Latest news with #GregorySaks
Forbes
05-08-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Tapology Delivers New Ranking System That Is Better Than The UFC
Tapology has just left no doubt which combat sports site sits atop the mountain. On Monday, the site introduced a new rankings system that will immediately become a reference point for the MMA world, and it is already better than the system the UFC uses that even Dana White admits is flawed. As a journalist covering MMA for 15 years, I'm personally ecstatic to see an official ranking system with no human bias and one that after some deep examination has all the rhyme and reason I need to refer to it regularly. Tapology's new proprietary ranking system for fighters eliminates human subjectivity, media opinions, and fan voting. In place of 'vibes,' as Tapology founder Gregory Saks puts it in an article by Ben Fowlkes of the Uncrowned, the new model uses a data-driven algorithm to evaluate every active UFC fighter based solely on performance metrics. This system, five years in the making, measures each fighter's last six UFC bouts, taking into account strength of schedule, short-notice fights, and the quality of wins and losses. Let's look at the upcoming middleweight bout between Joe Pyfer and the UFC's current No. 14 185-pounder, Abus Magomedov. It feels like Pyfer should be close to being ranked, but because the UFC's ranking system stops at No. 15, it is hard to know how close he is to having a number next to his name–as Jon Anik would say. Well, according to Tapology's rankings, Magomedov is ranked No. 18 and it is Pyfer with the higher ranking at No. 16. What does this tell us–especially those who are normally a slave to the UFC's system? It tells us this is an even matchup and one that is even more intriguing now than it was when it was first announced. The new ranking system also introduces a new way to look at upcoming events. We can use the rankings to see how many Top 50 fighters are set to compete. According to Tapology, the upcoming UFC Fight Night headlined by Roman Dolidze vs. Anthony Hernandez, has mostly guys and girls ranked in the Top 50. Specifically, all but five fighters set to compete are ranked inside of the Top 50 fighters in the world in their weight class. That's partially deceiving considering one of those fighters is former men's flyweight title challenger Steve Erceg. He's making his bantamweight debut in a bout against veteran Ode Osbourne. Erceg is certainly one of the 50-best bantamweights, but to the ranking system's credit, he'll have to prove it first. As White has mentioned, the UFC's current system has room for human error as it is susceptible to bias and the inevitable prisoner-of-the-moment factor. This system, while bound to have its critics, doesn't have those same flaws. That's at least refreshing. You have to wonder if White will be asked about this in Chicago at UFC 319 or before if someone has the opportunity. And if he is asked, it'll be interesting to see how he responds. Historically, White hasn't shied away from acknowledging issues with his promotion's own rankings, once calling them 'a pain in the ass.' But he's also known to resist outside influence, especially when it comes to public-facing tools not made in-house. Tapology's independent framework could quietly gain traction, even without the UFC's blessing, especially if fighters start referencing it for callouts and resume building. The more it's used to justify matchups or contender status, the harder it will be to ignore. It'll also be interesting to see if real-life circumstances will influence an evolution of Tapology's ranking system. Take it from someone who has tried to create their own MMA metrics; you sometimes think you have everything accounted for and then something unexpected happens. In any case, bravo Tapology.
Yahoo
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tapology's new system ranks every single UFC fighter — which may be welcome news for some, but not others
Tapology has removed vibes from the UFC rankings. Those little numbers next to a fighter's name? At least on Tapology, long a trusted online record-keeper in the sport of MMA, human beings and their fickle feelings will no longer have a say in the hierarchy. Instead, Tapology's new system uses a proprietary algorithm to rank every active UFC fighter — which in some weight classes means tracking more than 70 fighters through the ups and downs of in-cage competition. 'We want the system to be consistent and unemotional,' Tapology founder Gregory Saks told Uncrowned. 'That sounds a little bit boring and robotic, but it is, we think, the best thing when you're talking about rankings. You wouldn't want vibes to control which NFL teams make the playoffs and which one has home-team advantage. It has to be a robotic system that says, 'These are the rules and we don't care how excited the Eagles fans are by how they looked last weekend.'' These new algorithm-based rankings have been roughly five years in the making, according to Saks. The goal was to create an automated system that would focus only on the important data to create a ranking for every single fighter in the UFC. But that's more challenging that it might initially seem, especially in a sport like MMA. Other such systems used to rank chess players, for instance, had the benefit of large sample sizes to draw from. A typical UFC career might span only a few fights, or it might include 20 bouts spread out over the course of a decade. And then there's the question of what weight to give to each outing. Does a quick knockout win over a lower-ranked fighter count for more than a close decision victory over an established opponent? What about wins that come against once-great fighters now on the decline? And what's it worth to beat an opponent who took the fight on short notice? The many intangibles of the fight game have long proved to be an impediment to any automatic or computer-based rankings systems. At the same time, if the MMA world agrees on nothing else, it's a disdain for the current 'media rankings' system employed by the UFC. Even UFC CEO Dana White seems to hate the rankings produced by a small body of little-known media members that includes local radio stations and obscure websites. White has even discussed coming up with AI rankings system with the help of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Anything to replace the current system. But according to Saks, artificial intelligence won't solve the problem, in part because it doesn't know what matters and what doesn't in this sport. Tapology's system looks at each UFC fighter's last six fights in the promotion. It also measures strength of schedule, the quality of each win or loss, as well as various other factors such as short-notice opponent changes. The exact way it balances these variables is Tapology's own 'secret sauce,' Saks said, making it a proprietary company secret that he declined to reveal. But after much tinkering over the course of several years, including some experiments with the kind of rating system developed by chess master and physics professor Arpad Elo, Saks believes the system is now capable of producing rankings that are accurate and fair. 'The early versions were unsuccessful and not very good,' Saks said. 'Like many people out there, both sort of hobbyists who like stats and playing around with data, as well as more serious people who are running websites about this kind of thing, we started with an Elo rating system because this is kind of the go-to mathematical approach for how you might rank competitors in competitions. These are used in chess and tennis. These used to be used for college football. The Elo ratings are kind of the default place to start. We tried that and we were not getting results that were acceptable. I mean, lots of it would look good, but then you'd have way too many things that were just ludicrous, where a fighter that nobody would think was a top-15 fighter, not even close, would appear as number three for some strange reason.' Ultimately, Saks said, his team decided that they needed to build their own system that was specific to MMA and its many quirks. The result is interesting for a couple different reasons. For one thing, unlike the UFC's media-generated rankings system that only concerns itself with the top 16 fighters in each weight class (one champion, followed by a numbered list of 15 ranked contenders), the Tapology rankings track every single UFC fighter. This means that each fighter on the roster can now see exactly how far he or she has to go, at least according to Tapology. Someone like Michael Chiesa might previously have only known that he was lurking somewhere outside the top 15. Now he can look and see that Tapology currently has him as the promotion's No. 17 welterweight, which isn't too shabby. Conversely, a fighter like Jeremy Stephens can look at Tapology's lightweight rankings and see himself at No. 83 (out of 94 total lightweights on the list), which is bound to sting a bit more for someone who might otherwise have only known that they were hovering somewhere in the vague outer darkness of the division. Now they (and everyone else) can see just how far from the top they are, which might be unwelcome news for many fighters. The flip side, Saks pointed out, is that it also gives fighters a way of determining which matchups make sense for them. If you're the 36th featherweight on the list and you were thinking of calling out a fellow 145-pounder you dislike or just think you could beat, you might change your mind if you knew he was ranked somewhere north of the No. 50 spot. 'We believe that the new Tapology system, with rankings for the entire division, can give new exposure and ammunition to athletes who are not in the top 15 of the media rankings,' Saks said. 'Now they can say, 'Hey, I'm No. 17 or No. 22 in Tapology, so I'm right on the cusp.' And maybe they can use that as far as their PR campaign to justify why they think they need a bigger fight or a more compelling fight. We also think it can play hopefully a useful role for fans who are trying to just put meaning behind what they're watching. Now they'll understand why each fight means something, because the winner might move up in these rankings. But then also the fighters and their teams [can use it] in justifying why perhaps they should be lined up for a bigger fight next.' But there's another side to that coin. Once they can look at exact numbers, it might occur to some fighters that their scheduled bouts do very little for them in terms of rankings. Take Saturday night's win for UFC flyweight contender Tatsuro Taira, for example. Headed into that main-event bout, Taira was ranked sixth in the 125-pound division by the Tapology rankings — the same spot he held in the UFC's own internal rankings. Hyun Sung Park, his opponent, was unranked by the UFC, but ranked at No. 23 by Tapology. The dominant submission win for Taira didn't move him up at all in Tapology's rankings, Saks said, mostly because he was facing a much lower-ranked opponent who was serving as a late-notice replacement. According to the Tapology rankings algorithm, there was basically nothing Taira could have done in this fight in order to change his ranking and move closer to the top of the list. 'It is kind of like treading water, essentially, is how the Tapology system saw that [fight],' Saks said. 'To move ahead of elite contender top-10 fighters, you need to demonstrate that you are performing better than them. And our system did not think that Saturday night's performance, as awesome as it was, proved that he deserves a higher position in the ranking.' It's not hard to imagine how this, too, could rankle some fighters. Obviously, fighting for money is about more than the number next to your name, and the UFC has never been all that constrained even by its own rankings once it sees a fight it would like to put together, so maybe Taira is unconcerned with where the Tapology algorithm puts him. Then again, some fighters may not love knowing that they're headed into matchups that offer no possibility of positional advancement. Some might even conceivably decline certain fights on that basis. But then don't rankings always exist, at least in part, to give us something to argue about? It's why sports websites love them so much. They foster engagement by giving readers something to get angry and bicker about in the comments section. They are a springboard to discussion and debate. Tapology's system provides more date to argue about, but also substitutes a faceless computer algorithm for the human rankings panels, which might make spewing online vitriol a little less fun for users. For his part, Saks isn't terribly concerned that the rankings will mean either too much or too little to those who view them. Receiving angry emails over all aspects of its record-keeping has been part of the job at Tapology, Saks said, and he doesn't expect that to change any time soon. But now, at least, there's more information for readers to sort through. 'What's good about it for fans is having a reliable ranking system that now not only talks about the top 15, but allows you to understand the context of every fight that's happening on the card,' Saks said. 'Hopefully they'll get more enjoyment out of watching the fights and knowing that there's more at stake than just whether or not these fighters will maybe appear in the top 15 soon. So for fans, I think the best-case scenario is that this adds some enjoyment and fun and debate. For Tapology as a business, if it's driving more eyeballs and users to the site, then that helps our business grow and allows us to put money into doing other stuff, whether it's a new ranking system or something totally different. These features that we add take time and effort, so we have to fund them somehow.' As for how UFC fighters and officials might react? That's a trickier question. It's possible both will choose to ignore this new system, at least at first. But, Saks pointed out, with enough time and chatter from the fans, that could change. After all, if you were a fighter swirling somewhere among the unranked masses of the UFC roster, wouldn't you at least pull those rankings up to see where you stand? Wouldn't you be just a little bit curious?
