As mentioned over at BloodyElbow.com, USA Today will now be featuring the monthly BloodyElbow Meta-Rankings in their online and print versions.  As you may or may not know, the meta-rankings are essentially an averaged list of the better MMA ranking sites out there, with us being one of them.

In addition, I assisted BloodyElbow by creating the normalization scheme that is necessary to properly weight the various rankings, in order to allow sites that only offer Top 10s and Top 15s.  This allowed them to expand the rankings and create a more accurate picture.

The first published release will be on Thursday.

I think most of us would agree that this fight is happening too late, and an approximate ranking history would agree.  Rua/Chuck looked like it would have been at its peak as 2005 came to a close.

The Excel trendlines (Poly.) suggest potential trending for each fighter.  These are not very scientific, and only suggest possible trends.  However, I will note that all similar trends suggested a decline for Liddell, while Rua’s trend was varied.  Since they will face each other in a few weeks, the trends presented are the only logical ones, with the exception being a draw.

Notable Info

• Database updated with shows from the past 10 days.
• Bug that was mentioned in the previous update notes has been further flushed out.  Affected functions have been re-tuned.

Notable Info

• A moderately significant mathematical consistency error was discovered within the rating system, so I decided to release an update mid-week, as there are no shows that necessitate an update for the upcoming weekend.  The error has been resolved, but the corrected function may likely require further tuning in the future.  The fluctuations caused by this fix are minor, as the problem was only encountered in a small number of bouts.

Notable Info

• Rankings update display effects from recent DREAM, Shooto, UFC, and other shows.

Light Heavyweight
[#2] Quinton Jackson vs. [#12] Keith Jardine

Heavyweight
[#9] Gabriel Gonzaga vs. [#39] Shane Carwin

Welterweight
[#33] Pete Sell vs. [#113] Matt Brown

Light Heavyweight
[#24] Matt Hamill vs. [#92] Mark Munoz

Lightweight
[#9] Jim Miller vs. [#12] Gray Maynard

Welterweight
[#66] Tamdan McCrory vs. [#185] Ryan Madigan

Middleweight
[#41] Jason Day vs. [#69] Kendall Grove

Light Heavyweight
[#45] Tim Boetsch vs. [#62] Jason Brilz

Light Heavyweight
[#17] Brandon Vera vs. [#133] Mike Patt

Lightweight
[#93] Aaron Riley vs. [#185] Shane Nelson

Ranking Notes: Dark green font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

Lightweight
[#8 WW] Diego Sanchez vs. [#31] Joe Stevenson

Middleweight
[#7] Nate Marquardt vs. [#15] Wilson Gouveia

Middleweight
[#5] Chael Sonnen vs. [#10] Demian Maia

Welterweight
[#10] Dan Hardy vs. [#40] Rory Markham

Welterweight
[#5] Josh Koscheck vs. [#62] Paulo Thiago

Lightweight
[#42] Brian Cobb vs. [#49] Terry Etim

Heavyweight
[#8] Junior dos Santos vs. [#46] Stefan Struve

Heavyweight
[#45 LHW] Mike Ciesnolevicz vs. [#43] Neil Grove

Lightweight
[#75] Per Eklund vs. [#149] Evan Dunham

Welterweight
[#131] Paul Kelly vs. [#375] Troy Mandaloniz

Ranking Notes: Dark green font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

Notable Info

• Rankings updated with effects from minor shows in the prior week.

We’ve seen fighters decline tremendously in recent years, but the bottom has really fallen out of Drew Fickett’s FightMatrix rating. Below, you’ll find a graph of how Fickett’s rating hit an all-time high in early 2008, and has since dropped into journeyman status. On January 30th, Fickett was knocked out by Ferrid Kheder to cap off a 1-3 record in his last four fights.

What makes this drop even worse, is that these values were not time adjusted. With FightMatrix ratings, the value of a point has gotten increasingly lower through time as competition thickens.

Lightweight
[#42] Joe Lauzon vs. [#44] Jeremy Stephens

Heavyweight
[#28] Cain Velasquez vs. [#146] Denis Stojnic

Lightweight
[#34] Josh Neer vs. [#49] Mac Danzig

Welterweight
[#34] Anthony Johnson vs. [#41] Luigi Fioravanti

Lightweight
[#61] Kurt Pellegrino vs. [#65] Rob Emerson

Middleweight
[#21] Dan Miller vs. [#106] Jake Rosholt

Lightweight
[#99] Matt Veach vs. [NR] Matt Grice

Lightweight
[#38] Rich Clementi vs. [#92] Gleison Tibau

Middleweight
[#84] Derek Downey vs. [#125 WW] Nick Catone

Welterweight
[#77] Steve Bruno vs. [#196 MW] Matt Riddle

Ranking Notes: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

Notable Info

• Rankings updated with effects from recent shows from Shooto, UFC, and others.
• Some older shows have been updated and/or added for increased accuracy.
• Slightly optimized the ranking pages. Should now load about 3% faster.

Update: O’Brien/Wellisch was not assigned to the proper division, plus I forgot about the Pancrase card so I re-ran the ratings.

Welterweight
[#1] Georges St. Pierre vs. [#1 LW] B.J. Penn

Light Heavyweight
[#4] Lyoto Machida vs. [#14] Thiago Silva

Light Heavyweight
[NR] Stephan Bonnar vs. [#57] Jon Jones

Welterweight
[#11] Karo Parisyan vs. [#45] Dong Hyun Kim

Lightweight
[#18] Clay Guida vs. [#28] Nathan Diaz

Welterweight
[#4] Jon Fitch vs. [#15] Akihiro Gono

Lightweight
[#102] Thiago Tavares vs. [#215] Manvel Gamburyan

Welterweight
[#20] Chris Wilson vs. [#130] John Howard

Heavyweight
[#43] Jake O’Brien vs. [#92] Christian Wellisch

Welterweight
[#500] Matt Arroyo vs. [NR] Dan Cramer

Ranking Notes: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

Notable Info

• Ratings updated with recent shows from Affliction, WEC, Extreme Challenge, Beast of the East, ZST, and others.

Heavyweight
[#1] Fedor Emelianenko vs. [#5] Andrei Arlovski

Heavyweight
[#6] Josh Barnett vs. [#30] Gilbert Yvel

Light Heavyweight
[#12] Sokoudjou vs. [#13] Renato Sobral

Middleweight
[#15] Vitor Belfort vs. [#20] Matt Lindland

Lightweight
[#40] Dan Lauzon vs. [#100] Bobby Green

Heavyweight
[#43] Paul Buentello vs. [#180] Kirill Sidelnikov

Light Heavyweight
[#16] Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. [#17] Vladimir Matyushenko

Welterweight
[#12] Jay Hieron vs. [#140] Jason High

Featherweight
[#8 BW] Bao Quach vs. [#29] LC Davis

Featherweight
[#32 BW] Antonio Duarte vs. [#52 BW] Albert Rios

Welterweight
[#33] Brett Cooper vs. [#206] Patrick Speight

Ranking Notes: Gray font represents an approximate ranking. An asterisk represents a fighter who is ranked, but too low for an approximation. These two scenarios will clear up slightly as we move forward. “NR” means the fighter is not ranked, due to inactivity, or due to a rating that is at or below the default starter rating.

 Notable Info

• Ratings updated with recent shows from UFC, Shooto, and others.

Other interesting notes…

• Rich Franklin proves that he belongs near the top of the Light Heavyweight division, nearly taking a decision from Dan Henderson.  Henderson re-enters Light Heavy at #5, while Franklin drops to #6.
• In a disappointing performance against Coleman, Rua re-enters Light Heavy at #8.  Coleman enters the list just outside of the Top 20.
• Martin Kampmann makes a successful debut at Welterweight, entering at #23.  Though, in the UFC, there’s a tough road to climb to the top of the Welterweight division.
• Although he is the Shooto Flyweight champion, Shinichi Kojima nearly lost the top spot at Flyweight with a draw against (4-4-2) Jess Taitano.  Taitano shoots back into the Top 10, where he was before we discovered and entered some unreported losses on his record.