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MMAFrenzy Lightweight Rankings 10/15
By Chris Leslie on October 19, 2012
MMAFrenzy is debuting our first official rankings this week. Be sure to check out our previous flyweight rankings, bantamweight rankings, and featherweight rankings. Stay tuned to our future rankings. The rankings were created by each of our staff ranking fighters 1-10 and then taking an average of the scores to establish the final ranking for the fighters. Be sure to tune in for our welterweight rankings tomorrow.
MMAFrenzy Lightweight Rankings
Photos courtesy of the UFC
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Thought Alvarez would be a little higher, but I like them good rankings. No honorable mention for Melvin Guillard? With some of the names in honorable mention I would of still gave him an honorable even though he did get ko’d by cowboy.
Can’t rank Alvarez over Chandler. Guillard is 1-3 in his last four fights and may be fighting for his UFC career in his next bout.
Melvin Might be 1-3 in his last four but they are against Jim Miller, Cowboy, and joe Lauzon.There is no way I could see Melvin losing to Alvarez if they ever fought.
Melvin and Jim Miller should def. be on this list they have both been fighting in the UFC for a long time and they have only ever lost to extremeley high level guys in the division. Its not fair to put guys like Rick Hawn and Eddie Alvarez ahead of them because they never have to fight top level guys fight after fight they might get one or two really good opponents in those other promotions but even they are usually not UFC level. If Alvarez comes into the UFC guarunteed he will have a couple of losses to high level guys if he works his way up the ladder.
I really wanna know why Melendez is rated so high in peoples books. I mean in what universe had he proved he’s really ahead of all those fighters? He doesn’t have one good recent win. His only signature win is a SD over Guida years ago. He looked average against Masvidal and Thomson and that’s about as high as I can consider him until he beats a true contender.
I’m assuming you left Edgar off since he dropped, but he’s still hands down minimally the #2 lw in the world so why not keep him on there?
Jim Miller off this list is a shocking outpoint, as is having jlau on. Rick Hawn may be the next big thing, but can’t be ranked higher than miller either.
I know its kinda funny, Chandler’s best win is over a guy who we just HAVE to consider a top 10, so we make him 7. But then Alvarez best win is over a guy we decide is the 7th best so we make him 10 haha. I prob would’ve done the same thing.
I mean I realize this is the most stacked division and these things are purely speculative, but come on! Lol no but good job and thanks.
Here’s my top 10:
1a. Henderson
1b. Edgar
3. Diaz
4. Pettis
5. Cowboy
6. Maynard
7. Guida
8. Chandler
9. Miller
10. Alvarez
Mentions: Melendez, volkmann, jlau, Guillard
Edgar’s drop is permanent at this point, hence why he leaves the list
@devin Atleast you mentions guillard. He has only lost to top guys and miller and cowboy he had them beat but made a mistake like he always does.
But I also don’t know how you have guida ranked also though. He should be mentioned but he is dropping so idk
Jim Miller should definitely be on the list. The only 2 people he lost 2 in the last 2 years was the champion and the challenger.
I agree with @devin about Melendez.
@big_hurt
Well if were leaving off fws then I guess he’s off, but Guida has wins over Diaz and Pettis and got robbed against Maynard IMO so I def think he’s top 10, but its just my IMO.
I love Guillard but until he actually beats a top 10 I can’t put him on there. He’s like the Bonnar of lw? :D
@five-alive truth. He’s so solid I’d hate to see him never get a title shot. I wonder if he could swing a drop to 145
I agree with guida he did beat Maynard just wasn’t exciting as people thought it would be. With guillard I just wanted a mention which I think he deserves.
Let me see if I can clear things up for you guys. There’s a huge difference between rankings and ratings of fighters. Best example I can think off is in college football, UGA a few weeks ago was ranked in the top 10 (and they should be, though I despise them) and then they were blown out by South Carolina (also a top ten team), so they fell out of the top 10 in the rankings. Does that mean they’re not one of the top teams in the country? No, not at all, but the performance in that game drops them out for now.
It’s the same for Miller. Miller got votes – that’s why he’s mentioned above – but both of his losses have been blowout losses. Regardless of who they were against, they were brutal beatings. With everyone else’s positive performances, it caused him to slide a bit. As a matter of fact, he only finished .5 behind Hawn.
To be honest, Miller may have been screwed the most over the years, to the point where he now will likely never get a title shot at lightweight because he spent his best years toiling away on the undercards and the younger crop is so talented that they’re passing him by now. His next fight will decide a lot on where he goes.
As for Guillard, is he exciting? Extremely. Is he talened? No question. Is he 1-3 with an ugly win, 3 brutal losses, and having missed the 155 limit in his last fight? Yeah, that drops him off the list and he didn’t receive a vote, which left him off the mentions list.
Now here’s the thing, these are rankings… which means they’re subject to change pending someone else losing or winning. Just because someone isn’t on there now, doesn’t mean they won’t be on there after 154. Lightweight is the toughest division in MMA to rank because it’s one of the most populated divisions across all promotions (with welterweight being right up there).
Your analogy to collegiate football would work except that in your mma rankings you have competitors from different promotions, isn’t putting a Rick Hawn on there above guys like Miller and Guillard like putting an undefeated division 2 school ahead of UGA because UGA has one loss but the division 2 school is undefeated. They have completely different rankings for division 2 right?
Yeah but for all we know Rick Hawn could beat Henderson. I mean its at least feasible. But in no universe could the best division 1a team ever beat the best division 1 team. So i dinner think there is a parallel there.
I see where you’re going with the ratings and ranking thing Chris, and it is all really subjective at the end of the day, so its almost pointless to really dissect it too much. I get that miller had two bad losses, and that drops his ranking, but Maynard’s last two fights were a ko loss and a weak sd that he sucked out over Guida. Both guys who are now at 145. But we know that he can still beat most of the top ten, and hence is still highly rated, and hence is still highly ranked. So the same could be said about miller. Aside from those two losses, to the cream if the crop, we know that he dominates almost every other lw on the planet, and has. But anyway, I get it, Hawn is on a run and potentially we haven’t even seen how good he could be, and so is currently therefore rated higher. And you guys had miller literally in 11th, so honestly its dissecting hairs at this point.
I totally agree about miller, the dude had some pretty tough luck. What do you think about him moving to 45?
It is feasible that ANBODY in the world that can throw a punch could beat any other man in the world(especially if they are a trained fighter). My point is that they compete against 2 completely different levels of opposition its not fair to have them in the same rankings.
good, except that cerrone and pettis should be above maynard
Not true. Apparently spider cannot be beaten. Your example still doesn’t make sense because radius fighters could eventually fight, and would compete and the lower division schools will never play or beat the top 10 in division 1.
The only point I was trying to make with the whole football argument was that you can’t rank competitors together if they are competing against not only two different levels of competition but in two entirely autonomus organizations. These fighters could go into the UFC one day but they aren’t there right now and they might never be. Schools and there football teams have changed divisions before and plus Appalachia State beat Michigan a few years back and Michigan was a relevant team in Div. 1.
Whens the welterweight rankings coming?
Some time today. Computer died Friday, just got it back last night.