One of the major issues I have had for years in MMA and especially UFC is the favoritism that is put on certain fighters for various reasons. It could be because the fighter happens to come from a particular part of the world that the MMA promotion would like to get more business from, or it could just be because one particular fighter has created a "shtick" that has an opportunity for mass appeal. Then, quite often, this fighter is given what many view as easy fights so that they can create the illusion that a run for the top world championship is justified.
The top people I am thinking of here are Ciryl Gane and more recently Paddy Pimblett. I'm not taking anything away from either of these guys but if you look at their respective "rise to the top" it is filled with a who's who of who cares and "who the hell is even that?" when you look at their competitors.
Their rise in the rankings is normally justified by a X-number of fight winning streak and they kind of glance over the fact that most of those wins were over journeymen opponents some of which are called up on very short notice.
In the case of Ciryl Gane, it was because UFC was now legal in France and well, they needed a French guy.
Well a popular website and organization that prides themselves on not being biased name tapology has created a system that has no emotions and relies only on objective information for their rankings. They have been for a while a really good source for information about all things MMA.
They have spent the past 5 years developing this system and it has a ton of variables that would have been very difficult to quantify such as something that I think is very important: The strength of the opponents they have faced in the past.
This is an important thing to consider, because just because you defeat someone that once was the champion, this doesn't mean that they were in their prime when you fought them. Sure the name recognition helps, but UFC especially will often use "the old guard" to give newer fighters a push up the charts. Defeating "Shogun" Rua meant a lot more special in 2010 than it would be in 2020 for example.
There are a lot of "tricks" that UFC uses in order to get the fights that they believe and are probably correct about, will get them the most viewers and therefore money, but Tapology isn't concerned with such things and is looking for a more objective method of compiling the data.
As it is right now, the UFC bases their rankings on media opinions and doesn't even consider anyone outside of the top 16, in order for someone to break into the top 15 they have to defeat someone that is already in it. Tapology ranks every single active fighter.
It will eliminate emotions, media bias, bias towards particular nationalities, as well as the UFC's own bosses that pretend to love the sport, but really love money.
There are a couple of caveats with this purely objective system though and one of them is last-minute additions to fights. Often, last minute fighters are jumping at something that they often didn't earn simply because nobody else is ready and willing to take a fight 5 days from now or whatever it might be. Therefore, they are often unranked or very far down the list. They, the much lower ranked fighter, is aware that their chances are very slim of victory but they view it as an opportunity to get their name out there and make the best performance that they can and hopefully draw enough attention to themselves to use this on the "CV" for future fights.
That's all fine and dandy for the unknown person but it severely damages the data of the higher ranked fighter who, despite a win, is going to lose points because of the fact that they are fighting a lessor opponent. Tapology has admitted that this is something they will have to make exceptions for but haven't yet figured out how to do it.
No matter what ends up happening with this though one thing is for certain: This system will be a wonderful companion list to keep nearby the obviously rigged UFC rankings. The Tapology system doesn't know how to be biased and therefore will be quite useful in calling out UFC's bullshit
you can check out the new ranking system here. Have a look and decide for yourself!