[VegasFighter]

From 411mania.com/MMA


"The MMA top ten rankings from your favorite MMA websites are about as relevant to the sport as David Letterman's nightly top ten list, regardless of the subject. That's what 411's Don Abato believes. He doesn't have a list of reasons, but just some quick points. The less time he spends on discussing MMA rankings the better.

People love to make their lists now-a-days. Actually, lists have long been a part of human thought, so to say those who walked the Earth before us didn't enjoy and benefit from their lists would be wrong. Lists are a great tool in helping us organize our thoughts and ideas. I can call lists a "great tool" from first hand experience, and I'm sure your experiences are the same.

I'm going to cut to the chase and say it: I LOVE LISTS!

I realize my little exclamation kind of sounded Brick Tamland-esque. Don't get the refrence? Well Brick is a character in the comedy "Anchorman" played by Steve Carrell. Some would characterize Brick as mentally slower, a person who probably rode the "special" bus to school in his younger days. My declaration of "I LOVE LISTS" is similiar to Brick's "I love lamp" line in the movie. By the way, "Anchorman" is somewhere on my top ten list of favorite comedies. While it's not in the same class as "Caddyshack" or the new release "Superbad" it will still make you laugh.

Money Magazine just put out its annual list of best places to live in America. It's a list readers take seriously because the staff at Money Magazine created and analyzed criteria in several catergories and managed to use the findings to determine which cities would place high. It's a good list because there's an agreed upon set of factors to consider and it applies to all the cities considered.

Money Mag is definitely in my list of top ten favorite magazines because they put out rankings on so many financial subjects like best companies to work for and best car values.

The box office rankings are also a good list. I like the list because it tells me which films did well from a money standpoint. Easy enough to determine this list because you just look at the total gross the film took in. Doesn't get any easier than that.

But then we have mixed martial arts rankings. Boy do we have a big problem here. How do you hold all the fighters to any kind of standard when they're all fighting in different organizations. College basketball and football have panels which vote on the top 30 teams despite the fact all the schools are spread among several different leagues. The polling seems to do well for them, why not MMA?

It does't work because we do not yet have a single determining statistic measuring the ability of a combat athlete. We could look at records, but that doesn't immediately tell us quality of opponents, fighter activity or fighter efficiancy.

MMA rankings are like the "who's hot/who's ugly" list the gossippers in high school piece together and talk about. Chaotic debate ensues because it's all so subjective it's impossible to reach a consensus. It's a waste of time.

The reality is MMA rankings are really irrelavant to the current world of fighting because the combatants are spread over different organizations. All the major promotions have their top fighters locked in exclusive deals where they cannot fight under the banner of a competing organization. If the best of the best are not going to fight each other what purpose do world rankings serve?

MMA rankings are a definite top five-er in my list of things I dislike."

[Hinch]

It's true. Every list and ranking you read is unofficial and means about as mucn as me typing this:

"TOP TEN POND4POUND!

1. RANDY
2. BJ
3. BJ
4. CRO COP."

That ranking I posted has just as much influence and meaning as an MMAweekly or Sherdog ranking.

We don;t have official rankings, just idiots with opinions.

[AdamG]

They don't mean much. Fedor>everyone else.

[SOGFPP]

For a stiff like me with limited MMA knowledge, I really do appreciate the rankings... it gave me a good start to research guys in the fight finder and something to help me gauge the importance of some upcoming matches.

For what it's worth.....

[UFC Fight Night]

I think they need to be looked at for what they are....

They will never be perfect, but they at least give us an idea of who the Top 10 in each weight class are. There will always be debate as to who is the best, but it helps bring some order.

For example, it shows were the top fighters are: -

1. HEAVYWEIGHT - 7 fighters in UFC, 3 Free Agents.
2. LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT - 7 UFC, 1 K-1, 2 Free Agents
3. MIDDLEWEIGHT - 6 UFC/WEC, 1 K-1, & 3 Free Agents
4. WELTERWEIGHT - 8 UFC/WEC, 1 EliteXC, & 1 Free Agent

Etc... Etc... Etc....

[Hinch]

Originally Posted by SOGFPP

For a stiff like me with limited MMA knowledge, I really do appreciate the rankings... it gave me a good start to research guys in the fight finder and something to help me gauge the importance of some upcoming matches.

For what it's worth.....

The problem being: They are unofficial rankings, and one person's may be misleading.

People get the wrong idea of which fighters are the best because others have stupid rankings.

[Extremesyko420]

All mma rankings lists are pretty much bullshit and just how people think and where which fighter is. MMA rankings are pointless and opinions that is all. To argue and debate them is just a bit childish its an opinion, unless somebody says something completely ridiculous like Chris Leben is #1 then its ok to make them feel stupid.

[juggo]

To quote a post I just made in an almost identical thread:

I think rankings are useful in two ways.

1) Organizational rankings are not only useful but necessary. If the UFC or any other major North American organization had their own divisional rankings and relied on that to determine who gets the title shots, then it would solve a lot of problems and prevent these promoters from deciding who gets the shot based on PPV buys. The system that Shooto has in place is the way to go. Unfortunately, it's probably wishful thinking. Money too often determines who fights for what.

2) International fan/media rankings ARE stupid if taken as an absolute. If I see an argument over who is #5 and who is #6 in the MW division, that's just idiotic and a waste of time. But what those rankings do provide IMO is a gauge of just where fighters are. You're trying to develop a consensus of what the top fighters in each division look like. It will never establish for sure where exactly each fighter is because that's impossible and way too subjective. But if I can get a general idea that these 2-3 fighters are clearly in the first tier, with these next 5-6 being in the next tier, and so on, the rankings have served their purpose. That's how rankings should be seen in my estimation, not as an absolute measurement of exactly where each fighter is ranked.