As you may or may not know, the PRIDE and UFC titles have been acknowledged by our rating system and have been given precedence, or “double verification” that a fighter has been a top fighter in a top brand of MMA. We hand selected those organizations due to the quality title defenses, quality of reigns, and overall quality of fighters in general. Its really a combination of a half dozen things.
Those participating in these title contests get very small boosts proportional to their performances, and extended exemptions from quality performance decays. The downside to this is when they are no longer participating on the title level, they are subject to falling down the ranks more quickly.
Through my experiences in computerized rating/ranking systems, I have noticed that when there are different brands with sometimes vast, yet unquantifiable differences in talent pools, there needs to be a method for planting an artificial seed or subjective variable to represent that “little extra” to show that the lineage, prestige, and other intangibles that exist in the dominant brands. Furthermore, this also acts as a defense against the smaller organizations pooling points within their fighters, hence the start of the GTR initiative.
After looking at the global MMA scene, its really split into two distinct markets where fighters don’t crossover THAT much. Those two markets are Asia, and Europe/North America. Our goal is to have a quality title, for each weight division in each market, at any given time. If none exists, it will simply be vacant. Currently, the GTR provisions are acknowledged for the following titles:
Fly – Euro/N.America: Vacant / Asia: Shooto
Bantam – Euro/N.America: WEC / Asia: Shooto
Feather – Euro/N.America: WEC / Asia: Shooto
Light through Heavy – Euro/N.America: UFC / Asia: Vacant (was PRIDE)
The effects of the GTR will be seen in the next update, but will only cause mild changes in the lower weight divisions.