LowKick.com MMA Rankings: Five Fighters You Should Consider Moving Up or Down in Your List
Posted on January 11, 2011, 07:45 AM by Anton GurevichWith exactly two weeks away from the announcement of new LowKick.com Community MMA Rankings, it's time for a little review. For bad or for good, LowKick.com Community Rankings show the current situation in the World of Mixed Martial Arts, influenced by everything from recent performances to critique in the media.
Everyone has his own vision and criteria of who belongs in the Top 10 lists. Take the list below as a suggestion, and not as some sort of evil propaganda. But once again, I'll remind everyone that LowKick.com rankings are made by fans, for fans. It's your rankings, and your responsibility to keep them up to date.
Current rankings will be closed on January 25th.
Picture: Sherdog.com
Enjoy!
|
Moving Up
|
|
| Michihiro Omigawa (Ranked #6 in Featherweight Division) Omigawa is the first name that comes to my mind when thinking about moving someone up. The exciting Yoshida Dojo project is 8-1-1 in the past two years, defeating the likes of Marlon Sandro, Hatsu Hioki, Cole Escovedo, Nam Phan, LC Davis, Micah Miller and Hiroyuki Takaya. The fact that Hioki and Takaya are currently Champions in DREAM and Sengoku speaks for itself. Omigawa currently ranked #6, but in my opinion, anything other than Top 5 or even Top 3 for Omigawa is quite questionable. |
|
| Clay Guida (Unranked in Lightweight Division) "The Carpenter" is currently on an impressive three-fight winning streak, collecting two Submission of the Night Bonuses in process. Victories over Takanori Gomi and Rafael dos Anjos were a clear sign of Guida's intetions. Yes, Lightweight division is stacked, but I'm pretty sure there's a room in Top 10 for a fighter like the relentless "Carpenter". |
|
| Paul Daley (Ranked #9 in Welterweight Division) Daley is 3-0 since his release from the UFC, ending 2010 with a Knockout of the Year victory against Scott Smith. Similar to Omigawa, Daley is 7-1 since 2009, losing only to Josh Koscheck via Decision in the infamous UFC 113 contest. His current rank is not that bad, but somehow I feel "Semtex" is well-worth at least a #7 spot, right behind his arch-nemesis Josh Koscheck. |
|
|
Moving Down
|
|
| Wanderlei Silva (Ranked #8 in Middleweight Division) "The Axe Murderer" is negative 2-5 in the last four years, winning only against Keith Jardine and Michael Bisping. His current position as #8 Middleweight in the World is a little bit confusing. I'm a huge fan of Wanderlei Silva and have a lot of respect for his achievements as a fighter, but the fact remains the same - he is still far away from being ranked as a Top 10 Middleweight. Jorge Santiago and Robbie Lawler for example, are more than worthy to be placed on the rankings instead Wanderlei Silva. |
|
| Anthony Pettis (Ranked #4 in Lightweight Division) Yes, the "Showtime Kick" was great. But #4? Above (7-0 in the UFC) George Sotiropoulos, and Eddie Alvarez? Sotiropoulos and Alvarez faced a significantly tougher competition than Anthony Pettis, and definitely should be ranked higher than the WEC Lightweight Champ. Young "Showtime" will have plenty of opportunities to prove his worth, but he's yet to solidify his place as Top 5 Lightweight. |
|
Comments
and true about wanderlei and pettis - pettis' kick was a stunning MOMENT that was one of the most sensational seen in MMA recently, but shouldnt do much in deciding his ranking. now he's got everyones attention, competing against fighters like guida sotirolpolous etc who have already established their ability against tough opponents and then he will get a realistic ranking.
and theres just too much love for the wanderlei of old for people to take his top ten status away!
Along with Omigawa I would also add Takaya n Hioki moving up in the FW division n moving Bones Jones down in the LHW division
Im gonna use fightmatrix to aid in ranking, it just makes more sense.
Fightmatrix has Wand as number 3 MW in the world....doesnt make sense to me, Overeem being p4p makes more sense then Wand being number 3
Atleast fightmatrix uses statistics and numbers to come to their conclusions which seem pretty damned accurate, other than that. I'm sortof trying to realize how they came to that conclusion by myself.
Perhaps it's because he hasn't been defeated at that weight?? There ARE alot of submission specialists in that division, and wand has never been submitted so yea, he could potentially be that high
Guida def has to go up. The dude is a cardio machine with an iron jaw. Easily top 10, maybe hovering in the 8,9,10 mark.
Nice assessment. The only things I disagree with are the arguments for Paul Daley and Clay Guida. Daley is, IMHO, light years from entering the top ten. He is good but with the exception of Kampmann (who fought stupidly) he loses to top contenders. I don't see him ever beating any top guys. Clay Guida is great but also not top ten. In the LW division there are at least 20 guys between the UFC, SF, Bellator and Dream that are ahead of him. Like you wrote, LW is VERY stacked right now.
people really need to revise their rankings at featherweight. hioki and takaya are both currently ranked below bibi and sandro who they just beat!
also, omigawa at number 4 :D
Agree 100% That has been bothering me as well.
Id just want to say I dont think most people know much about the feather weight division. Its the youngest of the the weight classes and hasnt had as much exposure. So I think its hard for the average fan to be to educated on it without conducting some serious research.
Give it time
yeah but hopefully with this wec merger the lighter guys will get more exposure and people will become interested. the funny thing is that often it is the featherweights and bantamweights who put on the most exciting fights cus they don't get gassed out and they're much quicker and more agile than the heavier fighters.
Omigawa is easily a top 4/3 featherweight start ranking him people!!!
I currently have Guida at #9 which is fair IMO, he's on a good run atm.
I think I have Daley around the #8 spot,but he's definitely top 10. no doubt.
As much as I like Wand, he hasnt fought in a good while, and there are other fighters out there that have been more active and deserve a spot.
I have Pettis at #6 or #5 not sure, but he'll be fighting Guida next, and if he wins I think you could bump him up to top 5 IMo.
gud post
I never knew what Wandy's ufc record was, i thought he was 4-5, but then again i havent seen him fight in a while
Same thing with Overeem and Wanderlei. People vote them because they like them. Ofcourse they are both great fighters and deserve respect. But they dont understand that K-1 and MMA are completely different sports.
Overeem is great fighter in both sports, but because his K-1 HW belt, people rank him as 2010 MMA fighter of the year. Makes no sense. Same goes for his MMA rankings. He fights 2 times in a year and is "THE BEST HW FIGHTER ON A PLANET!!!"
agree with guida/wandi/pettis, no way for daley until he beats diaz, then he might scrape top10, but unless sf bulk up their ww division i'll never have him any higher than 7-10
they should get ride of overeem on the P4P ranking too, c'mon #9?
Yeah. The only HW I can see a P4P argument for is Fedor because of how dominant he has been and the fact that he is a TINY HW. The guy should really lay off the crullers and fight at MW or LHW. That is however based on MY definition of p4p. It is admittedly a pretty subjective ranking category.
Disagree with Semtex. Great striker but one dimensional. Any good grappler with decent striking is going to give him trouble, and the higher level grapplers are going to have their way with him. Pure strikers never last long as champions, if they make it that far.
It's weird how your avatar looks like a mangled fist until you look really close and then it turns out to be Big Mclargehuge. Oh, and I totally agree about Daley.
That division is all going to seem one-dimensional. GSP,Shields,Jon and josh will pretty much hug everyone else in the division that they com across. You're not going to see a pure striker as champion in that division for a loooooooooooong time. BJ penn is pretty much the only potential challenge to throw them off but he'd have to beef up his TD defense bigtime.
Still, no reason not to rank daley there
You're never going to see a PURE striker as champ in any division. No one can get by without being well rounded these days. All of the top guys that we are used to thinking of as purists are actually well rounded. Machida is a BJJ black belt and a sumo wrestler. Anderson Silva has great take down defence and is a BJJ black belt. Thiago Silva is a BJJ black belt. Thiago Alves is a BJJ brown belt and has decent wrestling. Even Gray Maynard showed that he has decent striking. The only top fighter I can think of that is pure anything is Jake Shields but he is good at using little punched and kicks to get inside for the take down and even he is making the attempt at improving his stand up.
Pretty sure we were talking about guys who regularly rely on striking to win. What, you think thaigo alves is gonna try to lnp paul daley if they fought?
pettis will prove his worth against guida.
I didn't realize how hard it was to rank fighters until I tried the ranking system here. Man so many things to consider without being bias lol.
I still think wanderlai is in the mix its to soon for me to discount him. I mean his last fight/win was against some bisping. someone id have trouble saying doesnt deserve to be on the list. I mean if you think bispings is above lawyer and santiago its kinda a shame to move wanderlai down.
all that said, wanderlais been injured and thats the main reason I hate to rank him. Id really feel better about talking this after we see him fight again.
Good point about Bisbing. I don't consider him top ten but a lot of people do. If you have Bisbing in the top ten then it is hard to argue that Wanderlai isn't.
i have been reallly impressed by guida latley especially in the gomi fight. He came in and destroyed him everywhere. I will not be suprised if he will fight for the title soon
I believe most of these rankings are based on order for a title shot.
Koscheck was #3 WW when he was #1 contender and was dropped to #6 after he lost.
Belfort, who hasn't even fought in MW in the UFC yet is #1 contender and the #2 MW based on the rankings.
wand deffinetely
Why isn't jon fitch in pound for pound and BJ is why is fedor above of velasquez but after him in heavyweight that is so stupid
I'm glad to see people have finally seen sense and taken out werdum from the top pound for pound rankings. He only just managed to submit Fedor (which was lucky as Fedor made a mistake by rushing into a bjj experts guard) and he was being ranked above BJ Penn and Cain Velasquez.