch Livecast from 9-10:30 p.m. ET or listen now to the most recent shows by clicking here. Listen live this coming Tuesday as Jamie Penick, Rich Hansen, and Matt Pelkey discuss the latest MMA happenings. Online listen at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mmatorch or call into the show at 646-716-8090 to either just listen or participate.