Nice post. I agree on pretty much all points.

10 pt must works for MMA, but the judges need to use all options the system offers.
if you use 10-10s for close rounds and 10-8's and 10-7's whenever a fighter does 2x or 3x+ whatever you think is enough to warrant a 10-9, the scores will more accurately reflect how the fight went.
the classic case of a fighter barely winning 2 rounds but decisively losing the 3rd should be scored a 30-29 or, at worst, 28-28.

The 240 Frankie Edgar argument is pretty obtuse imo. Seems pretty obvious that p4p looks at how a fighter measures up against other fighters in his weight class, not how they'd far were they to add 60% body mass or whatever. A 6'0" Frankie Edgar wouldn't be able to have his skillset at 240 because men that size just don't move that way. I'd expand on that, but I feel like I'm not sensing internet sarcasm.

not obvious to me then

using that criteria, probably no LW would be top 10.

i thought P4P was a comparison of the skill level of fighters.

1 Anderson
2 GSP
3 Aldo
4 Bones
5 Cruz
6 Cain
7 Fitch
8 Edgar
9 Maynard
10 Melendez

I'd probably go something like this with 8-10 interchangeable and Shields #11. Think it's really tough to squeeze Edgar out of top 10 given his last three fights.

edit: and yeah, I know I just did a p4p ranking response to correct allegations that they're mostly drivel, but I wanted to see how Frankie could get squeezed.

Gap between FE-Gil-Maynard and other LW is really small, none shouldn't be top according to your criteria. FE's last 3 fights show this: luckbox a bad decision over BJ, decisive win, draw. Gil @ -130 vs FE @ BetUS right now.

Sonnen is probably the #2 MW, he should be top 10. MW is really top heavy, so I'd think they might round out the top 10.

P4P is a comparison of fighters if they could instantly zap them bigger or stronger and they would lose none of their abilities or attributes. HWs are kinda unlucky in this aspect most the time, and thats why you don't see BROCK LESNAR #1 P4P when he was champ because... well he obviously wasn't the best fighter skill wise at that time, but he would kill guys like Anderson on size alone. Fedor was actually ranked #1 p4p in the world at one point, because he was a small HW mauling bigger guys. Pretty ****ing crazy.

eh, youre telling us what p4p means?

If you think BJ Penn beat Frank Edgar either time you need to have your head examined.

You, more than anyone, know how much the sport has evolved. Therefore, I don't think you can use past examples to prove that a fighter today can still be elite without being a well above average athlete. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong; Just saying that I don't think you have proven your point by giving those examples.


everyone agrees with you. But the UFC has no control over this...its all the NVAC and the corrupt politics that go into that.


I think you misunderstood my point. I have no problem with any sport making rule changes to make the product more exciting. If UFC wants to go to a ring instead of a cage, for example, that would hurt wrestlers' ability to keep top control for 5 straight minutes and I'd be fine with that. The issue I have is when people suggest that the athletes should fight suboptimally in order to excite the fans more. Imo the mere notion of this threatens the legitimacy of the sport. Imo you absolutely need all competitors doing everything possible(within the rules) to win. Dana has often times talked about how he hates when the lines are blurred between UFC and WWE, and he instantly brings this point up whenever asked questions such as "would you let Brock go do a WWE ppv?". Well imo, there are 2 things that Dana is doing wrong if he doesn't want this line blurred: One is the ridiculous fake drama that occurs pre-fight many times(not saying its all fake, but a decent enough percentage of it is). The other is this- When Dana White comes out and criticizes guys like A Silva for his Maia fight(in which he won 5 rounds to none and took no damage whatsoever) it blurs those lines because hes essentially telling his fighters to sacrifice win equity in order to make for a more spectacular viewing experience.


I'm not so sure about this....

I agree that lighter guys have better cardio, and when your cardio goes then often times your fundamentals(i.e. your skills) start to get worse. But thats due to cardio and not the actual "skill" they possess.

I also agree that lighter guys are much quicker which allows them to pull off different combos and different techniques....again though, this is only because of quickness. Maybe the heavier fighters can do those techniques just fine but they would never work if a guy that slow tried them.


I would also agree that up until now, bigger athletes tended to go into NFL/NBA/etc. whereas lighter guys had no option other than combat sports(on the pro sports level), so you get 100% of the possible player pool of the light guys in MMA. This is probably the best argument for why what you say may be true, but I think this is changing as MMA gets more popular and fighters can make more money in it.


When making this post you are probably only thinking about how much stronger Frankie Edgar would be at 240 and not thinking about how much slower and less coordinated he'd be at that weight. He certainly wouldn't appear to have the same "skill" if he woke up tomorrow and suddenly weighed 240 lbs.


So tough to even make these type of lists in a sport with such a small sample size of "games." I mean, almost everyone would agree with you that Cain belongs on the list and the other 2 don't, but are we even that confident that Cain is currently better than Overeem or JDS? Seems like such a crapshoot to try to really know these types of things.


agreed. Unless you are severely discounting him due to suspected steroid use(not just in A Silva fight, but maybe he was getting away with it long before) then his recent performances have to earn him a spot on the list imo. He beat the #1 guy for 4 straight rounds!


Why not make them smaller instead of arbitrarily making them bigger? My guess is that if you instantly zapped a bunch of HWs down to 170 lbs, their added speed and coordination would make their "skills" a lot better.

Not a bad point at all. For some HWs their skills would improve for sure. Some not so much. Brock for instance, closing that strength and size game would hurt his game, no really denying that, but he would gain even more speed and cardio, but Guys like Cain, or JDS or even Shane, would gain even more edges I think.

like how 2 people were arguing about the definition, I post the definition, and people fail to read 3 inches above my post on why I posted it.

Those classes get a larger % of the "player pool" AND the player pool is larger. The average man is ~5'9 so most would likely fall in the 155-185 lbs classes.

I was thinking more along the likes of "if a guy at 240 could slip punches like FE, throw as well in combination, have as good an idea of range, wrestle as well, etc" he'd dominate everyone.
Look at how flawed some of the elite HWs look compared to the LW class. I cannot imagine a fighter making it the top of the LW class with holes in his game like Brock Lesnar's striking defense or guard game.

Wouldn't being able to perform and defend against a wider array of attacks force those fighters to have more skill.

I think we need to define what is a "skill" and what is not, otherwise this debate could easily go in circles.

As a stats guy, I know you are extremely skeptical of the "eye test." But that is all P4P or any other type of rankings are in MMA. Especially because a lot of fighters have not be involved with a high level training champ for long, so they get a lot better from fight to fight. I personally think AO is the best HW, but it is pretty pointless to argue about it.

Because PED testing for MMA is a complete joke and job security is on such a fight to fight basis for guys in the UFC, I assume a very high % are using PEDs and am not discounting Sonnen.

BJ should have won the decision the first time.
http://blog.fightmetric.com/2010/08/...port.html#more

no.

extracted from the Kentucky Derby thread, realized too late that it wasn't worth creating a tangent there. would like to discuss further here if anyone is up for it (like why it's "awful").

and no, i don't want MMA fans just piling on kevin, or other people that don't care for MMA, but rather a sensible discussion. it kind of dawned on me that while MMA fans find GSP's fights of late to be "boring", they might be exactly what the sport needs to get over with the final holdouts. by this i mean people who are sports fans, and maybe even boxing fans, but for one reason or another don't like MMA (in most cases probably haven't given it a real shot). i don't really understand how you can like boxing, but hate MMA, because of how related they are. especially when you see fights like GSP's vs Shields and Hardy (?), which were almost entirely standup striking contests.

and i'm guessing that Clark's blueprint to fix boxing is some kind of unification/consolidation/monopolization and regulation. but i'm guessing there's too much money to be had for these various scummy promoters, and a lack of will from lawmakers, to make this happen. but would like to hear more about this as well.

GSP v Hardy was 5 rounds on the ground of GSP dominating and Hardy channeling Gumby.

Boxing sucks.

oh yeah? which was the jabfest again then, Koscheck? these fights are all kinda blurring together for me...stupid beer!

would like avoid this kind of stuff and have a sensible discussion. why you gotta hate?

Jabfest was Kos.


I don't gotta hate. I don't hate at all in fact. I've just watched boxing and think it sucks. It's still given us some of sports history's best personalities and movies, so that's a a huge plus, but unfortunately most the fights stink.

boxing vs mma

mma seems more brutal, the standup style different and underdeveloped compared to boxing which makes many boxing fans to think it is unskilled, they don't understand grappling, the UFC is marketed towards a younger demographic and seems much less professional compared to boxing broadcasts, many of the elite fighters are not from the US, the UFC does not have a deal with any major networks (outside of ESPN) and even the ESPN coverage is minimal.

basically older, boxing fans generally have not grown up with the sport, don't understand it and therefor do not find it as legitimate of a sport as the ones they do understand / grew up with.

Bad MMA is bad
Good MMA is good
Bad Boxing is terrible
Good boxing is amazing

Huge fan of both. Boxing training was one of the biggest eye openers I have had in a long time. Far more complicated then the average fan thinks, makes BJJ seem simpler to me.

While both are far more complicated than one would first think, i've done both and imo BJJ is much more complex than boxing.

This is the reason in a nutshell. Most of us will probably do the same thing when we get to be Tony Kornheiser's age and a new sport that all the young people like comes along.

Just caught up on the last few days worth of stuff itt. I'm a huge GSP fan and have been for years. I agree with Phildo. I hope they don't change the rules though or anything because I like betting on GSP. I was also highly entertained by the Bum Fights series of DVDs for whatever that is worth.