What's your criteria?

I'm loving how everyone's different way of going about making their rankings come together here.

I was interested in hearing from those who rank specific fighters highly, about what criteria they use.

Guys like Tony Ferguson and Conor McGregor come to mind.

Personally, I'm hunting for strong recent records against opponents who also have strong recent records, (recent being the last 3 years for me).  I'm also looking for fighters to put in a couple of fights per year in order to be recognized as the top of the food chain.

Guys like Ferguson and McGregor don't measure up under that criteria for me, but I'm still interested in hearing what guidelines other people are using.

Peace.

So I'm someone who (when I had my LW rankings up) ranked Tony highly (in the T10) and I completely refused to rank McGregor.

Here was my thought process/bias:

- Tony: 12 fight win streak, was in the T5 LW rankings for something like 3-4 years straight. His losses are to other T10 fighters (Gaethje, Oliveira, Dariush), so when that happens I don't knock off the loser too much from the rankings, while I would then usually reward the winner by ranking them highly at that point (anywhere above T6). Other example for me is Woodley when he was in the UFC. I had him in the T10 for a really long time because of his win streak + title defenses, and he only lost to literally the best of the best. Is there bias sprinkled into this? Yes. Should there be? I'm not quite sure, since it's a fan ranking I didn't quite give a **** so that was my excuse.


- McGregor: I refuse to rank him mostly due to the insane periods of inactivity. first UFC fight at LW 2016, next one 2018, then next one after that 2021. Yes he's only lost to the very best and he's a former champion, but he only has one win and that is the championship win in 2016. I don't see how that could realistically carry him to even be a T15 ranked fighter anymore. Also his losses are all finishes, so despite Tony getting the El Cucuy beat out of him, he's still surviving better than the drunkard millionaire.

Awesome response.  Thanks.

I guess there's this underlying decay factor that you touched on.  Like, how much of history is in the equation versus what you keep adding to the resume?

You also touched on another interesting factor.  How much do losses hurt?  Like if #2 Burns loses to # X-down- the-list Chimaev, does Chimaev just get the #2 spot, or does Burns come down and they meet somewhere in the middle?

I've got mine set up so that it's often possible when a highly-ranked person loses to someone a ways down the list, that sometimes the loser of that match still stays ahead of the winner by virtue of total body of work.

This is something that is consistent with essentially every single sport, but in the world of MMA chaos, I know it's more commonplace to put every winner above the loser following their match no matter what.

Thanks again for your insight.

Gilbert Burns said it best in DC & RC. Can’t remember exact quote but was to the point of if you don’t got the belt and aren’t the champ. That ****s just a #. 

Sure, but acknowledging who has done what, where to go next, and who deserves to be in a belt-contention conversation stems from something, despite Gilbert's casual approach to it.

I'm big on rankings. Although a lot of the time they're ******** they give more legitimacy to number one contender matchups imo, and act as a clear incentive for fighters to climb. Also it helps my monkey brain remember everyone. 

If my rankings look weird its cause i never update them 

* Edited at 04.17.2022, 7:18 PM ET *

Right on, MMARanks. Fair enough. Didn’t mean to poop in your cornflakes. I used to do them in the long long ago. Enjoy fellas. 

>I guess there's this underlying decay factor that you touched on.  Like, how much of history is in the equation versus what you keep adding to the resume?


I think I let my personal bias affect my decision making too much to have a good response to this question. But I think I did try to attempt at taking a look at certain factors and assigning some sort of "value" to them. Like for example I thought it was important that Tony had the Interim-Title win on his record and win streak even though I'd say majority of fans don't give a single **** about an interim belt. Again I'm not sure if that even answers your question, sorry.

>You also touched on another interesting factor.  How much do losses hurt?  Like if #2 Burns loses to # X-down- the-list Chimaev, does Chimaev just get the #2 spot, or does Burns come down and they meet somewhere in the middle?


I think it's just up to you to decide that. It seems that almost every single person has a different way of looking at wins and losses in the sport.



>I've got mine set up so that it's often possible when a highly-ranked person loses to someone a ways down the list, that sometimes the loser of that match still stays ahead of the winner by virtue of total body of work.

Yup I completely understand. I personally went so far as to basically refuse to rank certain fighters above someone if they won a fight I didn't think they should have won, e.g. Hooker over Felder
 
>This is something that is consistent with essentially every single sport, but in the world of MMA chaos, I know it's more commonplace to put every winner above the loser following their match no matter what.


I think it's mostly due to the sport still being so young. It's officially only a few decades old, there are users on this forum who are older than the sport itself lol. So hopefully with just more time things will become more ironed out and fans become more appreciative of the history instead of just looking at everything based on what happened on the last 3-4 cards/fights.

When I did timeline , how far you want to go back vs career is good to establish. Also strength of schedule, longevity streaks last 10 fights some % and last 5 bigger %. Then intangibles like how dominate/finishes and such.