MMA Needs The BCS

The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) ranking system of college football is a fascinating, technical system.  Teams are ranked not only according to overall record but also according to strength of schedule (along with other variables). 

For example, a team may carry an 11-0 record at the end of the football season and be ranked lower than a team with a 9-2 win-loss tally.  Why? The team with two losses may have succumbed to the strongest teams in the nation, while the team with the spotless record may only have victories over teams with losing records.

A BCS-type system might be useful for MMA rankings.  What if we considered a fighter not only based on his record, but also on his opponent's record? Most writers intuitively do this anyway.  However, with a formal "BCS" system, fans could simultaneously compare active and retired fighters and assign a numerical value to their respective careers.

To do this, first, we'll need a point system:

4 points for each victory which ends in TKO, KO or submission
3 points for each victory by decision
2 points for each victory by TKO, KO or submission over an opponent with a negative average
1 point for each victory by decision over  an opponent with a negative average
0 points for each draw
-1 point for each draw with  an opponent with a negative average
-1 point for each loss by split decision
-2 points for each loss by decision or loss by DQ
-3 points for each loss by decision  to an opponent with a negative average
-4 points for loss by TKO, KO or submission
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+1 point for a decision victory over an previous opponent who won (revenge match against positively ranked opponent)
+2 points for a TKO, KO or submission victory over an previous opponent who won (revenge match against positively ranked opponent)

Finally, remove the fight with lowest points and the fight with the highest points and divide the total by the number of fights remaining.

To try our new system, let's grade two legendary fighters:  Rickson Gracie and Anderson Silva.

Rickson Gracie has a record of 11-0 in formal, mixed martial arts competitions.  His eleven wins have come entirely by submission.  With this system, after removing the "top and bottom" fights,  Gracie has a possible 36 points for 9 victories for a potential average rating of 4.  However, with nine of eleven victories coming against opponents with negative averages, Gracie's final average is 2.22—nearly half of his potential average.

Anderson Silva sits atop most pound-for-pound lists.  How does his 23-4 record compare to Rickson Gracie's perfect record?  If we remove his loss to Daiju Takase via submission and his last victory over Patrick Cote, Silva has 25 fights for a possible point total of 83 and a potential average of 3.32.  Actual?  2.36.   His average is low(er) because in his first 12 fights, he only had 2 quality wins (Hayoto Sukurai and Carlos Newton).  However, If you take only Silva's last 15 fights, his average balloons to 2.8.

Like college football's BCS, we need a human element.  The human element helps us determine the intangible variables of fight results like age, fighting conditions and experience.   With writer's input, we can select the peak years of a fighter's career, eliminating the early fights of inexperience and the late fights of age and injury. 

How do your favorite fighters compare?  What is their average?  Select a fighter and determine a point value for each fight by comparing the opponents records' and opponents.  For each opponent, determine whether the fighter has a negative or positive average.   After figuring his/her average, try selecting a range of consecutive fights and finding that average.

Start with Sherdog's Fight Finder.

Have fun.  If you have a better system, leave a comment.