[Thomas_Rivera]

While this is more towards combat sports, it applies to all sports. Regardless of what sport is played there is a top ten rankings, how do you guys judge where a person lands in a top ten space? How many top ten guys do you need to beat to be a top ten guy?

[Famine]

Are you looking for an opinion or the real way they do things?


In UFC, they base rankings off of records, the quality of opponents, and the way in which you win.

Take Brock for example. His record is crap, but he beat some of the best, and he won in great fashion (in some opinions). Therefore he was shot up to the top ten.

Kenny Florrien on the other hand had a good record and usually finishes fights, but fought a bunch of lower class fighters in the beginning.

The biggest way to drop out of the top 10 is to lose 2-3 fights in a row. Rich Franklin has an awesome record, and was a belt holder for a long time, but as soon as he lost two in a row to Silva, he dropped big time.



As far as how many do you have to fight, I don't think that is an issue. It's who you fight, not how many.

[Bubbaloo]

Well since we're applying it to combat sports, I look at it this way. You have A, B, C, and D class fighters, in each seperate division. Some examples would be:

LW
A: Penn, Sherk, Aoki, Hansen, Florian, Edgar
B: Stevenson, Guida
C: Most other fighters
D: ehh...

WW
A: GSP, Fitch, Alves
B: Condit, Hardy, Thiago

MW
A: Silva, Hendo, Marquardt, Maia, Okami
B: Cote, Bisping, McFedries

LHW
A: Machida, Evans
B: T. Silva, Little Nog, Cane

HW
A: Fedor, Lesnar, Barnett
B: Kongo, Cro Cop, dos Santos

Eventually if you rack up enough wins against C and possibly some B level opponents your going to have to fight B+'s and low top ten and fifteen. Depending on how well you do, you can be catapulted into the top ten easily. Look at Frankie Edgar for ex. Beat everyone until Maynard, got back on the winning track, and took down a huge threat in Sherk.

All in all I would say it is how well the athletes can deal under pressure against progressively better opposition and how they adapt their game to win.

(top ten p4p I look at guys who compete in one or more divisions with success, or are consensus #2 in each division.)