Cammo's MMA Rankings

[CPT]

Yeah, with this kind of thing, I think you either go with the results or you don't. Then the Cammo part is his interpretation/weight of the results. If you start changing every decision you disagree with, it could get messy (which may be fine).

This is why I think it would be more interesting/useful to do something based on who you think would win in a matchup if they both fought tomorrow.

[Jasen777]

Getting decisions is part of the sport. And there's a case to be made that fighters (and trainers) who get undeserved decisions are able to maintain their ability to get undeserved decisions. That is, it's a repeatable skill and not all a fluke (like being "clutch" in baseball).

[CPT]

Getting decisions is part of the sport. And there's a case to be made that fighters (and trainers) who get undeserved decisions are able to maintain their ability to get undeserved decisions. That is, it's a repeatable skill and not all a fluke (like being "clutch" in baseball).

Good point. Especially in the Sanchez/Pearson case. I remember some people predicting, not even jokingly, that Sanchez would win that fight via a bad decision. If you're picking a rematch, while I'd still pick Pearson, that factors in.

[Bernman]

That's like saying flopping is part of sports. The success it leads to is not real and thus unworthy of credit. You may be able to dupe officials with it again, but that doesn't mean as fans we have to act like you aren't a phony and ignore that when it comes to ranking athletes.

In MMA, Sanchez is a phony. He just comes forward swinging at air, no-selling strikes that hit him, and he often tricks the few cageside judges who are half paying attention by doing that. He's not tricking the media or die hards with a better vantage point at home paying attention to every moment. Does that make him a better fighter to trick a small sample of people who aren't as observant? Of course not.

And Bendo is part phony. He no-sells like Sanchez, celebrates things he has no business to, and then makes his appeal to the judges at the end of the fights, to trick them into giving him every close decision. That doesn't make him a better fighter either. It makes him a con man, and making an analogy to the art industry, the type who paints pretty well but uses that skill to copy the work of great painters and then put their name on it. Not a Beltracchi-like con man who paints his original work and then puts famous painters names on it to get his just rewards. http://www.channel4.com/news/art-forgery-beltracchi-wolfgang-ernst-picasso-paraic-obrien

So yes, you should factor in real outcomes, within reason, in a ranking of best fighters. Fans who watch most fights should understand, and those who don't will be informed by your more valid rankings of the best fighters. Not the best tricksters.

[CPT]

That's like saying flopping is part of sports. The success it leads to is not real and thus unworthy of credit. You may be able to dupe officials with it again, but that doesn't mean as fans we have to act like you aren't a phony and ignore that when it comes to ranking athletes.

Yes, it is like saying that. And it's also true. Admitting that doesn't mean you approve of it, but arguing otherwise is just being willfully ignorant.

Of course we as fans are free to do with the information what we wish, but I'm sure every champion in every major sport has used flopping/embellishment to their advantage on their way to the championship. We aren't going to pretend the Spurs didn't win the title this year because Ginobili is a flopper. Their championship is real. And I'm sure Diego's win bonus was real.

Rankings are either supposed to be a descriptive measure of what has happened, or a predictive measure of what is going to happen. In an MMA contest, not some abstract concept of a "fight" or a measure of who would win a streetfight. We know there are bad judges in the sport, and we know those judges will sometimes get fooled by the likes of Sanchez, Bendo, Garcia, or fail to recognize what a fighter like Machida is doing. It would be irresponsible to ignore that information. It's a bad part of the sport that I hope changes, but until it does, it is in fact, part of the sport.

[Jasen777]

That's like saying flopping is part of sports.

And I will go to my grave thinking it cost the Mavs the 2006 title. Diving can be decisive in soccer, catchers frame pitches, holding can be called on every football play, everyone take drugs...

[Bernman]

It happening, and being enabled, doesn't make it part of the game. Flopping is against the rules and to be punished in both football and basketball. It's not against the rules to resort to gamesmanship in MMA per se, but it is in the rules to award the guy who is more effective in the striking and grappling. That's not the one getting hit but pretending he didn't, then pretending to hit the other guy. It's a fighting contest, not an acting one.

As far as every champion in other major sports resorting to flopping or embellishment, that's major hyperbole. Especially with Americans it's viewed as weak and thus deterred. Some just won't resort to it, period. Others, the opponent who lost did it even more, so it was an irrelevant factor in winning. And to me I see zero problem with embellishment because it's meant to get a call you deserve anyway. That would be a perfect analogy to the Beltracchi con man I mentioned. Conning people so they'll do the right thing when they wouldn't have if left to their flawed discretion. That type of person is a lot more plentiful than the flopper in other major sports. The dishonorable, outright flopper is a small percentage of basketball and football. Just like the guys who resort to gamesmanship as a big part of their strategy are in MMA. In other major sports flopping doesn't get rewarded in the long run because players develop reputations. In MMA unfortunately that doesn't happen as much to create justices because fights are infrequent and officials are disconnected. Therefore we have to tell the real story.

[REDDzone]

I don't really see the issue here. I have not heard of one person, not a single one, who thought Diego won that fight. Nobody. But because a few 60 year olds from his hometown marked some numbers on a scorecard, we have to pretend he actually won and rank him higher than the guy who beat his ass for 15 minutes straight?

[NZB2323]

I can buy Cammo's sloppy slope argument.

Should Bendo be ranked like he's 2-4 in his last 6 fights?

I was taught to frame balls as a baseball catcher.
The bad boys pistons would hit their opponents when the refs weren't looking and then flop when their opponents retaliates. They're still a great team. Should they not be ranked among great basketball teams?

[Jasen777]

I don't really see the issue here. I have not heard of one person, not a single one, who thought Diego won that fight. Nobody. But because a few 60 year olds from his hometown marked some numbers on a scorecard, we have to pretend he actually won and rank him higher than the guy who beat his ass for 15 minutes straight?

If the goal of a fighter is to win fights, and the goal of rankings is to say who is the best at winning fights, then the ability to influence judges should certainly be considered. If you score more points in a basketball game, you win. If the fight goes to a decision and the judges say you were better that fight, you win. What the judges say very much matters in judged sorts, MMA or figure skating.

[Cammo101]

I don't really see the issue here. I have not heard of one person, not a single one, who thought Diego won that fight. Nobody. But because a few 60 year olds from his hometown marked some numbers on a scorecard, we have to pretend he actually won and rank him higher than the guy who beat his ass for 15 minutes straight?

If the goal of a fighter is to win fights, and the goal of rankings is to say who is the best at winning fights, then the ability to influence judges should certainly be considered. If you score more points in a basketball game, you win. If the fight goes to a decision and the judges say you were better that fight, you win. What the judges say very much matters in judged sorts, MMA or figure skating.

Exactly. There are so many less cut and dry decisions that people disagree with and it gets real murky because personal biases certainly come into play, even if you try to remain objective. Every sport has examples where the team that played best didn't win, yet we don't go back and try to change those loses to wins because of lucky fumbles or bad officiating. Bad decisions are just part of the sport, like bad calls and fluke plays in other sports.

[cowboyronnie]

The flopping analogy is a good one, at least flopping in soccer. It pays-off almost unequivocally. Italian players, that MFer from Holland...there are players in large part successful because they can induce penalties on the other team. That Dutch guy actively seeks them out...and it works. If you're having to rank him (balding Dutch guy), you don't imagine a world where flopping isn't effective and rank him according to that idealized standard.

[REDDzone]

I don't really see the issue here. I have not heard of one person, not a single one, who thought Diego won that fight. Nobody. But because a few 60 year olds from his hometown marked some numbers on a scorecard, we have to pretend he actually won and rank him higher than the guy who beat his ass for 15 minutes straight?

If the goal of a fighter is to win fights, and the goal of rankings is to say who is the best at winning fights, then the ability to influence judges should certainly be considered. If you score more points in a basketball game, you win. If the fight goes to a decision and the judges say you were better that fight, you win. What the judges say very much matters in judged sorts, MMA or figure skating.

I don't think we are going to agree on this, but I would argue that mma judging is a unique beast as opposed to these other more established sports. Guys getting jobs because they are buddies with state officials. Boxing judges turned mma because state athletic commissions can't afford to make new hires. Joe Rogan telling stories of judges who have no idea what a kimura is, I mean this is so basic from whitebelt/beginner to blackbelt/expert in literally EVERY grappling art ever known to man. I wonder if ice skating has judges at the professional level that have never put on skates (seriously, IDK the answer to that)? Because mma certainly had judges that have never thrown a punch or performed an armbar.

But anyway, my entire point was, its cammo's mma rankings, so IDK why cammo couldn't rank the fighters according to who he thinks is best. If cammo really thinks Diego Sanchez is better than Ross Pearson right now...I think we may have discovered cammos true identity as Cecil Peoples.

[Cammo101]

But anyway, my entire point was, its cammo's mma rankings, so IDK why cammo couldn't rank the fighters according to who he thinks is best. If cammo really thinks Diego Sanchez is better than Ross Pearson right now...I think we may have discovered cammos true identity as Cecil Peoples.

We are all Cecil Peoples.

It's a tricky thing balancing what I think with what I can prove. I think Connor McGregor is probably a top 3 talent at FW, but I can't prove it. So while he may be ranked higher on my list than some others, I can't realistically rank him that high. There was a time when I thought Charles Oliveira was a future champion, had a ranked him as such, I'd have looked pretty silly in retrospect.

This Diego thing will work itself out when the next guy he fights kicks the crap out of him and he loses a split decision.

[REDDzone]

FWIW I don't think it should be done in a completely subjective manner. I thought Thomson beat Bendo, but I would have no issue with you having Bendo above Thomson, that was the official result and it was certainly close enough to be arguable. Same think with every Bendo fight ever, every Frankie fight ever, etc.

Its just the really terrible ones that I'm speaking of, the Leonard Garcias and the Diego Sanchez's of the world.

[UN-Owen]

I think Daniel Cormier is the 2nd best fighter at 205

[Jasen777]

I wonder if ice skating has judges at the professional level that have never put on skates (seriously, IDK the answer to that)? Because mma certainly had judges that have never thrown a punch or performed an armbar.

Well I'm not a figure skating fan at all, though I used to be a huge Olympic fanatic and would hear a lot about it even though I didn't watch it much. They had major judging reform after that scandal where the French and Russian judges got together and pulled a "you make sure my guy wins this event, we'll make sure yours wins that one" deal. There's bound to be lots of cronyism in the countries' skating federations but I don't know if they'd have judges who've never skated. Judging seems to have changed from a popularity contest (the dreaded artistic merit scores) to a points system, not unlike some I've seen for MMA (points for doing actions - since it's even a disaster in Olympic boxing there's no way they could actually do that in MMA).

But anyway, my entire point was, its cammo's mma rankings, so IDK why cammo couldn't rank the fighters according to who he thinks is best. If cammo really thinks Diego Sanchez is better than Ross Pearson right now.

Well that depends what he's trying to do with the rankings. I used to do my own mathematical model for ranking college football teams - it was meant purely to be a measure of how well a team had played, not how talented they were, not necessarily who I would pick in a game.

So what would you want from MMA rankings? Put them in order who you would pick to win a fight (as much as possible given rock paper scissors)? Or do you want a ranking of who has done the most? Or a combination? Or something else? If someone is an elite talent but has fought anyone good where to you put him? Are you ranking ability to win (including getting decisions) or some concept of goodness?

[CPT]

So I tried doing those rankings based on who I think would gather the most wins in a round robin format. I tweaked it a bit by assigning a percentage value, though the range is only really 10-90, since I gave every fighter a 1/10 chance of winning/losing any given fight. That's probably not accurate, but for this purpose, I think it's fine. I also cut it off at 20 fighters, since I figured that was plenty for a trial.

I only did HW, and as mentioned, the values assigned are pretty arbitrary. I wouldn't expect everyone to agree, but this should reflect what I think would happen if all of these fighters fought each other today. Head to head fights only matter insofar as I think the results would be consistent across another fight (i.e. Cain and JDS are 1-1, but I gave Cain a 70-30 advantage if they were to fight again tomorrow). Scores are brought down because fighters get a 0 in the spot where they would fight themselves. I'm not too familar with the Bellator HWs, so their rankings may be off.

1. Cain (82)
2. JDS (78.5)
3. Browne (71.5)
4. Werdum (67)
5. Overeem (66)
6. Miocic (60.5)
7. Bigfoot (59.5)
8. Barnett (58.5)
9. Hunt (55)
10. Nelson (51.5)
11. Minakov (41)
12. Schaub (40.5)
13. Arlovski (35)
14. Mir (34)
15. Big Nog (32.5)
16. Struve (29.5)
17. Gonzaga (24.5)
18. Volkov (24)
19. Kongo (20)
20. Oleinik (19)

I don't know if that's more accurate or not. I'll probably give it another try with a better division.

[NZB2323]

Cain is 2-1 against JDS, and Minakov seems a little too high on that list.

I know that Mir has lost 4 in a row, but I see Arlovski, Schaub, Nelson and Hunt going 0-4 agianst JDS, Cormier, Barnett, and Overeem.

I'd rank Mir a little bit higher. I'm not sure about Nelson and Hunt, but I'd for sure rank him above Arlovski and Schaub.

[CPT]

Ah, right. I think the two Cain wins just kind of blended together as one long drawn out beatdown.

Minakov did come out higher than I expected. I think in not knowing much about him, I maybe gave him extra credit over guys I think are washed up.

With Mir, it's tough, because I've never liked him and have stated pretty openly that I think he's overrated, but that's only when he's put as elite. I think he'd lose to every fighter above him on the list if they were to fight right now, even though he has a fairly convincing win over Nelson.

I think I'm higher on Schaub than most people.

I'm doing LHW now, and I'm probably going to run into similar problems. If anything, this exercise has shown me just how pointless rankings are.