FPR Update – 10/29

Fighter Performance Ratings on this blog have been updated for all UFC fighters. They can be accessed via the links on the sidebar.

Here are some quick notes from the update:

–Cain Velasquez goes down to +17.35 because he was a little less dominant than normal against Junior Dos Santos. Velasquez still has easily the highest FPR in the UFC. Between that performance by Velasquez and Jon Jones‘ struggles against Alexander Gustafsson, there aren’t too many people calling for Jones to challenge for the heavyweight title these days. That is as it should be.

–Lyoto Machida checks in at middleweight as the second-best fighter in the division according to FPR. Machida trails only Chris Weidman and is well ahead of Anderson Silva. The obvious match to make if Weidman beats Silva again is to have him face Machida… assuming Machida can defeat Vitor Belfort or whoever else he’s matched up against next.

-If Jimi Manuwa keeps up his current pace over 60 minutes he’ll have an FPR of +5.46, which would rank 7th at light-heavyweight ahead of Mauricio Rua and behind Ryan Bader. The reason Manuwa’s FPR isn’t that good yet (+1.07) is because I’ve designed FPR to make a fighter “prove it.” In other words, prove you’re that good on a consistent basis. I think the jury is still out on Manuwa as a potential top 10 fighter at 205 pounds.

-Here is the FPR of every fighter from TUF 15 who is still in the UFC:

• Myles Jury +2.70
• Al Iaquinta +0.27
• Daron Cruickshank +0.27
• James Vick -1.98
• Jon Tuck -2.03
• James Krause -2.09
• Jeremy Larsen -2.52
• Joe Proctor -2.93

So far it looks like Jury, Iaquinta, and Cruickshank are the mainstays from that season. James Vick could easily join them as he’s only fought in the UFC for one minute so far. I still think Jury has the highest upside of the group.