Ratings and Fighter Rankings

Ratings and rankings are both ways to indicate someone or something's relative standing. However, ratings seek to gauge the value within a spectrum, in the case of MMA Ratings, the five star system. Meanwhile rankings seek to determine the vlaue within a consecutive order.

MMA Ratings uses fight and event ratings, to ultimately determine fight and event rankings.

Meanwhile, every site seems to have their own fighter rankings, and every fan seems to want to publi
Ratings and rankings are both ways to indicate someone or something's relative standing. However, ratings seek to gauge the value within a spectrum, in the case of MMA Ratings, the five star system. Meanwhile rankings seek to determine the vlaue within a consecutive order. MMA Ratings uses fight and event ratings, to ultimately determine fight and event rankings. Meanwhile, every site seems to have their own fighter rankings, and every fan seems to want to publicize their own rankings.

The result is that the multitude of fighter rankings are so speculative and diluted that they lose their value. Bloody Elbow seeks to create meta-rankings, which combine the results of major fighter ranking providers.

MMA Ratings values public opinion and as such publicizes the MMA Playground fighter rankings. Their rankings are based off of the community's fighter rankings via their My Fighter Rankings page. Users their own personal rankings, and each rank (1-10) has a static point value assigned to it. The points awarded via the rankings are then modified based on the individual user's career performance in the MMAPlayground.com fantasy picks game. The higher a player's overall career percentage of correct picks made on MMA events is compared to that of other users, the more value a member's vote carries. The result is that the people with the greatest knowledge of the fighters and have demonstrated a proven ability at predicting fights have a larger say in determining the fighter rankings, while still allowing enthusiasts and casual fans to have some input as well. They use a diminishing returns curve so that players must participate in making picks for several events* before their ranking points count for a fuller amount. Players must update and/or re-approve their rankings after an event occurs before their vote is counted and calculated again. This is done so that the rankings are up to date and accurately reflect the opinions of an active MMA userbase. Point totals are updated every day at 12 noon EST.

Women's MMA

Women's MMA gets some flack and is sometimes even compared to WNBA. Sometimes that comparison may have some validity respective to all women's MMA cards in terms of popularity and maybe skill.

Women's MMA is a niche within what is still a niche sport. For that reason women's MMA cards are not going to get a lot of viewers.

Where women's MMA will grow is in places like EliteXC where women's MMA is showcased within their regular cards (props to Bodog for this). When established promoters put on these co-ed fight cards viewers will slowly begin to appreciate quality women's MMA.

One day we may even see co-ed fights. Although there is a lot of aversion to the idea of seeing a man raining punches down on a woman, MMA, unlike most other sports has weight divisions that can mitigate the disparities between men and women.

Adam Swift's post on MMA Payout: "UFC 83 Review: Breaking Kayfabe"

Did you read Adam Swift's post on MMA Payout: "UFC 83 Review: Breaking Kayfabe"

I interpreted GSP's comments regarding him and Serra as "saying things just to hype up the fight" as an easy way to squash any animosity. I never really thought that they had intentionally built up some fictional hostility, partially because the development of their issues was very reasonable, and partially because it never manifested as anything close to some WWE type drama. What did you think? Did you think that GSP's initial display of integrity but eventually saying that he underestimated/overlooked Serra was staged in order to establish a basis for some future theatrical ill will?

I'm not suggesting that these theatrics don't occur, I just don't think this was an example of them. You can count on Tito Ortiz building this sort of hyperbolic antagonism every time. What were some other extreme examples?

Which brings me to another issue with Swift's post. He indicates that the reason Ortiz/Shamrock and Liddell/Ortiz did so well as opposed to A. Silva/Henderson, was because of the off stage/cage antics, or at least story building. I'm not suggesting that building a story, especially a dramatic one, doesn't help peak interest, but I think using these as examples overlooks the incredible name recognition that these fighters had at the time, especially compared to Silva/Henderson.

Co-promotion due to non-exclusivity

Previously I wrote about UFC and co-promotion (and again UFC and co-promotion (continued...) basically saying that while eventual co-promotion was inevitable for the UFC, they were best off avoiding it as long as possible. Well it looks like they might not have that long after all, and it might be their own fault.

Though the UFC has created a hectic MMA programming schedule for itself (as it written in M-M-Abundance), it has also increased its roster of fighters to the extent that it simply cannot schedule fighters to fight as frequently as they might want to. Cases like Roger Huerta who fought 5 times in 2007 and has indicated that he might like to fight less this year are pretty rare indeed. This is especially the case for ranked fighters who can demand higher payouts.

Ironically those fighters are in demand and have more value in in an ever expanding market of MMA promotions. Situations like Tim Sylvia leaving the UFC (which was predicted back in January) will become more common. The motivation is not to fight for another organization with better pay, but to fight for multiple organizations with nonexclusive contracts. A freelancer can really bring home the bacon as long as he can avoid injury (and in the case of fighters it's not like they're giving up a salary anyway).

When so many in demand fighters start to reap the benefit of nonexclusive contracts, organizations like the UFC will no longer have the dominance of the fighter market and will be forced to co-promote in order to put on the most compelling fights.

UFC and co-promotion (continued with MMA Payout's Adam Swift

MMA Kamander had some correspondence with Adam Swift of MMA Payout regarding the UFC and co-promotion topic. Below are some excerpts:

Kamander:

...whether or not the [Randy vs. Fedor] fight ever happens, I think the UFC should resist as long as possible from a business perspective, because:
- Zuffa could very likely keep Randy tangled up in court for a while, and time is on their side.
- M1 will have to do more then simply promote this fight, they will have to achieve a significant amount of brand recognition prior to this fight.
- Co-promoting with M1 before M1 has significant brand recognition, basically provides M1 with that recognition, and saves them a lot of money.

Now if Randy is legally allowed to fight in M1 before he's too old and M1 has become a financial threat to the UFC, then the UFC will have something to consider. But all this will take some time and Zuffa will have ample time to maneuver. Once that all happens, here are further considerations:
- If Fedor beats Randy, how does that hurt the UFC? They are basically in the same position they are in now with Nogueira as their HW champ.
- If Randy beats Fedor, Randy will have been a UFC champ, and probably won't continue to fight.

That said, all the UFC has to loose by not co-promoting Randy vs. Fedor is the proceeds from that event. Which brings me back to my original point: "the only thing that will motivate the UFC to co-promote is if they loose their status as the top promotion."

Swift:

We both agree that legitimizing a competitor is the greatest risk the UFC faces in the Couture-Fedor equation. The difference of opinion seems to be that I believe the most likely way to legitimize a competitor is by NOT co-promoting, whereas you believe that co-promotion is the legitimizer. I believe that Randy v. Fedor is a special situation because it will happen with or without the UFC. The UFC's involvement would guarantee the minimization of M-1.

UFC and co-promotion

On the Savage Dog Show, Greg was asking what it's going to take, if anything, for the UFC to co-promote with other organizations.

Adam Swift of MMA Payout wrote in his article that "co-promotion is where the sport is headed, if not this year then sometime in the not too distant future. The UFC can either lead the way or face the possibility of being left behind."

While I do agree that co-promotion is where the sport is headed, and I look forward to it's proliferation, who knows how long that will take. In the meantime, the only thing that will motivate the UFC to co-promote is if they loose their status as the top promotion. For them to co-promote before that time would be foolish. In doing so they would have little to gain and a lot to loose.

If they were to co-promote Randy vs. Fedor, or St. Pierre vs. Shields, they would simultaneously bring recognition to a competing organization, and publically risk their fighter's dominant status and therefore their promotions as well.

I fully imagine that eventually they will have no choice but to co-promote, as they will no longer have the vast majority of top fighters or market share, but they will be able to see that time coming a long way off and will have plenty of time to adjust...and I'm sure that when they do White will let everyone know how he has been trying to cross promote the whole time and do whatever it takes to put on the best fights for the fans.

P.S.

The interview with Monty Cox was really informative. He spoke to the financial complexities involved in putting together top fights.

Dream Matchup Wishlist

We all have fights we wish we could see, but will probably never happen. I put this list together off the top of my head. You can vote these fights up or down on the list and/or add your own fights to the list.

M-M-Abundance

There's a lot of talk about saturation of the MMA market. Personally, I think its clear that MMA is experiencing saturation by design. Zuffa is systematically saturating MMA fans in an attempt to preclude their watching of non Zuffa events. I watch as much MMA as I can (including UFC and WEC and Bodog and EliteXC and IFL and K-1 and HD-Net, etc.). There simply is not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything.

Zuffa intentionally provides so much MMA content, between UFC events, WEC events, Fight Nights, Wrekage, Unleashed, The Ultimate Fighter, All Access, etc, that its hard to keep up with their product much less get involved in other promotions. I'm not criticizing Zuffa. This is a very smart business strategy and I think it will be very successful for them.