Lightweight Rankings after tonight

I think I'm one of the few that doesn't automatically put a fighter above another after beating them. I look at other aspects, which is why rankings are always subjective and I respect that we all have different opinions. Before this Fight I had "Ill" Will Brooks at #25 and Chandler at #6. Props to Brooks, his cardio and wrestling looked sharp...

Top 15

1. Pettis
2. Henderson
3. Melendez
4. Alvarez
5. Grant
6. Thomson
7. Khabib
8. Chandler
9. RDA
10. Diaz
11. Cerrone
12. Brooks
13. Miller
14. Maynard
15. Jury

I'd switch Khabib and Thomson's spots along with Brooks and Miller, but that list is spot on otherwise.
 
Chandler's only win is Alvarez.
Brooks' only win is Chandler.
Alvarez is probably the only Bellator LW in the top 10.

What do you mean their only win?

Chandler beat Hawn also. That was a substantial win for him.

Brooks beat Sarnavskiy. That was a substantial win for him.

If what you meant as your standard for a win was against a top 10, more than half of the would be top 10 suffers as much if not more so than Chandler and Brooks. Miller got rated like 4th-5th off no top 10 wins a while back.

Friggin blatant double standards between orgs. That's what leads to so many daft misreads of their talent coming into the UFC like happened with WEC's and SF's LW's. Now they morphed into the UFC LW supposed untouchable beasts to the next secondary org.
 
Not bad TS....Aoki should show up in there as well though.
 
Bendo being that low doesn't make any sense. The only reason he gets scrutiny is because he has split decision victories in close fights against fighters who are without a doubt top 5 and even top 3 fighters. You don't fight top 5 top, top 3 guys to a split while being bad.

The truth of the matter is, Gil, Thomson and Bendo could exchange wins or losses any night and they smash any guy not in that top 5 area with them, see Bendo vs Nate (or Bendo vs anyone before he became champ), Thomson vs Nate, or Gil vs Diego. I have them all winning against Chandler and Brooks. Both Chandler and Brooks are on that fringe top ten area with the likes of Miller, Johnson, Jury.

Alvarez is more around the 5-6 range with guys like TJ Grant and Khabib. These are the kind of guys who you think could fight on even terms with, or even maybe beat the Gil, Bendo and Thomsons of the world, but they don't have the resume or haven't faced them yet.
 
Which resume is more impressive

W Chandler
W Pitbull
W Aoki
L Chandler
W Curran
W Huerta


Or

L Thomson
L Pettis
L/D Melendez
W Nate
L Frankie
D Frankie

hahaha. sometimes i wonder how you breathe with your head shoved so far up someone else's ...
 
Pettis>Henderson>Melendez>Alvarez>Grant seems like the most logical top 5 rankings
 
What do you mean their only win?

Chandler beat Hawn also. That was a substantial win for him.

Brooks beat Sarnavskiy. That was a substantial win for him.

If what you meant as your standard for a win was against a top 10, more than half of the would be top 10 suffers as much if not more so than Chandler and Brooks. Miller got rated like 4th-5th off no top 10 wins a while back.

Friggin blatant double standards between orgs. That's what leads to so many daft misreads of their talent coming into the UFC like happened with WEC's and SF's LW's. Now they morphed into the UFC LW supposed untouchable beasts to the next secondary org.

Brooks also beat Kitaoka, but for some weird reason nobody cares about him. Kitaoka is much more accomplished than Sarnavskiy.
 
People always overrate UFC fighters. When the WEC guys came in, people thought they would get destroyed. Now most people have 3 WEC guys in their top 10. When the Strikeforce guys came over most people at least realized that Melendez would be a serious contender, but few gave much consideration to Josh Thomson as a top fighter, not basically everyone has him in the top 10, and would have him in the top 5 if he got the decision he deserved against Bendo.

It's the same with Brooks, Chandler, and Alvarez now. People imagine that just because they're outside the UFC, they must be fighting worse competition, and thus don't deserve to be ranked highly. But it's a circular argument, since the only reason that the UFC guys appear to have such good competition is that people overrate their opponents for being in the UFC in the first place.
 
People always overrate UFC fighters. When the WEC guys came in, people thought they would get destroyed. Now most people have 3 WEC guys in their top 10. When the Strikeforce guys came over most people at least realized that Melendez would be a serious contender, but few gave much consideration to Josh Thomson as a top fighter, not basically everyone has him in the top 10, and would have him in the top 5 if he got the decision he deserved against Bendo.

It's the same with Brooks, Chandler, and Alvarez now. People imagine that just because they're outside the UFC, they must be fighting worse competition, and thus don't deserve to be ranked highly. But it's a circular argument, since the only reason that the UFC guys appear to have such good competition is that people overrate their opponents for being in the UFC in the first place.

Someone should make reading this a requirement before registering an account on sherdog.
 
People always overrate UFC fighters. When the WEC guys came in, people thought they would get destroyed. Now most people have 3 WEC guys in their top 10. When the Strikeforce guys came over most people at least realized that Melendez would be a serious contender, but few gave much consideration to Josh Thomson as a top fighter, not basically everyone has him in the top 10, and would have him in the top 5 if he got the decision he deserved against Bendo.

It's the same with Brooks, Chandler, and Alvarez now. People imagine that just because they're outside the UFC, they must be fighting worse competition, and thus don't deserve to be ranked highly. But it's a circular argument, since the only reason that the UFC guys appear to have such good competition is that people overrate their opponents for being in the UFC in the first place.

This argument is so tired, the WEC LWs =/= the Bellator LWs.

Also, lol at even bringing up some of the most battle tested and proven LWs of all time in Gil and Thomson.

Brooks lost to Saad Awad, are we really imagining that they're fighting worse competition and don't deserve to be ranked highly? He very clearly isn't a top 10 caliber fighter and Chandler looked terrible against him. Last night was a reality check for people who wanted to make Bellator LWs out to be more than they are. I can see Alvarez as top 10 (even though I wouldn't have him there right now) but that's about it.
 
This argument is so tired, the WEC LWs =/= the Bellator LWs.

Also, lol at even bringing up some of the most battle tested and proven LWs of all time in Gil and Thomson.

Brooks lost to Saad Awad, are we really imagining that they're fighting worse competition and don't deserve to be ranked highly? He very clearly isn't a top 10 caliber fighter and Chandler looked terrible against him. Last night was a reality check for people who wanted to make Bellator LWs out to be more than they are. I can see Alvarez as top 10 (even though I wouldn't have him there right now) but that's about it.

You're right; this argument is so tired.

It's not just Melendez and Thomson--even lower level Strikeforce LWs like Bobby Green and Pat Healy have overachieved in the UFC.

"WEC LWs =/= the Bellator LWs" based on what, exactly? By your logic, Anthony Pettis lost to Bart Palazewski, so clearly he couldn't compete against top UFC guys.
 
People always overrate UFC fighters. When the WEC guys came in, people thought they would get destroyed. Now most people have 3 WEC guys in their top 10. When the Strikeforce guys came over most people at least realized that Melendez would be a serious contender, but few gave much consideration to Josh Thomson as a top fighter, not basically everyone has him in the top 10, and would have him in the top 5 if he got the decision he deserved against Bendo.

It's the same with Brooks, Chandler, and Alvarez now. People imagine that just because they're outside the UFC, they must be fighting worse competition, and thus don't deserve to be ranked highly. But it's a circular argument, since the only reason that the UFC guys appear to have such good competition is that people overrate their opponents for being in the UFC in the first place.

I don't get why people bring up WEC because WEC was a Zuffa owned org. Used the same signing practices the UFC used and was there to test the interest in the small divisions as well as handle the overflow of UFC LWs and WWs there wasn't enough space for.

Melendez fought some decent competition in Pride beating a prime Kawajiri and besting Ishida who was highly regarded as well. Thompson was a former UFC fighter before finding a place in SF aftet UFC shelved it's LW division due to lack of card space.
 
1. Anthony Pettis
2. Gilbert Melendez
3. Eddie Alvarez
4. Will Brooks
5. Michael Chandler
6. Benson Henderson
7. Josh Thompson
8. Khabib Nurmagomedov
9. Nate Diaz
10. Donald Cerrone

LOL

Bendo beat Gil. He's #2. Does Diaz still fight? HAHA What are you doing, dude?
 
I don't get why people bring up WEC because WEC was a Zuffa owned org. Used the same signing practices the UFC used and was there to test the interest in the small divisions as well as handle the overflow of UFC LWs and WWs there wasn't enough space for.

Melendez fought some decent competition in Pride beating a prime Kawajiri and besting Ishida who was highly regarded as well. Thompson was a former UFC fighter before finding a place in SF aftet UFC shelved it's LW division due to lack of card space.

Because a majority of ufc fans claimed wec guys are lower level. Than strikeforce guys were lower level. Both times proven wrong. Now it's Bellator.

It's the NFL argument. There is only 1 league in football, so it must be the same in mma.

But it's closer to the situation in soccer. English Premier League is the best cause it has majority of elite teams (i'm probably so wrong), but that doesn't mean some German team can't compete with English teams. Just because English league is better than German league, doesn't mean that the worst English team is better than the best German one.

So, just because UFC has a huge majority of elite fighters, doesn't mean there aren't 30 guys in Bellator who are on the same level.
 
I thought Henderson lost to Edgar 2x, lost to Melendez, and arguably lost to Tompson. This is a dude that had more favorable decisions go his way than any of the other top 10 - 15 fighters any of you have in your unofficial rankings. Benson Henderson is a top 10 LW but he's being heavily overrated in this thread.

I also believe Eddie Alvarez and Chandler are being heavily underrated.

Khabib Nurmagomedov is a beast but his best opponent, thus far, has been RDA. I'd rank Alvarez and Chandler higher than anyone Nurmagomedov has fought in the UFC.
 
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