The Doggy Bag: Ranking Injustice
Ranking Injustice
Sherdog.com Staff Feb 15, 2009
Everyone answers to somebody, so we, the staff at Sherdog.com, have
decided to defer to our readers.
“The Doggy Bag” gives you the opportunity to speak about what’s on your mind from time to time.
Our reporters, columnists, radio hosts, and editors will chime in
with our answers and thoughts, so keep the emails coming.
This week, readers weigh-in in a wide range of topics, including Sherdog.com’s pound-for-pound rankings, Russian mystery man Sergei Kharitonov and January’s best.
Ranking Injustice
I recently argued that the winner of Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn would have to be the pound-for-pound king because they would have a win over another P4P favorite, but I was hit with an argument for Fedor Emelianenko.
First, the problem with P4P is that it is a complete "what if" they were the same weight type of question. Penn hurts his P4P status by throwing "what if" to the side and fighting whoever at whatever weight. "What if" Penn and GSP were the same size?
"Would" GSP be able to hold down a legit-sized welterweight with Penn’s talent? "What if" the fight was at 155? I always think "what if," and I enjoy playing Joe Silva and matching up guys like every other MMA fan and then I was hit with the challenge of throwing out the "what if."
Fedor has never been "caught" in a submission or knocked out. He has never looked past an opponent or made the mistake of not training properly. So why isn't Fedor #1? How are Anderson Silva and St. Pierre ahead of him?
-- Sean D. Llamas
Jason Probst, columnist: Good question. When popularized as a concept by RING magazine's Nat Fleischer, P4P was designed to create a concept of the best fighter in the world, provided everyone was, in this theoretical place, the exact same fighting weight and size. I always took it a step further and "proportionalized" it to P4P status before analysis. Therefore, if Fedor were a welterweight, he'd be a short welterweight (as he's a short heavy)… if I'm matching up Miguel Torres vs. Rashad Evans at 205, Torres is probably 6'5 given his height. You can go crazy thinking about it too much, but that's just something to throw in there to give it a real, tangible feel.
As for BJ/GSP and the result -- going into it I held that if BJ were competitive and, say, lost a decision but did respectably well (like, 49-46, but never in too much trouble, and maybe gave GSP a scare or two) that would be enough for him to still outrank GSP. But that's not how it turned out.
As for heavyweight in P4P, as a boxing historian, I can tell you that some P4P historians are true purists and exclude heavies from P4P rankings, which seems somewhat counterintuitive. Those that include them tend to be a tad discriminatory, even though the massive irony of Fedor's lack of real heavyweight size (or Mike Tyson's smallish stature circa 1988, when some mags had him #1) makes him a perfect candidate for P4P.
Not only is he beating people that are top notch and in impressive fashion, he's often giving up a body weight percentage that is proportional, percentage-wise, to what BJ gave away to GSP (I'm not counting Choi here... Arlovski, Sylvia were enough to make the point, I hope). I think Fedor is the #1 P4P simply because I'm not sure how any one could beat him if they were all the same size, but it's hard to pick against Anderson as well. To be honest, I had a crazy thought the other day that Silva, weirdly enough, might be the guy with the best chance to beat Fedor outside of Lesnar (a few fights from now, he'll be even scarier).
Silva has the standup, grappling, and pure tactical genius to possible catch Fedor somehow, and a solid chin. Sounds crazy, for sure, and we'll never see it. And in concocting that thought, I realized that probably makes Silva p4p #1.
“The Doggy Bag” gives you the opportunity to speak about what’s on your mind from time to time.
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This week, readers weigh-in in a wide range of topics, including Sherdog.com’s pound-for-pound rankings, Russian mystery man Sergei Kharitonov and January’s best.
Ranking Injustice
I recently argued that the winner of Georges St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn would have to be the pound-for-pound king because they would have a win over another P4P favorite, but I was hit with an argument for Fedor Emelianenko.
First, the problem with P4P is that it is a complete "what if" they were the same weight type of question. Penn hurts his P4P status by throwing "what if" to the side and fighting whoever at whatever weight. "What if" Penn and GSP were the same size?
"Would" GSP be able to hold down a legit-sized welterweight with Penn’s talent? "What if" the fight was at 155? I always think "what if," and I enjoy playing Joe Silva and matching up guys like every other MMA fan and then I was hit with the challenge of throwing out the "what if."
Fedor has never been "caught" in a submission or knocked out. He has never looked past an opponent or made the mistake of not training properly. So why isn't Fedor #1? How are Anderson Silva and St. Pierre ahead of him?
-- Sean D. Llamas
Jason Probst, columnist: Good question. When popularized as a concept by RING magazine's Nat Fleischer, P4P was designed to create a concept of the best fighter in the world, provided everyone was, in this theoretical place, the exact same fighting weight and size. I always took it a step further and "proportionalized" it to P4P status before analysis. Therefore, if Fedor were a welterweight, he'd be a short welterweight (as he's a short heavy)… if I'm matching up Miguel Torres vs. Rashad Evans at 205, Torres is probably 6'5 given his height. You can go crazy thinking about it too much, but that's just something to throw in there to give it a real, tangible feel.
As for BJ/GSP and the result -- going into it I held that if BJ were competitive and, say, lost a decision but did respectably well (like, 49-46, but never in too much trouble, and maybe gave GSP a scare or two) that would be enough for him to still outrank GSP. But that's not how it turned out.
As for heavyweight in P4P, as a boxing historian, I can tell you that some P4P historians are true purists and exclude heavies from P4P rankings, which seems somewhat counterintuitive. Those that include them tend to be a tad discriminatory, even though the massive irony of Fedor's lack of real heavyweight size (or Mike Tyson's smallish stature circa 1988, when some mags had him #1) makes him a perfect candidate for P4P.
Not only is he beating people that are top notch and in impressive fashion, he's often giving up a body weight percentage that is proportional, percentage-wise, to what BJ gave away to GSP (I'm not counting Choi here... Arlovski, Sylvia were enough to make the point, I hope). I think Fedor is the #1 P4P simply because I'm not sure how any one could beat him if they were all the same size, but it's hard to pick against Anderson as well. To be honest, I had a crazy thought the other day that Silva, weirdly enough, might be the guy with the best chance to beat Fedor outside of Lesnar (a few fights from now, he'll be even scarier).
Silva has the standup, grappling, and pure tactical genius to possible catch Fedor somehow, and a solid chin. Sounds crazy, for sure, and we'll never see it. And in concocting that thought, I realized that probably makes Silva p4p #1.
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