UFC/Pride Middleweight Champions with least-to-most Top 10 ranked wins at Middleweight.

[midorathirdtiger]

whittaker has 8 now with the gastelum win

 

[Cowboy Kurt Angle]

So Adesanya has bumped off Whittaker now in ranked wins

 

[acannxr]

Updated Adesanya's resume and moved him to the #2 ranking.

 

[Mob69]

Vitor was ranked at MW when he fought Silva, as was Cote. There's others you missed too, and fightmatrix is not a good source for this. Try searching mmaweekly or Sherdog archives.

Sherdog rankings were the industry standard in those days. And with good reason.

 

[Substance Abuse]

Anyone find an easy way to look up Suredawgs older rankings?

 

[NoBiasJustMMA]

Anyone find an easy way to look up Suredawgs older rankings?

Nope, only way I know of is google but a lot of the time the links don't work anymore.

 

[Substance Abuse]

Nope, only way I know of is google but a lot of the time the links don't work anymore.

I was just curious if someone had. I used the route you did and I have encountered the same issues. Thanks for the reply.

 

[SixxAces]

Crazy........didn't realize Stiebling-bling was top-10 when he fought Silva...........nice research TS.

 

[Bowel-forged Stool]

Thanks TS! I love reading these. I'm really surprised that Franklin and Bisping didn't have more ranked wins. Also, wouldn't Belfort be one of Weidman's ranked wins?

T levels were too low to make top 10 after TRT ban

 

[kellier]

Firstly props on the research.

One critique would be there seems to be discrepancies in the older fighter records.

How do we evaluate the accuracy of fightmatrix records? Sherdog and MMAWeekly top 10s were typically taken as the definitive rankings

 

[BowserJr]

TS missed a few

Franklin had 1 more top 10 win vs Okami

Weidman had 1 more win vs Belfort

Silva had 3 more wins. Leites, Brunson and Belfort

Hendo had 3 more wins. Bisping, Misaki and Murilo

Luke had 1 more win vs Kennedy

I'd also like to see a list with guys that had a bunch of top 10 wins but never won the belt

Belfort, Mousasi, Machida, Romero and Jacare all had a bunch. More than some champs lol

 

[pankrat]

TS missed a few

Franklin had 1 more top 10 win vs Okami

Weidman had 1 more win vs Belfort

Silva had 3 more wins. Leites, Brunson and Belfort

Hendo had 3 more wins. Bisping, Misaki and Murilo

Luke had 1 more win vs Kennedy

I'd also like to see a list with guys that had a bunch of top 10 wins but never won the belt

Belfort, Mousasi, Machida, Romero and Jacare all had a bunch. More than some champs lol

Not sure if Okami was top10 ranked at the time.

Belfort was probably not but only because of inactivity.

Anyways, fightmatrix is bullshit

 

[Hassan Mouzine]

so vitor belfor wasnt ranked in the top ten when anderson silva beat him? oh wait, i see a shit load of other names posted as well by others.

list doesnt seem accurate

 

[Hassan Mouzine]

Dan Henderson and Belfort, if they were ranked, it was probably at LHW back then.
Lee Murray I doubt he was ranked in the top10 at all.
Thales Leites, coming off a W over Marquardt, even if controverial, I assume had to be top10 ranked though

belfort earned a title shot at middlweight against silva......he was certainly ranked.

belfort fought in both divisions but fought more at middle weight that at lhw during his second ufc stint. the list is incomplete when it comes to anderson silva and now i doubt the other resume's as well

 

[pankrat]

belfort earned a title shot at middlweight against silva......he was certainly ranked.

belfort fought in both divisions but fought more at middle weight that at lhw during his second ufc stint. the list is incomplete when it comes to anderson silva and now i doubt the other resume's as well

I agree, personally.

Just saying he wasn ranked because of inactivity. But thats the bullshit criteria of fightmatrix

 

[acannxr]

Firstly props on the research.

One critique would be there seems to be discrepancies in the older fighter records.

How do we evaluate the accuracy of fightmatrix records? Sherdog and MMAWeekly top 10s were typically taken as the definitive rankings

And Sherdog also used to have Lightweight and Welterweight rankings combined into one; you also can't even access those rankings from the late 90's/early 00's.

Franklin had 1 more top 10 win vs Okami

Okami was ranked #13.

Weidman had 1 more win vs Belfort

Belfort was removed from the rankings due to inactivity (he hadn't fought in 18 months).

belfort earned a title shot at middlweight against silva......he was certainly ranked.

belfort fought in both divisions but fought more at middle weight that at lhw during his second ufc stint. the list is incomplete when it comes to anderson silva and now i doubt the other resume's as well

Silva had 3 more wins. Leites, Brunson and Belfort

Leites was #14, Brunson was #12, and Belfort had been removed from the rankings due to inactivity (he hadn't fought at Middleweight in two years).

Hendo had 3 more wins. Bisping, Misaki and Murilo

Bisping was #11, Misaki was #28, and his first win against Bustamante was at Light Heavyweight.

Luke had 1 more win vs Kennedy

Kennedy was #12.

 

[sherdogwantedtonamemekiki]

I thought Hendo was #13 at the time of the Bisping fight?

Edit: he was


computer screen dimensions

 

[BowserJr]

And Sherdog also used to have Lightweight and Welterweight rankings combined into one; you also can't even access those rankings from the late 90's/early 00's.


Okami was ranked #13.


Belfort was removed from the rankings due to inactivity (he hadn't fought in 18 months).



Leites was #14, Brunson was #12, and Belfort had been removed from the rankings due to inactivity (he hadn't fought at Middleweight in two years).


Bisping was #11, Misaki was #28, and his first win against Bustamante was at Light Heavyweight.


Kennedy was #12.

Belfort was removed from which rankings? He fought Weidman for the belt and was #1 contender

When Belfort fought Silva he had a hell of a win streak and was undefeated at MW. Again removed from which rankings?

I'm pretty sure it was at 183 as Bustamante was the UFC 185 champ coming into Pride

Misaki was 28 after beating Hendo himself? I doubt that


Edit:
Just saw the links for the rankings... the ranking matrix needs to be adjusted. Alot of this is just way off

Props for the thread though

 

[acannxr]

I'm pretty sure it was at 183 as Bustamante was the UFC 185 champ coming into Pride

And you're wrong; their first fight was a reserve bout as part of the 205 lb Grand Prix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_in_Pride_FC#Pride_FC:_Final_Conflict_2003

Misaki was 28 after beating Hendo himself? I doubt that

Misaki was only ranked #28 when he lost to Henderson because Misaki was on just a one fight win streak against #114 Akira Shoji (and hadn't defeated Henderson yet).

For someone who claimed to be "pretty sure" over what weight two fighters competed at or had "doubt" over the ranking of an opponent, you sure do make a lot of mistakes that could've been avoided by simply looking at a couple of Wikipedia pages.

Edit:
Just saw the links for the rankings... the ranking matrix needs to be adjusted. Alot of this is just way off

So you think fighters should get to reserve their ranking after not fighting in a division for two years?

And simply saying "this is just way off" isn't an argument for why the rankings are wrong.

 

[pankrat]

So you think fighters should get to reserve their ranking after not fighting in a division for two years?

Are you asking this seriously? lol
Henderson and Belfort were regarded as legitimate #1 MW contenders at the time by absolutely every pundit, fellow fighter, promoter and Anderson Silva himself.

It's hilarious to pretend the random criteria established for a fucking algoritm is a better representation of what the reality is/was. No offense but it's the logic of a textbook online rat.