Occasionally, I’ll see fighters who are known contenders, or who are about to hit the elite level, that then suddenly vanish from the scene.  In this list, we’ll take a look at a few of those fighters.  Maybe our readers can provide some more info.

Just a sidenote, I have excluded women from the rankings as they are much more likely to leave for family/pregnancy reasons.

Fighter – (Ranking Prior to Inactivity Decay – Quarterly Ranking Date)

Daniel Otero – (#3 Flyweight – July 2009)

Otero appeared as if he was going to be the true pioneer for a non-Asian Flyweight circuit, but last fought in July 2008.  His only loss was via DQ to Masatoshi Abe, a then, top-ranked Shooto Flyweight.  Last I heard, he suffered an ACL injury, but it has been over 3 years since his last fight.  He was riding a 2-fight win streak, with those coming over respectable midwest US little men, Sam Thao, and Josh Rave.

Mizuto Hirota – (#11 Lightweight – October 2010)

Some would argue that this was a high ranking, but Hirota was on a pretty decent run in the Japanese scene prior to getting his arm snapped in half by Shinya Aoki.  That’s probably the reason he’s been so inactive.

Ray Mercer – (#13 Heavyweight – April 2010)

Oh Ray, how the MMA world barely knew you.  We loved you for knocking Tim Sylvia flat on his ass, but we hated you for being 48 years old and not having any previous MMA fights.  Ray actually started out with a lower ranking, but rose due to attrition.

Ricardo Arona – (#18 Light Heavyweight- July 2010)

Am I the only one sick of seeing him on lists like these?  Probably one of the very best in MMA history to never win a major championship.

Heath Herring – (#20 Heavyweight – October 2010)

It’s been three years now, and I’m still waiting for Heath to co-star in a Steven Seagal direct-to-DVD movie.  Getting your ass kicked by a 1-1 guy straight from the WWE had to have an impact on Herring’s confidence, but Lesnar did go on quite a run after that.  Still, at only 33, it is not too late for a comeback.

Phil “Billy” Harris – (#23 Flyweight – April 2011)

It’s rare enough to see a ranked Flyweight outside of Japan, but one from the UK?  Unless you are in the UK, you have probably never seen his name unless you religiously look at our rankings.  Harris fought most of his career at Featherweight and even had at least one fight at Welterweight.  He actually just left the ranking last week, so it may be too soon for this list.  Still, he added something unique to the Flyweight ranks.

Other fighters worth researching: Will Ribeiro, Josh Ferguson, Dokonjonosuke Mishima, Pat Runez

Rankings displayed are from the quarterly generated ranking sets, before the inactivity penalties started being assessed (when possible).

Welterweight
[#27] Chris Lytle vs. [#32] Dan Hardy
While looking to stay relevant in the current rankings, Lytle (#21) and Hardy (#22) are also looking to stay in the Top 25 All-Time Welterweight list.

Lightweight
[#7] Jim Miller vs. [#20] Ben Henderson
Miller (#23 LW) is one of five Top 25 All-Time divisional fighters on the card.

Lightweight
[#21] Donald Cerrone vs. [#77] Charles Oliveira

Welterweight
[#47] Amir Sadollah vs. [#144] Duane Ludwig

Middleweight
[#44] CB Dollaway vs. [#87 LHW] Jared Hamman

Bantamweight
[#2 BW / #9 DD] Joseph Benavidez vs. [#18] Eddie Wineland
Benavidez is the #5 All-Time Bantamweight, while Wineland is at #10.

Middleweight
[#37] Kyle Noke vs. [#59] Ed Herman

Light Heavyweight
[#39] Ronny Marki Sales da Silva vs. [#116] Karlos Vemola

Featherweight
[#66] Jim Hettes vs. [#419] Alex Caceres

Lightweight
[#66] Cole Miller vs. [#192] TJ O’Brien

Lightweight
[#30] Jacob Volkmann vs. [#39] Danny Castillo

Bantamweight
[#63] Edwin Figueroa vs. [#578 FW] Jason Reinhardt
Reinhardt is one of the lowest ranked fighters on a UFC card in recent memory.

BTW – It’s pretty sad that Benavidez is fighting on the undercard.

We just launched a new section here at FightMatrix.com – a brief summary of some key ranking statistics at a glance. This section will be updated weekly just like our rankings, and the following features are currently available:

Biggest Movers
Top 10 biggest positional ranking gains & losses of the week.

Recently Active
All ranked fighters who fought since the last ranking update, broken down by event.

Newly Ranked
Previously unranked fighters entering rankings for the first time, or fighters making a return to the top rankings.

Dropouts
Previously ranked fighters dropped from the top rankings this week.

Division Changes
Previously ranked fighters who changed weight classes and remain ranked.

Inactive Fighters
Top 100-ranked fighters inactive between 365 and 450 days. 

Quality Performance Decay
Ranked fighters who have gone the longest without a Quality Performance.

A quality performance is a fight in which the fighter fought an acceptable opponent and substantiated their current rating (at the time) based on the outcome.

Strength of Schedule
Best & worst strength of schedule for Top 10-ranked fighters.

Strength of schedule is determined by the fighter’s `540 Opponent Metric` – an experimental metric that attempts to reflect a fighter’s recent opposition quality. The metric goes back 1,080 days, and looks at all the fighter’s opponents’ W-L-D records within a window of 540 days before, and 540 days after their respective bout(s) with the fighter. All of the records are added up and the cumulative win percentage is presented by this metric in a `strength of schedule` format.

Out of all of the major ranking sites — and by “major” ranking sites, I am referencing the list used by the USA Today/SB Nation rankings, we rank Roy Nelson the lowest, by far.  Yes, some of those sites listed are questionable, proven so by their rankings themselves, or their lack of timeliness, but as it stands, it is an unbiased and convenient comparison.  We alone, are likely the reason that Nelson slipped one spot behind Schaub on these meta-rankings.

In fact, the average ranking for Roy Nelson for all of the other sites who rank him (10), is #12.5.  We have him all the way down at #24.  In fact, 6 of those 10 sites still rank Nelson above Schaub — while Schaub has been having all of the success, these sites have been handcuffing Nelson to him, and all Nelson has done since is go 1-2.  Schaub, has since went 4-0.  Even the Struve win was not a great win by Nelson.  By the way, when was Nelson’s last great win prior to his win over a pre-prime Schaub?  Has he ever had a great win?  In case you were wondering, our ranking of Schaub is right in line with the average.

This type of scenario is one of the most interesting debates when it relates to MMA rankings.  Who is in the “right” here?  Even though Nelson has the head-to-head edge over Schaub, Nelson/Schaub happened over 20 months ago.  Schaub has clearly advanced, while Nelson has seemingly declined.  With this type of argument, Arlovski should still be ranked above Nelson.

What do you think?