MMA on Tap Top 10 - September 18, 2007

Um… name a time Nick Diaz has fought at Lightweight (155)? My understanding is that he has fought once at 161 pounds against Gomi and that fight was ruled no contest.

Another query is that Aoiki is predominantly a lightweight, why is he not ranked at lightweight and can you name any fights at 170 punds?

Also, In your last top ten you have Matt Serra ranked number 2 and Matt Hughes ranked number 3… neither have fought since then, so why have the rankings between the two changed?

When’s the last time that Diaz has fought at lightweight? How about this past weekend against Mike Aina? Diaz has stated in the past that he isn’t going back to fight at welterweight until after he wins a title at a lower weight class. The fight with Gomi was ruled a no contest but it obviously showed that Diaz’s skills are legit and that Gomi may have lost a step with two losses in the past year.

We originally ranked Aoki at lightweight but then decided to move him to welterweight after finding out that he’s actually the Shooto champion in that weight class after his win over Akira Kikuchi. Aoki’s two fights at welterweight were two victories over Kikuchi, a fighter that we previously had ranked 10th at welterweight.

The swapping of Serra and Hughes was actually a change that we wanted to make last time around to fix a previous one but never got around to it.

Tito Ortiz is listed in the top 10.  Why?  Who was the last Top-10 rated fighter Ortiz had a victory over?  For that matter, when was the last time Ortiz had an impressive victory against anyone?  His Shamrock fights were a joke, he beat Cote (who was out of his own weight class), and he edged Griffin, but in a split decision.  I’m not saying he shouldn’t be there, I’m just wondering what the reasoning is.  I just don’t think he belongs in the Top 10 anymore. 

What is the plan for Fedor on this list?  If he doesn’t sign with the UFC, then presumably he won’t fight anyone else on this heavy weight list (except maybe Barnett).  How long would he stay at the top fighting people who don’t even rate?

Ortiz is barely hanging onto his spot at 10 in the light heavyweight rankings. Basically Ortiz is hanging around because he’s Tito Ortiz. If you look at our past rankings, we’ve certainly factored in Ortiz’s most recent efforts against Griffin and Shamrock as well as his loss to Chuck and his draw with Evans. He’s clearly not the same Tito anymore. However there hasn’t really been any other fighters at 205 lbs that have done enough to unseat him yet.

We also considered Nakamura, Evans, and Lambert to put in Ortiz’s place. Nakamura is coming off a loss to Shogun which normally wouldn’t be a big deal. However his past three wins after his loss to Barnett are against guys who aren’t even near the top 20 in the weight class. We probably have him somewhere in between 11-15 right now however. A win over Machida this Saturday would probably move him up and knock Ortiz out of the rankings.

Evans is on quite the run but doesn’t have the experience nor the big name win for us to be able to move him up above Tito just yet. Lambert is a good canidate but he needs to capitalize on his win over Babalu with some more solid wins.

As for Fedor, his inactivity is catching up to him. If he doesn’t fight within the next 4-6 months, he’s definitely going to have to move down.

Good lists, these are hard to make…some of the divisions are severely stacked…it’s too bad all these guys aren’t a part of the same org