I'll Hit It! 8.15.07: Who's #1? Who Cares?
Posted by Don Abato on 08.15.2007
The MMA top ten rankings from your favorite MMA websites are about as relevant to the sport as David Letterman's nightly top ten list, regardless of the subject. That's what 411's Don Abato believes. He doesn't have a list of reasons, but just some quick points. The less time he spends on discussing MMA rankings the better.
People love to make their lists now-a-days. Actually, lists have long been a part of human thought, so to say those who walked the Earth before us didn't enjoy and benefit from their lists would be wrong. Lists are a great tool in helping us organize our thoughts and ideas. I can call lists a "great tool" from first hand experience, and I'm sure your experiences are the same.
I'm going to cut to the chase and say it: I LOVE LISTS!
I realize my little exclamation kind of sounded Brick Tamland-esque. Don't get the refrence? Well Brick is a character in the comedy "Anchorman" played by Steve Carrell. Some would characterize Brick as mentally slower, a person who probably rode the "special" bus to school in his younger days. My declaration of "I LOVE LISTS" is similiar to Brick's "I love lamp" line in the movie. By the way, "Anchorman" is somewhere on my top ten list of favorite comedies. While it's not in the same class as "Caddyshack" or the new release "Superbad" it will still make you laugh.
Money Magazine just put out its annual list of best places to live in America. It's a list readers take seriously because the staff at Money Magazine created and analyzed criteria in several catergories and managed to use the findings to determine which cities would place high. It's a good list because there's an agreed upon set of factors to consider and it applies to all the cities considered.
Money Mag is definitely in my list of top ten favorite magazines because they put out rankings on so many financial subjects like best companies to work for and best car values.
The box office rankings are also a good list. I like the list because it tells me which films did well from a money standpoint. Easy enough to determine this list because you just look at the total gross the film took in. Doesn't get any easier than that.
But then we have mixed martial arts rankings. Boy do we have a big problem here. How do you hold all the fighters to any kind of standard when they're all fighting in different organizations. College basketball and football have panels which vote on the top 30 teams despite the fact all the schools are spread among several different leagues. The polling seems to do well for them, why not MMA?
It does't work because we do not yet have a single determining statistic measuring the ability of a combat athlete. We could look at records, but that doesn't immediately tell us quality of opponents, fighter activity or fighter efficiancy.
MMA rankings are like the "who's hot/who's ugly" list the gossippers in high school piece together and talk about. Chaotic debate ensues because it's all so subjective it's impossible to reach a consensus. It's a waste of time.
The reality is MMA rankings are really irrelavant to the current world of fighting because the combatants are spread over different organizations. All the major promotions have their top fighters locked in exclusive deals where they cannot fight under the banner of a competing organization. If the best of the best are not going to fight each other what purpose do world rankings serve?
MMA rankings are a definite top five-er in my list of things I dislike.
I know I declared my heart for lists moments ago, but I can't rationalize the need for a world rankings list in the sport of MMA. My final verdict: I LOVE LISTS, FOR THE MOST PART! JUST KEEP THEM OUT OF MMA FOR NOW. LOUD NOISES. I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE SHOUTING!
