MMAWeekly released their updated World Rankings today, and I'm not sure whether to be shocked or not. After the outcome of UFC 91, it seems obvious that Brock Lesnar would have to be ranked as a heavyweight. It's a no-brainer to me...he just won the most prestigious Heavyweight title in MMA and beat a legend in the process.

Oh, he made the list all right. At number 10.

This post isn't going to argue where Brock Lesnar's place should be on this list. Some people could have him as high as 3rd, some still think a guy that's 3-1 doesn't deserve to be on there at all, title or not. Fair enough. My question has more to do with how this ranking compares to a somewhat similar situation about a year and a half ago. When Matt Serra upset Georges St. Pierre for the welterweight championship. After examining the facts, it seems like there's something wrong here.

Lesnar, coming off the loss to Frank Mir, picked up one win and earned a title shot. In terms of sanctioned fights, Serra did the same. Coming off a loss to Karo Parisyan, he barely beat Chris Lytle to earn the shot by winning TUF 4. Lesnar was 2-1 at the time of his shot, Serra 8-4. Both were unranked going into their title fights, and both hadn't exactly earned their shots through conventional means (ie. beating the top fighters in the divsion). Both won the title by TKO. Lesnar was actually the favorite in his fight, Serra a huge underdog.

The aftermath? Lesnar enters the rankings at number 10, five spots below the guy he just beat. Serra?

Straight to number 1. Ahead of the guy he just beat.

I know that rankings are extremely subjective. Should they be based on a body of work? Should a guy that holds a win over another automatically be ranked higher? I have no idea, and the amount of parity and unpredictability in the sport makes it even harder to figure out. I do know this though. There's a huge disparity between how these two situations were handled, rankings-wise. Is Lesnar being disrespected? Was Serra getting too much love?

What do you think?

Comment and Discuss

Posted by Tim Burke at 5:29 PM

Print Friendly · Digg it · del.icio.us · StumbleUpon · Netscape

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.festeringass.com/mt/mt-tb.fcgi/2767