Saturday 24 March 2012

Who is the most dominant UFC Champion?



In the sport of MMA, where it is impossible to accurately ascertain an official pecking order due to physical constraints, fighting is usually ranked by feel. Fighter rankings will often differ from person to person, with no solid evidence to back them up. Personally, I am prone to statistical analysis. With so many differing opinions in the world, it is the one leveller. Sure there are things which cannot accurately be expressed in numbers, but on the whole they do give us another angle and can often open our eyes to that which may not immediately be apparent.

The UFC, as the number 1 MMA promotion in the world, has some truly great champions, but who is the most dominant UFC champion? Many say Anderson Silva, others GSP, and with the new era of champions staking their claims, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate such amazing fighters. I have therefore applied my ranking formulas  to the current UFC champions to determine who has been the most dominant as champion.

How I rate fighters

I apply my ranking formula to each fighter whom the champions have fought in title fights. This formula reduces a fighter to a figure based upon both their all time fight record and UFC record, at the time of their fight.

Fighters need to have fought a set number of times before their data is considered accurate. Those who have not fought enough fights (less than 6 in the UFC or 10 All time) are weighted accordingly and are unable to achieve full rating points.

How I rate the fights

After I have acquired the fighters rating (as above), I then look at the outcome of the fight. Bonuses are added to the fighter rating for KO / Submission victory, title fights and winning streaks.

IE. If fighter X is on a 5 fight winning streak and defeats fighter Y via TKO in a title fight, he will receive a higher fight rating than if he were to win via Unanimous decision against the same fighter (Y) in his first professional, non-title fight.

For the purpose of this analysis I have only counted UFC Title fights.

UFC Fighters in this analysis

Dominick "The Dominator" Cruz  (19-1) – UFC Bantamweight Champion
Jose "Scarface" Aldo (22-1) – UFC Featherweight Champion
Benson "Smooth" Henderson (18-2) – UFC Lightweight Champion
Georges St-Pierre (22-2) – UFC Welterweight Champion
Anderson Silva (31-4) – UFC Middleweight Champion
Jon Jones (15-1) – UFC Light heavyweight Champion
Junior dos Santos (14-1) – UFC Heavyweight Champion

My Statistical Analysis of UFC Champions

10: Most dominant UFC Champion - conclusion

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