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As the first installment of what will be a continuing feature, the “Rankings Rumble” seeks to evaluate recent changes in our official top-ten divisional rankings, as well as provide some analysis of fighters that are not quite in the top-ten but are still relevant, either because they are gatekeepers to the stars or talented prospects that have a good chance of being ranked one day.
Our rankings contribute to the Independent World MMA Rankings as well as the USA TODAY / SB Nation Consensus MMA Rankings and generally conform to the standards set out by the IWMMAR guidelines, with the exception of athletic commission suspensions not disqualifying fighters from eligibility, due to the fact that venue strongly affects this, independent of a fighter’s actions (e.g. Japanese promotions don’t test for PEDs).
Bantamweight Bumbles
The biggest shake-up happened in MMA’s smallest mainstream division, as literally half of the division’s top-ten fighters saw action recently in the WEC organization. This is a division that is still in its infancy, so it should be no surprise to see fighters that were seen as long-term champions being completely stomped (Torres, Bowles). When the dust settled, the top of the division looked like this:
#1 Dominick Cruz (15-1) .
#2 Scott Jorgensen (9-3)
#3 Joseph Benavidez (12-1)
#4 Masakatsu Ueda (10-0-2)
#5 Brian Bowles (8-1) .
The relevant changes were:
Cruz moved to #1 from #5.
Jorgensen moved to #2 from #3.
Benavidez moved to #3 from #7.
Bowles and Torres fell from #1 and #2 to #5 and #6, respectively.
The bantamweight strap changed hands yet again as Dominick Cruz easily handled a very confused-looking Brian Bowles. Bowles, who had absolutely stomped his way to the top of the division with a series of dominant finishes, looked very uncomfortable and frustrated in the first fight he came up against significant resistance in. This is not surprising, as Bowles was a very inexperienced fighter for a champion (a byproduct of the youth of the division) and had done so with a relatively limited bag of tricks: flooring opponents with big power punches or quickly locking on a guillotine. There is plenty of time for a very young Bowles to improve his game and come up with ways to deal with fighters that aren’t easy to put big power punches on, provided he can overcome the hand injuries that have marred his last two fights.
Cruz looked very impressive, with his constant movement and ring generalship, looking as if he had a massive reach advantage on Bowles when the champion actually had the longer wingspan. However, there is a massive difference between the kind of movement Cruz was using and what someone like an Anderson Silva or Lyoto Machida does. While effective, Cruz’s movement was simply random flitting from position to position, keeping an opponent off-balance by presenting a multitude of different looks, but committing to a movement regardless of his opponent’s actions. This made most of Bowles’ strikes miss, as Bowles had trouble predicting where Cruz was coming from, but it also had Cruz walk into several strikes when Bowles guessed correctly, since he was not reacting to Bowles’ movements. An Anderson Silva or Lyoto Machida, on the other hand, forces the opponent to miss reactively, by timing and moving out of the way of an incoming attack with a motion specifically designed to slip (Silva) or parry (Machida) that particular strike. While Silva and Machida’s skills are more universally applicable, Cruz’s unpredictable motion will get him in trouble against an opponent with better timing or accuracy than Bowles, as Cruz will commit to moves that will walk him directly into a strike. The other big weakness of Cruz’s constant motion is that because he never plants his feet, he can never really get his hips into a punch, robbing himself of power. While he was landing repeatedly and cleanly on Bowles, he didn’t look that close to getting him out of there if it wasn’t for the injury. Cruz does have power when he actually plants, as he has to in order to throw those leg kicks, which were clearly his most damaging weapon.
That said, Cruz does have the ability to fight with a reach far beyond his wingspan, which will serve him well in a division of tiny fighters, and he can back it up with the wrestling that threw Benavidez off his game in their fight. What Cruz should be gameplanning for as he recovers from a busted hand is the superior wrestling and powerful, accurate boxing of Scott Jorgensen, as that is a very bad style matchup for the new champ.
The attributes that won Cruz his title were exactly what Miguel Torres failed to utilize in his crushing loss to mighty mite Joseph Benavidez. Benavidez is clearly cut out for the 125 division, yet Torres made no use of his length and dangerous jab at all. This isn’t a case where a fighter just can’t use his reach, as in Alistair Overeem’s never-ending quest to close the distance and clinch with fighters half a head shorter than him. Torres has clearly shown in the past that he has the game to absolutely punish opponents with a stiff and brutal jab when he chooses to, but since murdering Manny Tapia with that jab, Torres has shelved in in lieu of short-range gunfighting with furious hooks, letting shorter opponents (which is basically everyone in his division) go punch for punch with him.
Something about the fight with Benavidez seemed to unsettle Torres, as he never looked to get into a groove and fight comfortably. He was hesitant and continually making poor choices, perhaps as a result of some post-knockout jitters leftover from the brutal Bowles loss.
Benavidez, while he was very impressive, didn’t show much we hadn’t already seen. The man is very, very fast, noticeably quicker than opponents in a division full of very quick athletes. He is a good wrestler and fantastic in a scramble. The one new wrinkle was some aggressive and damaging ground-and-pound. Miguel Torres doesn’t play a defensive guard, but to be able to cut through his submission attempts and stay on the offensive on top is pretty impressive. Torres is a very handsome feather in Benavidez’s cap, but Joseph is still too small for the division and not a good enough wrestler to make up for that against opponents that have a high-level wrestling game. There’s little reason to expect anything new from a Cruz/Benavidez rematch.
Indeed, the most intruiging challenger for Cruz would have to be the young gun Scott Jorgensen, who has been completely ripping it up since his dubious decision loss to Antonio Banuelos. Jorgensen showed he has the maturity and development to be an elite fighter in this division against Takeya Mizugaki, and while Chad George was set up to get squashed, Jorgensen did show a little bit more of his game. In an interview with Sherdog’s Jordan Breen, Jorgensen talked a little bit about his preference for the front-headlock position, as it was a position he was very comfortable with in his wrestling days and had adapted to his MMA grappling game. Jorgensen has shown aptitude with this front-headlock series before, setting up a crushing Cromado style guillotine in a throwback to Marcio Barbosa, and against George Scott set up yet another guillotine variation, crushing the windpipe with a ten-finger guillotine in homage to another king of the front-choke, Pequeno Nogueira. The fact that this guy can tear most opponents up on the feet and then transition perfectly into setting up proven finishing holds when they shoot in on him to escape his hands has to give someone like Dominick Cruz pause. Expect Jorgensen to be kicking around the top of this division for a while.
Heavyweight Humbled
A surprisingly one-sided fight at UFC 110 saw Cain Velasquez pick up the biggest win of his career, putting a star on his very thin resume and moving from #9 to #6 in the division, on the back of the legendary Minotauro, who fell from #3 to #7.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is done as an elite, best-of-the-best fighter. Heavyweight is a notoriously under-skilled and thin division, so even a faded great can still kick around a top-ten list for a long while, but some of what made Nogueira great is gone now. When Nog was the best in the world, or second banana to Fedor, his ground game was his bread and butter, but his boxing was what made everything come together, as very few other heavyweights had any kind of polished striking, letting Nog control the fight wherever it took place (a skill he needed with his lacking wrestling chops). However, with the level of competition increasing over the years as Nog’s reflexes slowed down, you can expect more fighters to be able to beat him to the punch and bust him up exactly like Mir and Cain did.
Velasquez is almost certainly a better fighter than several of those ranked ahead of him, but Nogueira is better than everyone else on Velasquez’s hit list put together. He will have to pick up more wins over high-level fighters to move ahead of opponents that have been repeatedly tested against elite fighters.
While it’s sad to see Nogueira fall, at least his defeat will be a very heavy tombstone on top of all the talk of Cain not having any power in his hands. In a division infamous for its lack of athleticism, Velasquez’s speed and cardio alone are a huge threat to many fighters, leaving aside his ability to cuisinart opponents on the floor. Even if a Brock Lesnar or Frank Mir hits harder than Cain, his cardio and wrestling means he could choose to wrestle with them until the second or third round, when they will be sucking wind and he can still box at full speed and power. Expect Cain to be wearing the belt by the end of the year.
Shane Carwin dropped off of the top ten due to 12 months of inactivity, allowing the suspiciously large Alistair Overeem to sneak into the ten spot on a very spotty resume of also-rans, has-beens, and never-wases.
At Sengoku 12, Marlon Sandro’s crushing KO bumped him from #8 to #7, in reflection of the number of seconds it took him to remove his opponent from this plane of existence. There’s been a lot of talk about Sandro’s natural power, but that punch looked like something from an instructional video. It was completely perfect, with Sandro’s hips providing an obscene amount of torque to the blow. Sandro has the ground game to compete with almost anyone in the division, and while he still isn’t elite technically on the feet, everyone that steps in with him has to respect his power, making him yet another elite fighter from Nova Uniao. Forget Greg Jackson, Andre Pederneiras is the real Yoda of MMA.
Speaking of the genius coach that can’t seem to control his wayward fighters, Leonard Garcia utterly failed against George Roop, falling victim to the same weaknesses that have been killing him. This is only the latest in a long series of abject failures from Garcia, and has seen the naturally gifted, incredibly tough, heavy-handed, and nearly submission-proof fighter fall completely out of the top ten, with little indication he will ever work on the holes in his game (most notably his ineffective windmilling and porous takedown defense) and compete at the level he is physically capable of.
Two other featherweights moved closer to the top ten with impressive grappling displays, as Javier Vazquez delivered the kind of aggressive submission attack fans have come to expect from him against a hapless Jens Pulver, while Fredson Paixao completely dominated Courtney Buck. Both of these fighters are in the small pond of the WEC, and so they are only a fight or two away from the top, and both have the skills on top of their lethal grappling to compete with top-ten fighters, as Paixao has a rock for a head and Vazquez has legitimate striking ability. Both are older fighters, but still around their competitive peaks.
Jens Pulver doesn’t have it anymore. The less we talk about this, the better everyone will feel.
Karen Darabedyan lost much of his forward momentum with a deflating loss to Bart Palaszewski in a fight he should have won. Bart is a very tough guy, and Karen tested that toughness to the limit with a severe pounding. Karen has all the pieces to put together to be an elite fighter, but he simply cannot leave his arm posted like that, which was really a very rookie kind of mistake to make.
Also at Sengoku, Jorge Santiago moved up a notch, from #9 to #8, in avenging his emasculating loss to Polish bruiser Mahmed Khalidov. Santiago showed all of the talent that makes his horrible chin such a tragedy. He has an elite offensive game on the feet and on the mat, from any position, but he cannot take substantial punishment. In this fight, he didn’t have to endure much more than a few instances of heavy ground and pound, which were still touch-and-go for Santiago. Jorge relied on his grappling throughout this fight, frustrating Khalidov in every position and continually threatening. Santiago had a reputation for poor cardio, but he has apparently fixed that, fighting five strong rounds on two occasions in his last three fights. Santiago has patched up that problem, although there’s still nothing to be done to strengthen his chin, he did a good job of covering up that weakness by never allowing himself to get hit.
Khalidov, for his part, met Santiago’s attempts to avoid punishment halfway by completely lacking a gameplan, fighting with no strategy beyond a bunch of wild heavy strikes in hopes that enough thrown at the wall would eventually stick to Santiago’s iffy chin. It’s almost as if he read the MMA Ratings prediction for this fight and thought it was destiny rather than something he’d have to earn. The key for Khalidov now will be to get some real high-level training to match his natural skills rather than to fall into the void of irrelevance and poor preparation that seems to suck in some Eastern European fighters like Sergei Kharitonov or Alexander Emelianenko.
Miscellany
The ever-mercurial Quinton Jackson dropped out of the top ten rankings at 205lbs for the first time in nearly a decade, due to 12 months of inactivity, letting the evergreen Randy Couture sneak into top-ten relevance yet again.
What is the deal with Keith Jardine’s right hand? It orbits around his head like a moon rather than staying up to protect him from the left hooks that have been knocking him out over and over again. Jardine actually moved away from Bader’s right-handed punches pretty well, but Bader could have ended this fight in the first round if he hadn’t been so determined to land the overhand right and thrown some lefts. How has Greg Jackson not fixed this yet? If you want a potential explanation, consider that Jardine’s primary sparring partner is Rashad Evans, who is incapable of punching with his left hand and instead relies entirely on his very effective right. As a wise man once said, practice makes permanent.
