Since the UFC acquired PRIDE FC, it was inevitable that one day the UFC would essentially become synonymous with the highest levels of MMA. And by and large — Bellator’s strides on Spike notwithstanding — that has become the case. When you look at Top 10 rankings of major MMA outlets (or Top 15 in the case of MMA Ratings), nearly every fighter who appears on those lists fights in the UFC.
The UFC has recently introduced its own rankings system, but the lack of any real methodology allows for those lists to overly reflect the whims of prospective matchmaking more so than the outcomes of past fights creating a hierarchy of accomplishment. The same can be said for “pound-for-pound” lists, which too often become an aesthetic or subjective assessment of “how” fighters do their business in the cage. However, it is undeniable that regardless of the limitations of our assessment tools, the dominance of elite fighters is at an all-time high, even if we have difficulties determining what “elite” means.
Against that backdrop, the idea of defining “cleaning out a division” began to take root. Would it be possible for the top-ranked fighter in a given weight class to sweep the remainder of the Top 10? Not “Top 10 when they fought,” but Top 10 right now? It would have to take a special fighter to defeat nine fighters who themselves went on to win enough fights to hold onto their own respective rankings. I decided to call that the “Total Flush.”
Who knows if we’ll ever see the confluence of events that will lead to a fighter attaining a Total Flush. However, given that we generally consider the top half of the top 10 to be “the elite of the elite,” it would be both possible and commendable for a fighter to defeat the 5 men (or women) directly below him (or her) in the rankings. That, I termed the Straight Flush. To date, I don’t think it has ever been accomplished. However, if you look at the championship pictures of the nine UFC weight classes, you’d see that most are far off, but a few are within reach:
At heavyweight, Cain Velasquez has defeated two of the five men ranked directly below him, and one of those men is training partner Daniel Cormier, who he has said he will never fight. However, Cormier may leave the weight class, opening the door to another potential opponent fighting his way up into the Top 5 and being defeated.
Surprisingly, for all of Jon Jones‘ dominance at 205 pounds, he too has defeated only two of the next five fighters ranked below him, though he can raise that total to three with a defeat of Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 165 (so let’s go ahead and call it three now). However, with Lyoto Machida moving down to middleweight, Jones may soon find himself in need of a more aggressive fighting schedule to attain the Straight Flush. (It should be mentioned that with a win next weekend, Jones will have 5 of the 9 wins necessary to attain a Total Flush, quite the accomplishment in its own right.)
Chris Weidman only has two Straight Flush wins, but the former champion Anderson Silva only has one. Given his record of longstanding dominance in the UFC, that’s quite shocking. Another shock is that the longtime pound-for-pound stalwart Georges St. Pierre also only has one, while his challenger, Johny Hendricks, has two. If “The Big Rigg” can defeat GSP at UFC 167, he will acquire a third, and GSP’s Tri-Star training mate Rory MacDonald would be in play for him in a way that it wouldn’t be for “Rush.”
The next two weight classes are confounded by Top 5 fighters being in Bellator. Anthony Pettis currently only has one lightweight victim in Benson Henderson, but will likely never have the opportunity to face Eddie Alvarez or Michael Chandler while they retain top-tier status. Jose Aldo has defeated Chad Mendes, Frankie Edgar, and Cub Swanson at 145, but Pat Curran won’t be leaving Bellator anytime soon, and so the fifth win will likely elude him.
Ronda Rousey has only acquired two of the scalps she needs, but among the ranks of the men, bantamweight and flyweight are very intriguing. Right now, UFC Interim Bantamweight Champion Renan Barão has defeated four of the six fighters ranked below him, and faces a fifth at UFC 165 in Eddie Wineland. However, the “official” bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, unranked due to inactivity, will likely get a shot at Barao before Raphael Assunção, who would be the final piece of the Flush, if the interim champion prevails in his next outing. However, a win against Cruz might be enough to do it, depending on where he is ranked afterwards.
As for 125, Demetrious Johnson has ticked off wins against #2, #3, #4, and #6, but Jussier Formiga is coming off a disappointing loss, and likely won’t get a shot at DJ anytime soon. For “Mighty Mouse” to complete the Flush, he’ll need either Darrell Montague or Tim Elliot to win his way up to the Top 5 so that he can defeat the challenger, while the remainder of his Top 5 victims continue to win fights to retain their respective rankings. Johnson’s predicament only goes to show how difficult the Straight Flush is to attain, even having come so close to completing it.
With so much volatility at the highest level of MMA, the idea of “cleaning out” a division is a constantly moving target. However, the ideas of the Total and Straight Flush are useful tools in assessing not only how much a fighter has done with regard to divisional accomplishment, but how good the fighters on his or her resume actually are. Defeating elite opponents who themselves are defeating elite opponents can only solidify a fighter’s claim to being the most accomplished fighter at a given moment, and when you assess fighters’ entire careers, adding up those moments lets you know how tall the sport’s giants actually stood over their peers.
