If Jon Jones beats Mauricio Rua where will he be ranked P4P?

I'd have him at 3. Where would you have him?

Wherever i have Shogun ranked probably, somewhere in the top 5.

p4p is stupid as hell though, mainly because nobody gets it.

How do you rank yours?

All based on how you define it.

Wins obviously factor in, but skills, skill transition between divisions ect all do as well.

most of the time, i don't bother because i find the concept boring...but i usually rank them by the fighter skills and how they would translate in each division. It's easiler to do that for the fighters that fight at a certain weight class like Jones and Rua but that seems to be a revolving door..but i remember people were trying to make an arguement for Brock Lesnar as top 10 p4p when his skills would not hack it at a level like the UFC past the prelims if he didnt typically outweigh his opponents by a wide margin. Say Brock Lesnar was 185, he would be rather lame. He's an awesome HW, and thats fine but lets not pretend like HW being a division that gives nearly 50 pounds is not different from the others. It just shows people think p4p means the top 10 most successful fighters currently in MMA and looking at rankings by most people, they do.

Thats how they do it in boxing, and it's easier to do that since boxing is just one thing. There are so many styles in MMA that it's futile figuring out who the most skilled is p4p, but people do it anyway.


A fighter can be top 5 in p4p, and as soon as they lose they arent even in it anymore to most people. All of a sudden there are up to 5-6 fighters more skilled? BJ Penn loses to Frankie Edgar but then all of a sudden all these guys from these other divisions jump ahead of him in these rankings, but why? Did they become more skilled p4p than BJ Penn because Edgar beat him head to head? It says something about Edgar but not some MW.

People rank p4p like they rank divisional rankings, not everybody but most. Just by wins and who has the most recent or who has gone the longest without losing without looking at the skills of the guys he was fighting, or even his skills. Wins are a big part but it's the only one people pay attention to. That just does not interest me.

While P4P may not reflect a figthter's exact ranking in his own division the wins and losses have to hold weight. If a fighter is losing in his own weight class how can we start ranking him among the pound for pound best across all weight classes? Truth be told there isn't another fighter quite like Edgar out there today, but you get the point. I would think the #1 fighter in a division would have a better bid in the pound for pound rankings than someone below him, or someone he has already bested within a relevant time frame. Where things get interesting is speculating on where a fighter would rank in a weight class that wasn't his "natural" weight class, or look at how they did so at another weight class in the cases of fighters who have done so.

Feelin what your saying Kings

I'd put Bones a 3. Sometimes I get swept up in a fighters impressive role. But Bones is a dominantly dynamic fighter. The eye says he is impressive as Aldo, but his record, post win vs Shogun would be better then Aldo's.

Bones has better wrestling, although no one has taken down Aldo really, but his BJJ and striking are far ahead of Bones. Skills are a huge factor for me.

Does Shogun move up if he wins?

around 5, if shogun wins hes in the top 4 where most already have him

GDPofDRC wrote:

Does Shogun move up if he wins?

Great question. I think the winner of this gets the 3 spot in my book. Aldo hasn't really fought a great fighter yet. If Aldo were to destroy Florian or win the LW title then he'd have a better case.

Jamal wrote:

GDPofDRC wrote:

Does Shogun move up if he wins?

Great question. I think the winner of this gets the 3 spot in my book. Aldo hasn't really fought a great fighter yet. If Aldo were to destroy Florian or win the LW title then he'd have a better case.

with Jamal. I had ranked Faber high, but he is more a bw, then a fw. Never thought much of MTB myself.

Be an interesting debate, it'd be close either way, I think destroying Faber is valid, and just looking at Aldo's obvious skill sets.

Yeah you have to give credit where it's due with Faber. He may have been a natural bantamweight all along but the fact remains that he dominated that division for years and were it not for broken hands he very well may have beaten Brown the second time. All that aside the fact that he was considered "small" for the division makes his run even more impressive. It may have been an overall weak division while he dominated much like Torres, but the fact remains he was still winning impressively. His skillset would succeed in most any division unless he ran into another Aldo type character who brought insane quickness and lethal strikes to the table.

if we are agreeing that the fw division was still primitive, then we have to give more credence to a fighter fighting against respected guys in a well established dvision ala lhw.


I'm guilty too for once ranking Faber and Torres, but I am totally against the p4p rankings of guys like Cruz, Bowles, MTB and whomever else is the flavor of the week in those lower divisions.

Skills, skills, skills

Cruz has obvious skills for P4P

But this leads into the whole debate on P4P anyways, I don't even do em often, so shouldn't even care here.

They're both sick fighters

Im seeing Cruz beat smallish and overmatched fighters. Dude was quickly dispatched by Faber not long ago. moves down to an empty division, wins 2 fights and becomes a p4p fighter? Not in my book.

Do skills mean anything in your P4P? Should I poo poo Rua cause he lost to Forrest 5 fights ago and looked bad against Coleman in 09?

Ultimately this all comes back to what Kings said and interpretation and definition of P4P, wins are obvious in mine, but what I think of fighters skills and how they transition is very important as well. Might not even be the right way to look at it, who knows. Some rank Diaz top 10 now, he doesn't have the wins in my book although does have the P4P type skills. BJ never drops far in my P4P, because of skills, but also cause he is that classic multi divisional fighter. Unless there is a hard blueprint on how to do it, what ever you ink with in reason is fine, no Brock...I'd also say that those low weight divisions aren' as much weak, but less known, there is some very talented guys in those classes.

Fedor, Anderson, BJ and GSP are fighters who define P4P best for me.

Rua was not Rua in those fights. His knees were real bad then.

Which is something I obviously know, but not the point, and excuses are always excuses too. His knees were still a problem in fights after that pont, as he just had a long layoff because of it. He tore his knee while beating Machida.

Applied skills: you have to look at who they have applied there skills against when I consider skills.