Chael Sonnen Employs Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James Analogy to Propose New Standards for UFC Pound-for-Pound Rankings

While the MMA community thought it would have a conclusion to the P4P-best debate after Islam Makhachev’s UFC 302 triumph, the plot has only thickened.

Jon Jones has now dropped his thoughts bluntly in a now-deleted tweet, making pundits and experts go bonkers. However, Chael Sonnen has found an ingenious way to get to the end of all this.

Drawing a comparison from the NBA and taking the cases of Michael Jordan and LeBron James as examples, Sonnen proved his point to his co-host, Daniel Cormier.

“Its the same as the (Michael) Jordan vs Lebron (James), people talk about six rings versus five once upon a time. You’re comparing resumes, I dont think that’s the same, I think when you look at these numbers its a little more important just for example, lets just take Islam’s last 10 opponents, lets take (Jon) Jones’ last 10 opponents, let’s not look at who beat them, let’s look at who lost more rounds and the rounds that they lost, what were those guys ranked.” 

MMA is a “Game of inches’, is what Sonnen essentially said. Instead of looking at the numbers based on the wins and losses, if one looks at the cumulative rounds fought, that would give them a better picture and a side-by-side comparison of who the pound-for-pound best is.

Fair point!

Elaborating on his point, the veteran even used the case of Tony Ferguson and stated the facts that got him concerned about his pal.

Chael Sonnen concerned about Tony Ferguson

Instead of looking at bouts as a whole, looking at rounds lost and won gives you a better idea of a fighter’s performance. To prove that, Uncle Chael mentions ‘El Cucuy’s’ case.

“Tony Ferguson who I’m very close with but I wasn’t concerned when people said he lost five in a row or six in a row but I was more concerned that he lost his last 27 rounds and nobody spoke about that and for me that was a lot more alarming than or something that you need to look at.”

Yes, he is on a terrible losing streak but what is more alarming is he is losing rounds is what Sonnen says. Currently, ‘The Boogeyman’ is set to face Michael Chiesa at UFC Abu Dhabi, eyeing a turnaround, to get back the lost momentum.

The truth is, this debate will never end. We, in the fight business, love our fantasy charts and that is essentially what the P4P rankings are- a fantasy league!