Dana White took the MMA world by surprise during his pre-fight
media scrum ahead of UFC 156, announcing that, starting next week, 90 MMA media
members will vote on who the top 10 UFC fighters in each weight division are.
Fighters may only be ranked in one weight class, and a special
“pound-for-pound” class will also be voted on. Additionally, FightMetric, the
official statistics provider of the UFC, will have input into the project,
which was completely unexpected.
It’s long been the UFC’s prerogative not to have rankings,
because it allows the company to book fights that don’t make sense “rankings
wise,” but do at the box office. So for White to completely change his mind and
introduce them is, well, surprising.
Personally, I’m not a fan of an official UFC rankings system. I think
rankings are cool to discuss and nice to look at – and boy, do they draw website traffic — but if these rankings are being created to decide fights and
who is the No. 1 contender, I’m just not sure so if it’s a good idea.
That’s not to say that I wouldn’t take part in the survey. If
the UFC invites me, of course I would be more than willing to participate, and
would look at it as an honour, as it would be recognition of the work I’ve done
covering the sport. I mean, if the UFC is dead-set on creating a rankings
system – even if I disagree with it, at least in principle – there’s no doubt
I’d like to be a part of it, because it’s not like boycotting it or ignoring
that it exists would do any good.
But do I agree with it? Not particularly.
Case in point: We’re already seeing managers on Twitter
tweeting that these rankings will give them more leverage in contract talks.
And I agree – it will, even if White insists contract negotiations won’t be any
different than they are now.
In addition, who’s to say that the 90 MMA media members
selected to participate in the survey will create fair rankings? This isn’t to
harp on my fellow journalists, but to speak the truth. We all have inherent
biases, even if we don’t want to admit them. We all have our favourite
fighters. Most of us like to root for fighters from our own country and even
though we say we’re absolutely 100 percent objective in our views, I don’t know
if it’s the case.
If the UFC was just basing the rankings off of the FightMetrics
statistics, then they could fairly say the rankings are based on numbers and
numbers alone, and I believe that would be very interesting. But to add the
media members’ opinions, it’s just going to add chaos to the controversy.
Again, that’s not to say I wouldn’t participate. Sure, it might
seem paradoxical that I don’t agree with this decision but that I’d like to be
a part of it, but if it’s going to exist, it’s better that I just accept it and
not try to ignore it. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?
The UFC rankings system is sure to create
chaos and controversy, and we’ll see how it plays out over the next few weeks
and months. If anything, it should be interesting to see how this new dynamic
changes the sport, but hopefully it doesn’t do more harm than good.
Re: "Personally, I’m not a fan of a rankings system." Aren't you already a member of a ranking panel?
The writing was on the wall that @FightMetric would have input. I'm surprised they're not running the entire UFC rankings.
Don't you think any serious leverage for managers will be negated by having rankings based on media votes?
Are individual biases really that relevant with a panel of 90?
And most importantly IMO, What about the inherent deficiencies in a purely democratic ranking system without any strict methodology & guidelines? Without a clearly communicated structure for determining how & why rankings are determined they way they are, its chaos.
Actually I do believe that would make a lot more sense to do… I'm curious to see how they balance the stats with the media's opinion.
Go look at @malkikawa's Twitter account from last night. This is Jon Jones' manager, amongst others.
90 isn't a lot of people. When/if the panel expands the biases won't be as noticeable but I believe the first instalment of these rankings will be very telling.
You're right, there will also be problems/issues in any kind of voting process, it's just up to the voters to try and mitigate them… but that's easier said than done IMO.
Manager pontificating and/or grandstanding doesn't carry much weight. Fighters that draw already have that going for them. The promotion won't make contract decisions based on on panel of media people.
But the potential impropriety is very interesting!
I think its enough to negate any personal biases. But I agree it will be telling. I'm guessing most of the panelists already take part in the production of some rankings. What I think we'll see is that the rankings won't always make sense. Is it really much different from the now defunct Bloody Elbow/USA Today consensus rankings?
I'm guessing they will start out with a vote, and also some control mechanism to not allow anything egregious. But I predict that eventually @FightMetric will simply produce the rankings all together.
That's why MMA Ratings' rankings are so good. Even though they are always subject to debate, its always within the confines of a disclosed methodology. People will obviously disagree on occasion, but the decisions and positions can always be defended in a methodical way, except in the event of an oversight, in which case they're corrected.
"because it allows the company to book fights that don’t make sense “rankings
wise,”"
I think thats going to be the best thing about it
It can be the evidence to sway matchmaking back towards sane method and away from the twitter matchmaking that is making the sport a boxing style joke these days
"In addition, who’s to say that the 90 MMA media members selected to participate in the survey will create fair rankings?"
I think its quite plain to see that most mma med
But those rankings mean absolutely nothing. These rankings will be "official" and will be plastered all over the UFC. Example: if the Canadian journalists they ask to vote all love Rory MacDonald, don't be surprised if he's ranked in the top 5 when he shouldn't be. Or, another example. the Brazilians are known to really love their fighters — don't be surprised if that's why you see a guy like Diego Nunes in the top 10 at FW when he shouldn't be. Just examples. We'll see what happens.
That's fair. I agree with some of the points you made. For instance with these rankings there's no way Chael Sonnen would get a LHW title shot… or would he still get one? Will be funny to see him not even in the top 10 of the division yet getting to fight for the title.