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UFC 92 (12/27 Las Vegas)
By Zach Arnold | December 27, 2008
Results/Reports: Bloody Elbow | AOL Fanhouse | MMA Mania | MMA Junkie | Five Ounces
Sounds like UFC made the right call on the Okami/Lister fight, even if Okami is essentially the #1 contender to Anderson Silva.
I remember making a comment in November on Fight Opinion Radio (does that show still exist?), stating that out of all the possible match-ups involving combinations of Couture, Mir, Lesnar, and Nogueira, that Mir vs. Lesnar would be by far the most appealing, money-making match-up that the promotion could hope for. It’s a re-match that had to happen sometime. How perfect is it for UFC that Mir vs. Lesnar will happen in the Spring of ’09 for the Heavyweight crown? Perfect fight — Lesnar wins, he gets redemption. Mir can go into that fight claiming he’s the real champion and if he wins the re-match, his credibility skyrockets. Remember, in UFC, the fighter who won the first fight wins a re-match around 70% of the time.
As for Nogueira, his ‘fighting age’ may have likely caught up to him. He has taken some vicious beatings throughout his career. He’s enjoyed a long, prosperous MMA run for the most part.
Regarding Evans becoming the new champion… obviously, a match against Quinton Jackson is tailor-made for him. Short-term, UFC booking looks great for the first half of 2009. The one downside, however, is that UFC has two weight classes (185 and 205) with legitimate challengers that the promotion is (my opinion) deathly afraid of booking in title matches — Yushin Okami (against Anderson Silva) and Ryoto Machida (against Evans). You can bury those guys on the undercards all you want, but eventually UFC is going to have to deal with both fighters sooner or later.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 66 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“I hope you are joking. K-1 is very much a joke these days. Even their MMA… They can’t hold onto their champions and have no Heavyweight or Light Heavyweight divisions (for the most part).”
I said K-1 specifically, not DREAM. K-1 still has dumb assess like Bobby Olugun and HMC, but quality of fights they are up there. Oh, UFC is a close second, but K-1 usually has the most entertaining fight cards. DREAM is still one of the top dogs in MMA, but they will never be PRIDE.
“Sylvia beat Arlovski twice in a row, and Arlovski has yet to beat anyone better than Sylvia since then. Also, every loss Sylvia has on his record is to a guy that is currently in the top 5. That shouldn’t hurt a fighter’s rank when compared against guys who haven’t fought that level of competition.”
Okay, so just because someone lost to a bunch of top ten guys, that means they are top ten? I don’t think so. So that means Elvis Sinosic and Akira Shoji were two of the best fighters from the 1990’s. And George “Scrap Iron” Johnson is one of the best heavyweight boxers from the 60’s and 70’s. Every single fighter mentioned deserves some sort of credit, but top ten or so recognition? Hell no!
Alan Conceicao Says: Even then, Barnett has beaten a pair of top 20 heavyweights in the last year. Couture hasn’t.
Barnett hasn’t beaten anyone the caliber of either Tim Sylvia or Gabriel Gonzaga in recent fights. Couture is fighting better opposition than Barnett.
Chuck Says: Okay, so just because someone lost to a bunch of top ten guys, that means they are top ten? I don’t think so.
I agree here. How many guys have fought top level competition and never won that could get a top ten ranking. In wrestling terms they have a name for this: JTTS. Jobber to the Stars. A JTTS is not a top star, they just work against them. Same thing here.
Personally I rank Arlovski higher than Sylvia because he’s fought some really decent opponents and beat them since that last loss to Sylvia while Sylvia has dropped key fights to Couture, Nog and Fedor and looked outclassed in at least two of those.
Rp
I like how
ivan did not mention the fact that Rampage checked on Wand’s condition while he was out. And please he pulled all of those punches until he was sure he won.
Wow, he checked on his condition after he punched him twice in the head after he was already unconscious and after the ref was actively trying to pull him off. How very classy of him.
“Okay, so just because someone lost to a bunch of top ten guys, that means they are top ten?”
No. It works like this.
Fighter A beats Fighter B, not once, but twice.
Fighter A loses to 3 top 5 HW’s.
Fighter B beats two borderline top 20 HW’s.
Fighter B does not pass fighter A in the rankings.
Just so that we’re all on the same page:
-Barnett beating Noguiera in one of their two fights over two years ago doesn’t count
-Barnett beating Couture doesn’t count
-Barnett winning 3 fights in the last year doesn’t count
-Couture fighting once in 16 months and losing by KO counts more than Barnett beating anyone
-Barnett losing to Cro-Cop over 2 years ago counts
-Losing fights against guys ranked below you elevates them and doesn’t change your status. Winning fights against guys ranked below you means that you are overprotected and should drop in ratings.
This sounds entirely fair. Thanks for the clarification!
LOL Alan Conceicao – you’re starting to catch on to the Fight Opinion logic.
Realistically, the top 10 heavyweights are whomever the UFC tells us they are. They bury and push whomever is marketable for them, and the guys who put the most asses in the seats (and who get along personally with Dana) get the opportunities.
– In 2007, Brock Lesnar’s only UFC accomplishment is beating an unranked Heath Herring by decision…so now he’s #1 contender. OK.
– Yushin Okami is the #1 contender for the Middleweight Title, yet he’s on the undercard and never mentioned by anyone. Alright then.
– Throughout his title reign, Dana White tells us that “Whether we like his style or not”, Tim Sylvia is the best in the world…but once he leaves the UFC and gets killed by Fedor, White laughs “EVERYBODY beats Sylvia!” to diminish Fedor’s win. Sure.
– Dana White tells us that “Fedor needs to come to the UFC and face the best in the world”…when Nogueira is the UFC champion.
It’s a joke.
“No. It works like this.
Fighter A beats Fighter B, not once, but twice.
Fighter A loses to 3 top 5 HW’s.
Fighter B beats two borderline top 20 HW’s.
Fighter B does not pass fighter A in the rankings.”
That is a very crappy and very flawed logic. As others said here, Couture fought only one in the past 16 months, and LOST to Brock Lesnar, who wasn’t a top ten fighter. Check out the RING ratings for boxing and you show me ONE fighter that is there on a three fight losing streak or a guy who fought once in the past 16 months and lost that fight. RING magazine almost did it when Valuev recently beat Holyfield, and Nigel Collins admitted that they were thinking of giving Holyfield a number ten ranking for what should have been a victory over Valuev, but was screwed by the judges. But RING magazine, in the end, showed better judgement than that. I know you used Sylvia and Arlovski as examples, and I would still rank Sylvia over Couture ovber the fact that Sylvia did lose to three top 5 guys, and Couture lost to an unranked guy. But Arlovski should be ranked over both of them.
Let’s see if I’ve got this down:
Theoretically, let’s say Fedor doesn’t fight in January. Affliction goes bust and he ends up fighting in Moscow for M-1 next May, 10 months after his last fight. He fights fringe contender/BJJ specialist Pe De Pano and is comprehensively beaten. Based on the logic I see here, Pe De Pano becomes the top heavyweight on the planet, based on the win over Fedor and prior victory win over current #2 ranked Mir. Fedor falls to maybe #4. You guys agree?
–“Just so that we’re all on the same page:”–
We’re not on the same page at all. I was specifically refering to the case of Sylvia and Arlovski. I don’t know why you changed the conversation to Barnett.
To quickly sum it up, Nog beat Barnett in their most recent match, and that takes precedent, but some credit must be given for taking Nog to a SD victory. Barnett beating Couture absolutely does not count. The guys Barnett beat in the last 16 months aren’t anywhere near a top 10 list. It’s a win, but it’s not a relevant win for comparing two of the best guys in the division. Anyone in the top 10 is supposed to soundly beat those guys, it doesn’t prove anything. Losing of course would, and I’ll get on that in the next part:
–“Losing fights against guys ranked below you elevates them and doesn’t change your status. Winning fights against guys ranked below you means that you are overprotected and should drop in ratings.”–
No, losing fights against fighters ranked higher than you doesn’t lower your status, and beating guys considerably lower ranked than you doesn’t raise your status. All it means is that your ranking was correct. On the other side of the coin, beating a guy higher ranked raises your status, and losing to a guy that’s lower ranked hurts your status.
As for how far you fall when you lose to a lower ranked opponent, it depends on the specifics. Was your opponent a potentially great but still unproven fighter, a former great that faltered in a couple of fights, or was he a proven middle of the pack fighter. If it’s the former two you don’t necessarily fall much, the last one plummets you.
This logic assumes the fight is taken in a vacuum, without fighters sharing common opponents. With common opponents it’s much messier than this, but luckily with the specific case of Arlovski and Sylvia, they don’t really have any common opponents. Arlovski never fought the guys Tim lost to, and Tim didn’t fight the guys Arlovski has recently beaten, so we can’t compare performances.
Until Sylvia loses to someone worse than Arlovski or Arlovski beats someone better than Sylvia, then Sylvia’s wins over Arlovski hold precedent.
iThe guys Barnett beat in the last 16 months aren’t anywhere near a top 10 list. It’s a win, but it’s not a relevant win for comparing two of the best guys in the division.
BS. Couture has one fight and lost and was beaten quite badly by a guy barely in the top 10, yet you suggest he should keep his position near/in the top 5. There’s no drop commensurate with the inactivity or the results. Couture should barely be in the top ten right now, same with Noguiera, Barnett slightly above them for beating guys that his ranking indicated he should beat and doing so in rather dominating fashion. Otherwise, it seems to me that Couture could be 50 and hold onto his ranking as long as he keeps losing (no matter how badly) to the revolving door of top UFC contenders.
As for how far you fall when you lose to a lower ranked opponent, it depends on the specifics. Was your opponent a potentially great but still unproven fighter, a former great that faltered in a couple of fights, or was he a proven middle of the pack fighter. If it’s the former two you don’t necessarily fall much, the last one plummets you.
And so that brings us to Mir/Nog. I can’t think of a more middle of the pack fighter than the modern day Frank Mir. If losing to a guy like that doesn’t plummet you, then there’s no continuity. I have no problem picking Mir up significantly, but Noguiera needs a drastically reconsidered position in the rankings after getting knocked down 4 times by Frank Mir.
The only argument that has Mir above mediocrity coming in is that a 1-0 fighter he beat turned around and ended up winning the title almost a calendar year later, yet none of those people are suggesting that Joaquim Ferrera should be in the top 10-15, much less all the other ways it cuts.
What people are pointing to is:
The objective ranking system (based on actual wins) doesn’t spontaneously reflect the sudden deterioration of a once-great fighter, even when the deterioration is subjectively obvious to a viewer of the fighter’s latest bout.
I think that’s a minor flaw in the system we might have to live with. A fighter may in actuality decline at a faster rate than he plummets in the rankings, but eventually, the ranking will purge the fighter from its lists.
To use Alan’s example:
If Couture loses to a bunch of of up-and-comers, each one of them will take a higher place in the rankings than Couture, which will drag down his position on the list. Within a few losses he’ll be out of the Top-X lists.
Now the period spanning “a few fights” might consist of a year or more, and during this period, the fighter’s ranking might seem subjectively “too high”, because it’s obvious he has lost his touch or fighting spirit. Nevertheless, until the fighter’s decline is confirmed in actual losses in the ring, such an opinion is purely speculate and cannot be reflected in the rankings.
This might be the case we’re about to see with Nogueira. In recent fights he hasn’t been the Nog we know. But let’s say he fights three times in 2009, loses twice and wins once, all against Top 10 competition – he would still be ranked in the Top 10. And I can live with that.
This would be a good time for Zach to poll 20 other MMA writers on their top tens by division and use points accumulated to decide position (aka 10 points for being ranked #1, 1 point for #10). Then there will be a more subjective opinion that decides these rankings.
Rp
— Ivan sez; Wow, he checked on his condition after he punched him twice in the head after he was already unconscious and after the ref was actively trying to pull him off. How very classy of —
I almost wonder if every Ivan post is really Ivan, or if somebody is like making troll posts under his name sometimes.
He knocks him out, and honestly, maybe the ref should have jumped in sooner? He landed one good shot when he was down and the ref was pulling him off as he was going for two and three, the second which somewhat landed and the third he was able to catch before he threw.
Right now, you could say that the Affliction top 3 is 1) Fedor, 2) Arlovski, 3) Barnett.
And in the UFC, you could argue it’s 1) Mir, 2) Lesnar, 3) Nogueira.
Since, out of the 3 from the UFC and the 3 from Affliction, there has been very little cross-over (Barnett and Nog have beaten each other, and Fedor has beaten Nog twice) it’s impossible to accurately rank them.
We can definitely determine if Fedor is better than Arlovski or of Mir can beat Lesnar again – those matches are set – but saying anyone from column A could beat anyone else from column B is pure speculation.
And no one can say “Fighter A would DEFINITELY kill fighter B” because we heard that crap for months before Mir demolished Nogueira.
Hopefully Affliction will fold, and Zuffa can sign 3 of the best HW figthers in the world. Then we can REALLY see who’s the best (in *2009*) – because until that happens, no ‘ranking’ is relevant in any way. It’s barely worth discussing.
If Couture loses to a bunch of of up-and-comers, each one of them will take a higher place in the rankings than Couture, which will drag down his position on the list. Within a few losses he’ll be out of the Top-X lists.
Now the period spanning “a few fights” might consist of a year or more, and during this period, the fighter’s ranking might seem subjectively “too high”, because it’s obvious he has lost his touch or fighting spirit. Nevertheless, until the fighter’s decline is confirmed in actual losses in the ring, such an opinion is purely speculate and cannot be reflected in the rankings.
Going back to the example of Couture: Let’s say he’s the #5 heavyweight in the world right now. As such, he doesn’t fight for another 12-15 months, at which point he loses to a Frank Mir, himself fresh off a loss to Brock Lesnar. Does the win validate Mir? Probably not, because Couture would be over 46 years of age and without a win in over 2 years. Alternately, if you decide like 45 that rankings are somehow linear and beating someone allows you to take their ranking regardless of where you are in the chain beforehand, Mir would probably still be ranked higher than Couture going in, and Couture wouldn’t take much of a hit coming out. 12 months later, a nearly 48 year old Couture could waltz into a fight with someone like Cain Velasquez in essentially the same position.
Meanwhile, Barnett or Arlovski could very easily beat another 4-5 fringe contenders/borderline top 10 talent over the same time period leading up to the theoretical Mir/Couture bout each while suffering losses to each other or Fedor. Again, using the method you’re putting forth klown, Barnett is better off not fighting anyone unless they’re higher ranked than himself, and someone like Fedor is in a helluva pickle given that he’s the unequivocal #1. Neither can be given any credit for their wins. Meanwhile, they can be dropped in the rankings for not beating “suitable” opposition while guys who flat out don’t fight get to stay where they are.