Breaking Down The USAT/SBN Rankings: Lightweight

I am flattered to be a member of the panel that contributes to the USA Today/SB Nation Consensus MMA Rankings, which are compiled monthly by Bloody Elbow's Richard Wade (one of the smartest and most decent people I've had the pleasure of meeting doing this) and distributed in print nationwide.  An effort at establishing the MMA community's overall mood, the rankings are gleaned from ballots submitted by multiple sources, including but not limited to Jordan Breen, Jim Genia, Dave Walsh over at Head Kick Legend and Leland Roling of BE.  I'm still kind of in shock that my ballot is included amongst theirs - from a commentator no one knew two years ago to (hopefully) seeing my Serbian name gracing the pages of the nation's most printed newspaper.  Only in America, baby.

I believe these rankings to be the best system out there right now for letting casual fans glance and get an accurate view of the landscape - or, as Winston Churchill once said of democracy, "the worst system in the world, except for all the other ones."  It's akin to not limiting yourself to one cable channel or website for news - everyone is biased in some way, so it's better to hear multiple voices on the same issue.  With all of that said, describing our collective rankings as "consensus" is a corruption of the language - they are anything but.  Sometimes, the end result leaves my head scratching as to how my name got attached to them, beyond the shock I alluded to above.  Reviewing the material that will form the division-specific part of this piece - graciously submitted to me by  Richard Wade - made me nostalgic for a time when WAMMA needed to be discredited as a parasitic attempt to muddy the waters of ranking MMA.

Some background is necessary for this, as it was a while ago and involves Internet drama and satire manifesting into legal intimidation against a reader.  If you just hate me so much, then skip this section and read Brent Brookhouse's fantastic work tearing this organization apart.

December 2008 was an odd time to be an MMA fan.  Brock Lesnar, a 3-1 fighter more known for F-5's than MMA, was the UFC heavyweight champion, having defeated Randy Couture (coming off of a long legal scuffle during which he attempted to leave his UFC contract and fight Fedor in Affliction) the month before.  Fedor, meanwhile, had defeated Tim Sylvia earlier in the year, and was preparing to fight Andrei Arlovski to begin 2009.  Affliction's entire business plan had basically been built upon a three show strategy, each headlined by Fedor, culminated in a much-anticipated bout with Josh Barnett for their final show.

Well, we all know how that turned out.  But that was the plan.

Affliction's "legitimacy" was "buttressed" by an organization called the World Association of Mixed Martial Arts, or WAMMA.  For you lucky enough to have never heard of them, imagine this: a for profit sanctioning body that claimed to be neutral.  They had an esteemed panel of contributors for their rankings, just like SB Nation does - however, no matter what their rankings said, they refused to award WAMMA belts to UFC fighters, as the UFC refused to cross-promote with - you guessed it - WAMMA (which appeared on the mat and turnbuckles of the Affliction mega-ring).  That kind of conflict on interest renders rankings completely meaningless, and it's probably why you'll never see official rankings from Zuffa (well, that and their desire to retain a free hand in matchmaking).

When I first looked into WAMMA, I wasn't nervous.  It would either end in a rankings that (correctly) identified the UFC champion as the best in the world, or (incorrectly) place someone ridiculous in their place.  In their rush to feign relevance - honestly, the entire thing was thrown up without a second thought to much - they had contorted themselves to explain how BJ Penn was not their lightweight champion (I believe Shinya Aoki has a WAMMA belt to this day).  Pat Miletich attempted to use to smear BJ-GSP II, also slated for the beginning of 2009:

Pat Miletich: Yes, BJ Penn is ranked #1 and nothing less than a superb fighter. But, BJ is moving up to fight GSP at Welterweight in January. Ideally, BJ should be fighting for a WAMMA title, be it in the UFC or by way of a cross-promoted fight within two organizations. However, given that BJ is moving up to Welterweight and the UFC will not cross promote fights, a fight with BJ as a participant is not possible at this time. At some point the question will arise as to how along a fighter can hold onto a #1 WAMMA Ranking in a weight division without fighting the top contenders in that division

A Bloody Elbow reader wrote a satire piece in response to this absurdity.  In it, he asked how it could be that BJ Penn was too inactive at lightweight to be properly ranked, yet Josh Barnett was being sold as a top ten opponent for Fedor despite the fact that Barnett, to this day, has not fought a top ten heavyweight since New Year's Eve in 2006.  WAMMA's response?  Threaten the guy with legal action if he didn't retract and apologize.  I had a lot of fun talking shit about WAMMA - and the idiots defending them (read the comments) - that day.

Now, I'm not saying that the USAT/SBN rankings should have a hard and fast rule like "top ten fighters must fight top ten fighters every 18 months" or something like that.  However, it may be time to institute some concrete barriers to keep our rankings from getting too ridiculous.  I hate to take anything from WAMMA, but I want our rankings to be the best they can be when someone flipping through a newspaper comes upon them and doesn't know anyone on the list.  Let's see how such a rule would impact the lightweight rankings.

Lightweight Records Since Rankings Began (March 2009)

Richard's work speaks volumes here.  We can see three clear cases of the recent resume not justifying the ranking - Benson Henderson at #14 (no wins over ranked opponents), Jim Miller at #11 (one win over #22 Gleison Tibau), and Eddie Alvarez at #6 (no wins over ranked opponents, the closest being Josh Neer after he was cut from the UFC).  Someone that comes across our rankings will think that Roger Huerta is fighting a top ten lightweight next week - he's not (come on Roger, pop this hype bubble) - and I am at least partially responsible, as I have Alvarez 7th.  There is no reason for having him over Sean Sherk or George Sotiropoulos, and I'll be rectifying it on my ballot next month.  However, I don't feel my error in the weight class is the most egregious.

• Jesse Holland of MMA Mania has Eddie Alvarez as the #1 lightweight in the world, with Edgar #2.  Indefensible.  More on the curious rankings of Mr. Holland as this attempt to clean up the rankings continues.
• Kevin Iole has Tatsuya Kawajira 24th.  I think he's a little high, but c'mon, man.  MMA Playground doesn't even rank Kawajiri, hurting his position in an inexplicable manner.
• Fight Matrix - whom I love - has Evan Dunham at 24th.

My ballot, and all ballots, are publicly available here under the posts for each weight class.  I look forward to your suggestions as to how to improve mine.

Poll

Should Eddie Alvarez be considered a top ten lightweight if he beats unranked Roger Huerta next week?

56%

Yes - he's that good

101 votes

43%

No - you have to earn that kind of ranking

77 votes

178 votes | Poll has closed