Contributor: Ben Kohn
Discussions about who is the best fighter, irrespective of weight classes and size, have permeated the MMA world for ages at this point. Who is the best fighter in the world today, period. Many different methods of determining this exist, each with their own criteria and rules as it’s an extremely subjective ranking system, like almost all rankings systems in individual sports. One of the more popular ways of ranking in pound for pound lists is the simple question of who would win in a fight if the fighters were scaled to relatively equal sizes. It is this particular angle that I will attempt to address. After painstakingly recording and averaging almost every single fighter on the UFC’s official roster, I have scaled the fighters in a way that I feel adequately addresses the “same size” aspect of the question.
I took down the height and reach of all the fighters in every division individually, for example the Heavyweight division, by looking at the names listed on the UFC roster. Using these names, I then used a specific height and reach recording system using first Wikipedia’s numbers, then Sherdog, and finally the UFC’s reported numbers. Fighters without any recorded reaches were listed as N/A and were not included in the reach averaging portion. Various fighters who were either retired or cut from the roster were not counted in the average. Those that were cut after recording the numbers have not been removed from the list. Fighters listed under weight classes they don’t fight in currently were not recorded in any weight class. After averaging the height and reach, the champion of each weight class was compared to the divisional average and the differences were recorded for scaling. All champions will have their averages scaled down to the UFC welterweight divisional averages. For example, Jon Jones has an 8.5 inch reach advantage over the light heavyweight divisional average. Scaling him down, he will have an 8.5 inch reach advantage over the welterweight divisional average of 74 inches giving him a reach of 82.5 inches.
The stats of the specific divisions are as follows:
- Heavyweight- Average reach is 78 inches and average height is 6’3. Cain Velasquez is 2 inches below the average height at 6’1 and is 1 inch below the average reach at 77 inches.
- Light Heavyweight- Average reach is 76 inches and average height is 6’1.5. Jon Jones is 2.5 inches above the average height at 6’4 and 8.5 inches above the average reach at 84.5 inches.
- Middleweight- Average reach is 75 inches and average height is 6’1. Chris Weidman is 1 inch above the average height at 6’2 and 3 inches above the average reach at 78 inches.
- Welterweight- Average reach is 74 inches and average height is 5’11.5. Johny Hendricks is 2.5 inches below the average height at 5’9 and 5 inches below the average reach at 69 inches.
- Lightweight- Average reach is 73 inches and average height is 5’10. Anthony Pettis is 1 inch below the average height at 5’9 and 1 inch below the average reach at 72 inches.
- Featherweight- Average reach is 67 inches and average height is 5’9. Jose Aldo is 2 inches below the average height at 5’7 and 3 inches above the average reach at 70 inches.
- Bantamweight- Average reach is 69 inches and average height is 5’7. TJ Dillishaw is 1 inch below the average height at 5’6 and 1 inch below the average reach at 68 inches.
- Flyweight- Average reach is 65.5 inches and average height is 5’5. Demetrious Johnson is 2 inches below the average height at 5’3 and 1.5 inches below the average reach at 64 inches.
After scaling down all the fighters, aside from Hendricks obviously, here are how the fighters will be sized at welterweight.
Welterweight division average: Height- 5’11.5, Reach- 74 inches
- Cain Velasquez- Height- 5’9.5, Reach- 73 inches
- Jon Jones- Height- 6’2, Reach- 82.5 inches
- Chris Weidman- Height- 6’0.5, Reach- 77 inches
- Johny Hendricks- Height- 5’9, Reach- 69 inches
- Anthony Pettis- Height- 5’10.5, Reach- 73 inches
- Jose Aldo- Height- 5’9.5, Reach- 77 inches
- TJ Dillishaw- Height- 5’10.5, Reach- 73 inches
- Demetrious Johnson- Height- 5’9.5, Reach- 72.5 inches
All the fights have been set up in a tournament bracket using a random number generator for placement of the fighters in the bracket. The matchups are as follows: Anthony Pettis vs. Johny Hendricks, Chris Weidman vs. TJ Dillishaw, Demetrious Johnson vs. Jon Jones, and Cain Velasquez vs. Jose Aldo.
The method of determining who is the pound for pound king will be completely subjective in the fact that I will be picking the winner based on a prediction and breakdown of how the fight will go down between the two. However, I will be as objective and detailed as possible in making the choice of who would win a fight and I am acknowledging that I could be wrong in every pick if every fight somehow happened. With that being said, feel free to let me know your opinions and thoughts on how the fights would go down.
-Ben can be reached @agentbenten or at [email protected]
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