McGregor's Loss to Diaz Shakes Up...the Welterweight division?

By now every MMA fan has had time to digest Conor McGregor's loss to Nate Diaz. For our ratings there are ramifications, of course. Naturally our top ten pound-for-pound rankings, where McGregor was at #9 prior to the bout, are affected.

SportsRatings MMA pound-for-pound top 20, as of March 5th bouts:

Prev	Rank	Fighter	WC	Rating	Rated Record	Early March results
1	1	Jon Jones	LH	98.39	15-1-0	last win -14 months.
2	2	Georges St. Pierre	WW	83.61	23-2-0	last win -28 months.
3	3	Fabricio Werdum	HW	83.27	19-5-1
4	4	Luke Rockhold	MW	74.68	12-1-0
5	5	Rafael dos Anjos	LW	73.06	16-5-0
6	6	Chris Weidman	MW	64.23	9-1-0
7	7	Daniel Cormier	LH	53.33	13-1-0
8	8	Robbie Lawler	WW	51.14	28-10-0
10	9	Eddie Alvarez	LW	47.47	21-4-0
11	10	Cain Velasquez	HW	46.22	10-2-0	last win -29 months.
12	11	Anthony Johnson	LH	45.44	18-5-0
13	12	Yoel Romero	MW	44.41	7-0-0
14	13	Shinya Aoki	WW	39.74	31-5-0
113	14	Nate Diaz	WW	37.66	17-10-0	Beat #9 Conor McGregor
15	15	Jose Aldo	FW	37.54	17-2-0	last win -17 months.
16	16	Donald Cerrone	WW	37.46	22-7-0
17	17	Demetrious Johnson	FL	36.42	12-1-1
9	18	Conor McGregor	WW	34.11	7-1-0	Lost to #113 Nate Diaz
18	19	Alistair Overeem	HW	33.16	33-14-0
19	20	Dominick Cruz	BW	33.10	13-1-0

McGregor remains in the top 20 while Diaz jumps to his highest ranking ever at #14. For now, it looks like neither #5 Rafael dos Anjos nor #8 Robbie Lawler will be facing McGregor any time soon; Diaz might get a shot at either one, depending on whether he remains at 170 or returns to 155.

For our weight class ratings we face a dilemma; where do we put McGregor and Diaz? McGregor is likely to return to 145 but there's no guarantee, and Diaz's plans aren't clear either. So for now we're going to rank them where they just fought: at Welterweight. This adds to a rather confusing picture at the 170 weight class.

SportsRatings Welterweight rankings for April, 2016 (fights through March 5th)

Prev	Rank	Fighter	WC	Rating	Rated Record	March 5 Results
1	1	Georges St. Pierre	WW	83.61	23-2-0	last rated win -28 months.
2	2	Robbie Lawler	WW	51.14	28-10-0
4	3	Shinya Aoki	WW	39.74	31-5-0
28	4	Nate Diaz	WW	37.66	17-10-0	Beat #3 Conor McGregor
5	5	Donald Cerrone	WW	37.46	22-7-0
3	6	Conor McGregor	WW	34.11	7-1-0	Lost to #28 Nate Diaz
6	7	Ben Askren	WW	31.18	8-0-0	last rated win -19 months.
7	8	Benson Henderson	WW	30.75	15-4-0
8	9	Tyron Woodley	WW	29.17	10-3-0	last rated win -14 months.
9	10	Rousimar Palhares	WW	28.37	14-4-0

First, of course, we still rank George St. Pierre at #1, though since he hasn't fought in over two years he's declared inactive and the interim Welterweight belt goes to UFC champ and #2 Robbie Lawler. At #3 is Shinya Aoki, who fought at 155 until a recent catchweight bout with Kazushi Sakuraba. Going forward, Aoki may stay at 170 since he, along with all One Championship fighters, are moving up a weight class due to the promotion's new no-weight-cut policy. #7 Ben Askren is also affected by the policy and thus we assume he'll be fighting at 185—a Welterweight in name according to One, but a Middleweight in actual mass.

Then we have Nate Diaz at #4. Diaz claimed he had told Dana White he was going to move up to 170 anyway. We'll see where he lands. #5 Donald Cerrone only recently moved up to 170 as well. Is he permanent? With Conor McGregor at #6, that leaves Lawler as the only active, permanent Welterweight among our top seven.

Rounding out the top ten we have Bellator's Benson Henderson who has fought at 170 for over a year; #9 Tyron Woodley is a true Welterweight but hasn't fought in over a year. Rousimar Palhares is serving a 2-year suspension for fighting dirty against Jake Shields.

In short, Welterweight is the most messed-up division in MMA, full of transients and the inactive. But in some ways it has the potential to be the most interesting division, too. With Diaz at least a temporary big name, Lawler a compelling belt-holder, and the possible return of GSP, the division's unpredictability might become an asset.

Comments

[Jake Hackerson]

Are you going to do a college football preview like you have done the past couple of years?

[SportsRatings]

Hi Jake, Sorry but no, not this year. If you're looking for a pre-season rankings that are most similar to what we have come up with, I'd suggest referring to ESPN's FPI (http://espn.go.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings). Just glancing at it, FSU and LSU as the top two teams is what our system probably would have foreseen.