Explaining the Rating System (III)

Here's a graph of various pound-for-pound ranks, with points calculated monthly. By coincidence the ratings roughly translate to letter grades. You can think of #100 = 75 points being a "C" average (although being #100 in the world is pretty good!). Then #10 is around 90 points or an "A", #1000 is around 60 points or a "D", and so on. It's a bit tricky looking earlier than 1995 because there aren't really 100 active fighters. There's been just six fighters with ratings above 100: Bas Rutten, Fedor Emelianenko, Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, Jon Jones and Chris Weidman.

Here's a graph of nine of the ten fighters that have held the #1 Pound-for-Pound ranking since 1995. I'm omitting Igor Vovchanchyn who became #1 by default for two months at the start of 2001 after Bas dropped from inactivity and Hendo lost to Wanderlei and before Big Nog won the Rings King of Kings Tournament. This is the big dip at that point in the pound-for-pound graph.

You can click the graphs to get a larger view.