Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/MMA notability/Archive 7

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Request permission to add following promotions to notable promotions section

You don't really need permission but it is good to bring it to discussion first. My gut feeling is that One Fighting Championship should stay at 2nd tier for now mainly because it hasn't been around long enough. This does beg the question what makes something Tier 1 vs Tier 2? Is it audience numbers, quality of the fighters? Does for instance a UCMMA fighter dream of making it in the UFC? In any case if you don't get more feedback in the next few days I would go ahead and modify and see what happens.Peter Rehse (talk) 09:03, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

The reason it can be debated with One FC to become a top tier promotion is because of the coverage they get for their events lately, the channels they are on, and the level of fighters that are competing at their events. An example of this is with their upcoming event, ONE FC 5, which is being built as the MMA 'Thrilla in Manila', in part because it is being held in the same arena as the boxing version was in, partly because of the fighters competing at the event (3 former UFC champions, 2 DREAM champions, 3 members of the Gracie family, and 3 current URCC champions). Because of all this it will be the biggest MMA event to happen in the Philippines. Also when you consider one of the top tier promotions in Affliction Entertainment, which only ever held two events but because of the level of fighters who competed at both of them (Fedor Emelianenko, Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia, Ben Rothwell Vitor Belfort and Matt Lindland to name a few), the coverage they received as well as the owners and the partnerships they had (Donald Trump owned a significant equity stake in Affliction Entertainment, whilst Golden Boy Promotions was a partner of the promotion) have meant that they are considered a top tier promotion. So because of a similar contrast plus they have been able to hold more events than Affliction with a similar level of talent, the argument can be made for ONE FC to receive the same honour. It can also be argued that the Super Fight League should received this honour as well because they are in articles in India's top papers and had notable/ranked guys like Todd Duffee, Bobby Lashley and Alexander Shlemenko compete for them but, for now at least, I want to push for ONE FC to become top tier first then work on the SFL's position at a later date.

I get what you mean with Tier 1 vs. Tier 2, as there should be criteria that can help separate between the both of them. Things like the amount/sources of the articles for each event and the promotion, the ranking of the promotion's fighters and notable things within the promotion (such as Donald Trump's ownership of Affliction) should be factors to separate them. Using the current notability system to determine what is a notable promotion is good just to determine that - if it is even notable, then after that it should be ordered by where it stands in heavyweights of MMA (such as the UFC and Bellator Fighting Championships), and the lighter promotions (such as Shark Fights and Xtreme Fighting Championships). This is why criteria that decides between top and second tier is needed. And even with the guidelines, we should allow there be open debates with certain promotions if someone feels they were categorised in the wrong section. Going back to Affliction as an example to what I mean, by reading through the current notability criteria for a MMA promotion we can see that they meet only half the supporting notability criteria and fail two supporting deletion, yet because of the factors outside the notability criteria to do with the promotion which I mentioned earlier, they pass not only as notable, but as a top tier promotion, and I feel that no matter what the criteria says, it should be added that it can be debated on further beyond the criteria if factors to do with the promotion is strong enough for a change (such as if the promotion has a TV deal with a mainstream network or if more than one of their events has receive a high enough amount of publicity e.g. BAMMA in a case for being changed to a top tier promotion). As a community we should take this seriously and attempt to create criteria that would separate between top and second tier promotions, and I will leave it for a week from now and if nothing I will just go ahead an add them, we both agree that these promotions are notable so it already looks good. Just want to end this by saying that the UFC is the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and WWE of mixed martial arts in terms of stature of its sport, so naturally everyone wants to be in the UFC as would any basketball player want to be in the NBA, but of course there are promotions that draw in enough money, sponsorship, high talent and coverage for someone to settle into until the UFC calls them up to sign a contract for. So to answer your question - all fighters for all promotions want to be in the UFC, but some promotions offer just enough to want them to go/stay where they are until their time comes. Pound4Pound (talk) 14:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

  • I don't believe any of these organizations are top tier. If you look back at the original discussions at the MMA project talk page you'll see that the requirement to be top tier was to have fighters who were ranked in the world top 10 by an independent group (Sherdog being the obvious choice). These organizations don't meet that criteria and several of them are less than a year old and haven't had time to show notability. Here are my opinions:
IFL--defunct league that tried to grow the sport by giving young fighters a chance, definitely not top tier and I'd question second tier status
Invicta--too new to know if this women's organization will last, has potential but time will tell so it's not even second tier at this time
One FC--new and lacks world's top fighters, but I can go along with second tier since it's Asia's biggest active MMA org
Super FL--only a few months old, too soon
UCMMA--clearly second tier
Xtreme FC--has been around, but has champions in only 3 weight classes so it's a weak second tier at best
Bamma--If you can show it has fighters in the world's top 10 then I'd support a move to top tier, otherwise it should remain where it is Mdtemp (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
    • I have only stated four of these promotion for top tier status, not all seven. If notability criteria has been discuss and decided on for picking out top tier and second tier promotion then why hasn't it been added to the project page? Surely this information is vital for a project like MMANOT? Going back to my example of Affliction Entertainment, you can see that the when put through just the notability criteria for promotions, it would not stack up well in an AfD just because it fails on half the supporting criteria to keep, and meets two out of five of the deletion criteria, but not only are they still considered notable but top tier. Can you see what I mean when I say that, even back to those discussion, there must of been some form of compromise beyond the criteria when discussing Affliction? I have already brought up the other factors it has outside of the notability criteria so I won't repeat them but clearly when associated with those things then the type of notability it gets overall is affected beyond the notability criteria, and this is what I want put in place, a chance for people to discuss the factors to do with a promotion that goes beyond the criteria if it is strong enough to state a case for second tier or top tier status. Now with my suggestions...
IFL -- just by reading through the page alone we can see that they had a TV deal with Fox Sports Net, they had a huge legal battle with the UFC (and everyone in the MMA community knows that the UFC would do that only to their biggest competitors, like with Bellator), they were one of the only MMA promotions to have been publicly traded, and their market capitalization as of 2006 was around $150 million. Factors that should play into top tier status that goes beyond the criteria.
Invicta -- Argument for top tier status can be made, as they have top 10 ranked fighters such as Sara McMann, Marloes Coenen, Shayna Baszler and Alexis Davis on their roster, according to Wombat Sports (http://wombatsports.wordpress.com/unified-wmma-rankings/) and MMA Rising (http://www.mmarising.com/rankings/unified-womens-mixed-martial-arts-rankings/). It ain't just a man's sport anymore, and these rankings will help women's MMA promotions and promotions that show women's MMA make a case for Top Tier status.
ONE FC -- DREAM Featherweight and Bantamweight champion Bibiano Fernandes has just signed with this promotion along with DREAM Lightweight Champion Shinya Aoki. Fernandes is ranked 3rd in the World Bantamweight rankings, and Aoki has been ranked in the Top 10 from 2009-2011, and is currently ranked 15 in the world.
SFL -- Alexander Shlemenko, who is ranked 11 in the middleweight division (12 according to Fight Magazine but the fighter ranked 6 has changed division so he should not be on the list), has fought for them in the past and because he has a profile page on their website as well as the promotions CEO is Shlemenko's former agent, Ken Pavia, he will most likely fight for the promotion again.
UCMMA -- No argument for this promotions position in the second tier.
Xtreme FC -- Definitely a second tier promotion at best. Lack of divisional champions should not hold back this promotion, events get good coverage, have held multiple events over many years and have had good fighters compete under them such as Gan McGee, who at one point fought for the UFC heavyweight title against Tim Sylvia, which was controversial as Sylvia tested positive for steroids but the result was never changed to a no contest.
BAMMA -- BAMMA had signed Nate Marquardt after he was release from the UFC, and at that time was ranked in the top 5 of the Middleweight division, and Paul Daley fought for them twice, once back when he was ranked in the top 10 of the welterweight division.

So each promotion has a case for being one either list, but clearly some have a better case than others for top tier. Pound4Pound (talk) 09:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Note: Apparently Pound4Pound is now blocked since it's been determined he's the indef blocked user BigzMMA. That explains why they advocated for the same organizations. Papaursa (talk) 00:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
  • History lesson--I thought I'd review how the organizational tiers were originally determined. A little over 2 years ago, the MMA editors decided they wanted a relatively simple and objective way to determine which fighters and organizations were notable. In a nutshell, it was determined that a fighter was notable if he'd had at least 3 fights for a top tier organization and that top tier organizations were where the top fighters fought. The idea was that a fighter couldn't be notable if he never fought top level competition. To determine the top organizations, a then widely used poll of MMA reporters was used (Sherdog had let their rankings get very stale). The top 10 fighters in each of 7 weight classes were looked at and the organization they had their last fight with was considered to be their organization. Organizations with at least 2 fighters were considered top tier. Second tier and defunct organizations were placed by consensus. After agreeing to all this (and because men's MMA is far more popular than women's MMA), nobody really wanted to tackle the criteria for women's MMA notabilty. I would think something similar could be used for that, with a bit of tweaking. I hope this is helpful. Papaursa (talk) 00:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Using the original criteria, I would say that none of the aforementioned organizations are top tier. I would say that BAMMA is the next likely top tier organization and One FC is off to a promising start. Invicta and SFL are too new, given the high mortality rate of fledgling MMA organizations, and IFL was more of a training ground for upcoming fighters. I'd definitely add One FC and UCMMA to the second tier and am ambivalent about Xtreme FC. Papaursa (talk) 00:48, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I was blocked by being mistaken for BigzMMA, I have talked to Dennis and, along with a neutral admin, have decided that we are not the same person so I have been unblocked now. All I am asking now is if this criteria exists to some extent then why don't we add it to the notability page? This would be useful to allow people who weren't part of these discussions to know exactly how a top tier promotion like the UFC meets the criteria for a top tier status whereas, say, Tachi Palace Fights doesn't. I think that considering Women's MMA is getting very strong now that similar criteria should exist for it, as in theory if we go on the same criteria that exists now for men then, for example, Cage Warriors would be a top tier promotion because they have Sheila Gaff (Ranked #1 Woman's Flyweight), Rosi Sexton (Ranked #2 Woman's Flyweight) and Aisling Daly (Ranked #6 Woman's Flyweight) in their roster. Now personally I wouldn't mind seeing this change, but I can see how the popularity of Men's against Womens MMA can have an affect on such criteria and may need to be slightly different with Womens (no sexist comment intended). However to have three of the top 10 Flyweights in the world, regardless of gender, is something that needs to be strongly considered if a top tier status were to be discuss for Cage Warriors. Pound4Pound (talk) 16:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I went ahead and added One FC and UCMMA to the list of second tier organizations based on this discussion. The methodology used to determine the top tier organizations was already in the section listing the organizations, but I've added a comment in the notability criteria pointing to the explanation as well as expanding the explanation. I hope this makes it clearer as to what was done. Papaursa (talk) 20:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Pound4pound, I think it might be a good idea to have separate notability tiers for men's and women's fighters. Then you need to decide which rankings you want to use, decide how many fighters in each class to consider (e.g., since there are far fewer women's MMA fighters perhaps you might only consider the top 3 or 5 or whatever), and then determine the number of fighters necessary to qualify as top tier. Papaursa (talk) 21:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the separate notability tiers for men and women. Just like back then, Sherdog doesn't have a ranking system for women's MMA, so I am going to look for a source that is reliable and independent to determine the best ranking system to use. I think that, after deciding on which rankings we should use, the top 10 pound for pound women fighters are notable regardless of promotion, then for each of the weight classes, at least for now, we consider the top 5 of each weight class as notable then over time as women's MMA gets stronger we make it the top 10 fighters. From here we should then make it a minimum of at least 5 women overall that are classed in the top 10 of their respective weight class that compete for the same promotion. So for example, if a promotion has just one women's division, but have 5 out of the top 10 ranked women in the world competing for them in that division then they are considered top tier. Another example is if, like Invicta, a promotion has all five major weight classes for women (which are featherweight, bantamweight, flyweight, strawweight, and atomweight) and they have at at least five top 5 women spread in different division, like 2 in bantamweight, 1 in flyweight, and 1 in strawweight and 1 in atomweight, then they count for being a top tier promotion. I used what existed for men's MMA which you wrote earlier in this conversation, and tweaked it enough so that it meets the depth of women's MMA today, but not made it too tough so that it would take years for any promotion to make it a top tier for women's MMA. It would be like saying that UFC would only be notable if they have all the top 10 fighters in each of the 8 division they use, it would just be impossible. So because of this I reckon this might be the most ideal system, I will get back to you with a ranking system soon. Pound4Pound (talk) 14:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Women's MMA Notability

Although we started to discuss this in the last section, I thought this topic deserved its own section. I'll admit that I'm not a fan of women's MMA--that's not to stay they can't fight, it's just not my cup of tea. Here are some suggestions to get the conversation started, I hope others will join in. We can do something akin to what was done for the men's organizations. After that, I don't see a need to change the notability criteria for fighters because the concept doesn't change--to be notable requires competing against the best. The Unified Women's Mixed Martial Arts rankings seem like a good place to start. Since women's MMA is less popular I would suggest using the top 5 fighters in each class as our benchmark. (The fact that I saw one top 5 ranked fighter's next fight is against someone with more losses than wins speaks to this lack of depth). The fighter's organization will be the last organization she fought for. Any organization with 3 or more fighters meeting this criteria will be top tier, others will be second tier or unlisted. Some quick research indicated that a number of fighters may be switching to Invicta for their next fight, so I recommend waiting until after Invicta 3. Although I still think Invicta is too new to be top tier, I'm willing to be flexible--especially because I think Invicta and Strikeforce will be the dominant organizations. Papaursa (talk) 19:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Agree with the majority of this, though I reckon there should be some changes to this. I have stated in the above discussion what I feel should be the benchmark for women fighter/promotion. Invicta should definitely be kept an eye on, simply because they seem to be the most look upon all-women's MMA promotion at this time, and because over their last two events as well as their coming event, they have got plenty of top 10 women in five weight classes competing for them. I do agree that, not really because of popularity but more to do with the depth of women's MMA at this time, the criteria should only apply more women in the top 5 of their respective divisions rather than the top 10. I believe that the overall top promotions to keep an eye on for possible top tier status for women's MMA are Strikeforce (Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg and Miesha Tate), Bellator Fighting Championships (Zoila Gurgel, Megumi Fujii, Jessica Aguilar), Cage Warriors (Rosi Sexton, Sheila Gaff, Aisling Daly) and of course Invicta Fighting Championships. Pound4Pound (talk) 12:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The great thing about using objective criteria is that once we have that, everything follows automatically. If we agree on the standards, then we don't need to argue about the promotions or individuals. After Invicta 3, we can go the rankings and count the promotions where all of the top 5 fighters last fought. This determines our top tier and that is what determines the individual fighters' notability. Papaursa (talk) 19:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
Exactly, could agree any more. What I have just starting to think about now is if a promotion that is predominately male and has just one female division (like Cage Warriors), and that female division meets the criteria to promote the promotion to top tier, yet the male side of it doesn't, will that affect the men's standing as well or will it be treated differently? Pound4Pound (talk) 11:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I mentioned in the previous discussion that notability for the two genders will separate. An organization can be top tier for one gender, but not the other. Papaursa (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm still having trouble with the idea that Invicta, a new organization with no champions, could be top tier. However, I'm happy to see a civil MMA discussion, so I'm willing to go along. Here's what I understand the criteria to be:

1. Men and women's organizations notability are distinct, 2. the top 5 women in each weight division will be checked as to what organization they last fought for, and 3. any organization with at least 3 fighters in #2 will be top tier. I like it--clear, simple, and objective. As an addition, I'd propose any organization with at least 1 fighter in #2 be considered second tier. BTW, when I googled for women's MMA rankings the Unified one mentioned by Papaursa seemed the most prevalent plus it seems independent of any one person or website. Mdtemp (talk) 20:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

That's also how I understand it. I'm fine with your criteria for second tier as well, although I think that's less important. Papaursa (talk) 21:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
From what I have found Mdtemp, Invicta is planning to hold at least one title fight at their next event in October (was originally two but one of the top contenders drop out due to injury so a fight is in its place to find someone worth facing her for the belt at a later event). I know it is a difficult thought that a promotion with just 3 events in less than a year can be considered top tier, but they do have the bulk of the top 10 women in each division fighting for them, and as I only imagine the longer they are around the higher their fighters will be ranked. Plus factors such as partnerships will come into play, such as the one they have with JEWELS at this time. Pound4Pound (talk) 11:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

So what does everyone think should we go get a consensus about what we have discussed? I like what we have agreed upon so I think we are just about ready to do it. Pound4Pound (talk) 13:38, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems like we have agreement. Papaursa (talk) 03:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
Ok, what will happen now then? Pound4Pound (talk) 13:30, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest we wait until after Invicta 3 and then use the methodolgy discussed. Papaursa (talk) 03:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Pound4Pound (talk) 12:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, the event has taken place, so now we should add the methodolgy we discussed as notability criteria, and also begin discussing which promotions should be made top tier and second tier for women's MMA. Pound4Pound (talk) 12:22, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

  • I went through the Unified Women's MMA rankings and looked at the promotion where the top 5 in each weight class fought their last fight. Eleven fought for Invicta; 3 for Strikeforce (4 if you count Ronda Rousey twice, since she's ranked in 2 divisions); 2 each for CWFC, Bellator, and Jewels; and 1 for ProFC RFA, NAAFS, and Pancrase. Based on the previously agreed upon criteria, that makes Invicta and Strikeforce top tier promotions for women. I would also recommend that CWFC, Bellator, and Jewels be considered second tier at this time. Papaursa (talk) 17:34, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
I definitely agree with this, so now we should move a head and add this into the project page. Pound4Pound (talk) 13:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I was going to wait for more opinions, especially Mdtemp (since he's made previous comments), but I see he only edits about twice a month so I'm going to WP:BEBOLD and update the notability page. Papaursa (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Fighting Network Rings

In my opinion it should be - at least - in the second tier of the list of notable MMA organizations and promotions. Many fighters came from RINGS to later become champions or top contenders in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and/or Pride Fighting Championships (even earlier in the case of Couture and Henderson) and the promotion had high historical relevance to MMA.
Top fighters from RINGS:
Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, Dan Henderson, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Ricardo Arona, Randy Couture, Gilbert Yvel, Renato Sobral, Renzo Gracie, Kiyoshi Tamura, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Chris Haseman, Elvis Sinosic and many others.
Anyone else agree? Poison Whiskey (talk) 03:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I was looking at the RINGS article and it appears to be an organization without any current champions and that just restarted under the RINGS name in January. I'm assuming you're talking about listing the current version (as supposed to putting it in the defunct category), in which case I'm inclined to wait and see what happens. I particularly want to see whether the promotion thrives or dies, and see what fighters they are able to attract. Papaursa (talk) 00:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I wanted to include the defunct RINGS, active in MMA between 1995 and 2002. I don't know much about the 2008/2012 version, but seems like it isn't even the shadow of what the older RINGS was. But i'm still sure that RINGS deserves to be on the list for its notable past. Poison Whiskey (talk) 01:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I see a bit of a problem. If we put it in the defunct category, someone will say it's still active and move it to that category--even though it doesn't currently seem to be very significant. One possible solution is to ignore the current version and put something like RINGS (1995-2002) in the defunct section. That's just a suggestion, I'm hoping others will contribute their thoughts. Papaursa (talk) 03:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I also forgot to say, it has already been discussed here. Poison Whiskey (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
I think that Rings was much more notable then and is not notable now. If you want to list the old Rings under defunct organizations (be sure to include the dates), it's OK with me. Mdtemp (talk) 21:07, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
We have unanimity so far. I'll wait for a month and i'll put RINGS (events held between 1995 and 2002) on the list then. So we can see more opinions and discuss about where it should be (top tier or second tier). Poison Whiskey (talk) 01:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

DREAM revival

The top tier promotion DREAM seems to be holding an event at the end of the year, how should we treat this? Many of the top stars that previously fought for them, including all their top 10 fighters are signed with different promotions right now, so do we still include this event to be highly regarded enough for, say, a fighter who had fought for a top tier promotion just twice instead of the standard three for notability, and they fight on this show, do we treat this fighter as notable after they fight or not?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pound4Pound (talk • contribs) 22:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Where can i see the event card? in my opinion the organization don't need to have multiple top 10 fighters. An event with many relevant fighters is fair enough for me. Poison Whiskey (talk) 22:10, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
It's under new Dutch management (GLORY), I'd say treat it as a new company. The Dutch are in control of Zombie DREAM --Phospheros (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I think DREAM is still DREAM no matter who controls it (like Strikeforce, that's under Zuffa control only since 2011). Anyway, Satoru Kitaoka, Hiroyuki Takaya, and Tatsuya Kawajiri were confirmed in the event so far, according to the link provided by Phosperos. They're world-renowned fighters and Glory is also growing a lot lately... let's just wait for more info. Poison Whiskey (talk) 23:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
An organization that is scheduled to put on only 1 show a year can hardly be considered notable. Strikeforce was considered notable before it was bought by Zuffa. The notability criteria are pretty clear--you need notable fighters to be considered a notable organization. Right now that's not the new DREAM. Mdtemp (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not comparing DREAM and Strikeforce in terms of notability. I'm just saying that it's still the same DREAM from 1 year ago. If the promotion lost notability, it should be downgraded, removed from the list or we can add a note, just like we are pretending to do with RINGS. Poison Whiskey (talk) 00:33, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
DREAM is already listed as a defunct organization. If you want to list the new DREAM separately, we can discuss it--but the same notability criteria that apply to any organization would apply to the new DREAM. We can put dates on the old and new DREAM organizations to separate them. However, I'd like to see the new organization actually put on more than 1 event a year before discussing its notability. Papaursa (talk) 03:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

UFC events notability

I would like to see a clarification regarding notability of UFC events, past and future (i.e. officially announced). Many UFC events have been up for deletion recently (read last year). It is just a waste of time having to explain exactly why every single event is notable and worthy of its own article. Is this really necessary? There are strict guidelines for MMA fighter notability, can we not come up with the same for MMA events? E.g. an event is notable if at least 3/5/7/11 (?) notable fighters are participating. Oskar Liljeblad (talk) 21:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It is unlikely to happen... i think we need to change WP:EVENT first. Poison Whiskey (talk) 23:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
The project already has them, take a look at WP:MMAEVENT. They are being ignored. Mtking (edits) 23:21, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
One problem with Oskar's criteria is that it's circular--fighters become notable fighting for the UFC and the UFC events become notable because they have notable (because they fought for the UFC) fighters. It also seems to run counter to WP:NOTINHERITED. Papaursa (talk) 04:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
  • This battle never seems to end. Personally, I don't believe every UFC fight card is automatically notable and the way they're usually written (just giving the fight results) doesn't help the notability claim. In several previous discussions, in an attempt to reach a compromise, I proposed what I thought was a reasonable and objective criteria--consider events with UFC world title fights to be notable (since that is MMA's top echelon) and other events to be not notable. To me that seemed to be in the same spirit as saying the Super Bowl is notable, but every NFL game is not. However, the proposal never garnered much support. I mention it now simply in an attempt to end the continuous bickering at AfD. Papaursa (talk) 04:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Here are my arguments for top tier MMA event notability:
  • MMA events are not routine. Place, time, and participants can not be determined in advance, at least not in many months in advance. In most other sports you know all of this. For example, compare UFC to Formula 1. In Formula 1 you know place, time and participants ahead of season. And every Formula 1 race since 1980 is already covered in separate pages!
  • MMA results are inherently notable. It is not OK to delete an event page without having the results elsewhere.
  • I know many don't want Wikipedia to be complete, but at least it should be consistent. Maybe 99% of all UFC events are already covered in separate pages. Why should some not be? Like UFC 27, UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida, UFC on FX: Johnson vs. McCall.
--Oskar Liljeblad (talk) 10:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
But they are not notable according to what WP as an encyclopedia considers notable, these events are totally routine, take for example UFCxxx events - there would have been 14 events (13 not counting 151) in 2012 that is on average one every 26 days, each one of them either had, will or was meant to have, a UFC Championship fight (UFC has 8 "Champions") it is the Modus operandi of how UFC markets it's PPV events, if they can not market it as having a Championship fight of some sort then they will not get the PPV receipts and at event ticket sales they want and need, take for example UFC 147 they had to offer refunds when they pulled fights and replace them with lesser fighters. Like all sports events they get coverage in the lead up to and a day or two after, try searching Google for any of this weekends sports events (NFL for example) and you will get 1,000's of sources all reporting on each game, far more coverage then any of the UFCxxx events will get, yet you wont find articles on each of this weekends NFL or European soccer games. What WP uses when determining the criteria for a stand alone article is, is there significant non-routine coverage of an event that shows analysis outside the newscycle of the event and there is no indication that MMA events routinely get that. The reason for that criteria is those sources are what WP is meant to use to author the article.
What is going on here is for a long time WP:MMA an has operate in a walled garden along with MMA fans they have been using WP as a service to host pages on these routine events without any consideration to the wider WP policies and guidelines. You can propose what you think should be notable, but unless you can show such a proposal is backed up by the sourcing reality you stand no chance when it comes to a RfC on the change. Worrying about what other WP project might or might not do also won't help either, all you will get is WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS pointed out. If you want a repository for every MMA fight and event WP is never going to be it, for that you are better off going over to mmawiki.com, then concentrate here in summarising articles on years, truly notable fighters etc. Mtking (edits) 11:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that deleting the pages also deletes notable contents (e.g. results of bouts). You may or may not agree that events should have separate articles, but someone should make sure the results are kept somewhere (a summarization page at least). Once the page is deleted because of an AfD not even an administrator can restore its contents, unless someone starts a Wikipedia:Deletion review. In my opinion, the user starting the AfD should take personal responsibility to move/merge the relevant content if the result is delete. Oskar Liljeblad (talk) 12:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Mtking, you just keep repeating that these events are not notable (i.e. WP:JNN). And you keep comparing UFC events to individual games/matches of other sports. It is not the same thing, as I have explained before. There are more than 10 times as many football matches in a single division and season. In Premier League for example, there are many teams with one article per season (e.g. 2012–13_Arsenal_F.C._season, 2011-12_Arsenal_F.C._season, and so on). That would compare to one article per UFC event. Do you think that that is WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS as well? Can you provide other arguments against notability? Oskar Liljeblad (talk) 12:43, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I would like to add a suggestion: Merge the lesser events (on Fuel TV, on FX, etc.) into a list (or annual/biannual lists) and keep the numbered events, championship events and TUF finales with individual articles (they're likely to be notable enough to have individual articles). We can create redirects to the list sections and no info will be loss. Poison Whiskey (talk) 13:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
It's a decent solution, but it has been tried before and nobody did seem to like it. It was just hard to read and navigate the list. Also, looking at the attendance figures on List of UFC events, far from all FX/FuelTV events are "lesser". So it basically means we're leaving it up to the UFC to decide... But if it was MMA notability policy, IMHO it would be much better than the current situation with every single event being AfD'd. Oskar Liljeblad (talk) 14:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I particularly don't see the difficulty in seeing events like this: Bellator 76. We just need to make the redirects corretly, so it'll be easy to see as if they had individual articles and will not annoy nor confuse anyone. I think it should be tried again. And sorry about the word "lesser"... that's what came up to my mind when thinking about these events. Their main purpose is the same as the old fight nights: bouts with upcoming talents and top fighters not "famous" (or attractive) enough to head or be in the main card of a PPV event and bouts with fighters near to be fired. But that doesn't mean that they aren't important though. Poison Whiskey (talk) 16:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I almost forgot, there are some exceptions, like UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson and UFC on FX: Sotiropoulos vs. Pearson. Poison Whiskey (talk) 17:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Poison Whiskey's point is spot, as WP's is here to summarise what other secondly sources publish, and the one page per year model is the correct way WP should present the information and the fact that MMA fans did not like does not invalidate that approach. In answer to Oskar's point about deleted content, please also remember that WP is also not results service (for that try MMAwiki). Mtking (edits) 19:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the issue isn't as much that that the method is invalidated because "MMA fans don't like it" (just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they do so simply for that reason), it's rather that it was tried an simply didn't work. The articles were a mess, they weren't kept up with, an you were fine with coming in and nominating 50 articles for deletion but you won't actually help improve the articles if you think they're so bad. If you felt those articles were the best solution, why didn't you actually help with them when they were around? I think it's been shown the individual articles are the best route for these events. There's enough coverage with the Fox deal to show notability and the only people arguing against it are the ones that want nothing to do with it. No willingness to help the articles apart from nominating for deletion and adding notability tags. Meanwhile the actual editors that are trying to bring these articles have to deal with this along with bringing the articles up to standard. You're not helping anything. Your last try with this got the omnibuses made which in turn just made everything look disorganized with how little they actually helped. If these things need to be looked at, so be it, but I highly doubt you're doing it with the hope of making Wikipedia better organized. Your constant use of "MMA fans" when you see somebody disagreeing with you just screams troll to me. Let people do their job and if these articles need to be looked at, they will be. THEDeadlySins (talk) 23:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
you were fine with coming in and nominating 50 articles for deletion but you won't actually help improve the articles if you think they're so bad This is his classic style. He left in July and the articles resumed with a level of normalcy (not to mention a non-deluge of AfD discussions wasting editors/mods time). Everything is running smoothly until guess who shows back up in November and proceeds to do the same thing he did this past spring/summer. The common problem is pretty obvious as MMA editors weren't causing a stink in the Wiki community for months. I guess he wants attention again. Don't give it to him. Udar55 (talk) 03:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

PoisonWhiskey's point isn't valid, since Bellator works like a tournament, while UFC doesn't. There is no way to have a similar page for UFC that makes sense like the one for Bellator. Our previous attempt proved that much. Evenfiel (talk) 17:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

But they are connected and follow a chronological sequence... Bellator was just an example (see WP:L). I'll repeat my suggestion: keep the individual articles for major events (and a few exceptions exemplified on my last response) and merge the others into yearly or twice-yearly lists. Of course, Wikipedia shouldn't have all MMA events and fights, but UFC is — by far — the highest organization of the sport (MMA). Its events are notable, and (in my opinion) if they can't have individual articles they must be merged. In other words: the fate of some events' articles seems to be merge or delete, unless the WP policies change. Poison Whiskey 23:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Did you witness the rise and fall of the 2012 UFC omnibus? It provoked a major shitstorm. Merging events would work for lesser organizations, but not for UFC. There is only a clique, consisting mostly of users with no interest in MMA, who want to get rid of the articles about UFC events. Evenfiel (talk) 16:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
No, but i've searched and found some of the past discussions. That happened because no consensus was reached. The "clique" is grounded on WP policies, so its motivation is probably irrelevant to the subject. I'm just suggesting to merge the articles that can't pass the policies. Poison Whiskey 19:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
No "consensus" will ever be reach since one group has historically never conceded anything to make MMA content usable on wiki. As evidence consider taking a look at the former 2012 omnibus page which was already a cluster half-way through the year. It got to the point where the talk page overflowed with comments criticizing the insane formatting and its supporters resorted to deleting them in direct violation of WP:TALKO to save face. Meanwhile, sports, tv shows, etc, etc on wiki all split out unwieldy pages without any issue. We can be charitable at least initial assume that some simply simply aren't aware how linking and hypertext (ie matter of formatting) works, but plain ignorance shouldn't be an excuse after it was all explained in good faith and gratuitous detail at least a dozen time. So please save the point about following policy or even basic ethics, since I didn't see much of that in this dispute. Agent00f (talk) 01:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Also, let's be clear about the consequences of these actions. No one wants to work on material that'll just be arbitrarily deleted without communicable reasoning (and should this latter point be in dispute, take a look at the talk page of the admin who's done this recently for a very good example). Everyone should be aware of how is this entirely against the spirit of wiki, but it's rarely mentioned over the bureaucratic obfuscation. Agent00f (talk) 01:44, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, today i got two good surprises. The first is that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UFC on Fuel TV: Munoz vs. Weidman ended in an unexpected keep. The second is a policy that i found when i was reading the WP guidelines and policies: WP:IAR. It probably can help us since the events' articles seems to pass everything else but WP:NOTNEWSPAPER (maybe just the 2. News Reports). Anyway, my suggestion will still be there... i'm just trying to help to prevent more strife. I also want to advise to not make the articles with too much antecedence to avoid WP:CRYSTAL (i'm not sure if the UFC events can fall into this, but most of the AfDs are for upcoming events' articles). Poison Whiskey 20:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
The idea that MMA events lack enduring notability is false on its face. The pages get thousands of hits long after the event's over as evidenced by any number of tracking sites. Everyone knows this since it's been covered countless times, not that knowing basic facts prevents the kind of behavior we've seen. To your point of CRYSTAL, only one UFC event out of 200's ever been canceled after announcement, but to trivially resolve the problem the idea was once proposed for an "upcoming events" page. Unfortunately at the time the omnibus was far more inconvenient and worse formatting so this method which makes sense was just going to be deleted anyway. Agent00f (talk) 22:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing unexpected about that keep. Many UFC AFDs ended like that. Poison Whiskey, MTking is trying to get rid of UFC articles since May, and the best he achieved was to get rid of a few FX and Fuel articles and notable upcoming events, like UFC 155. A lot of time was spent for nothing. If a consensus exists, it's to keep all UFC events. You should not buy into his arguments. Unfortunately, Mtking and some of his supporters are well schooled in wikibureacracy, something that helps them in their crusade. Fortunately, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy . Evenfiel (talk) 23:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Correction: this AfD drama's been going on since well into last year, so since may 2011 would be more accurate, and it'll naturally continue as long as quality sourced articles are being deleted for no discernible reason just as it would on any subject. It would be hard to imagine any third party judging this anything other than as amateur hour, when the point of admins is to avoid exactly this sort of embarrassment to wiki. Agent00f (talk) 23:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
To Agent00f: Seems like you mixed up notability and popularity on your next to last response, but i've changed my mind a bit after seeing the result of the UFC on Fuel TV 4 AfD and now i must wait for the next steps of this discussion. I believe there is no need of further ado.
To Evenfiel: It was unexpected by me exactly because the UFC 155 article was deleted. Part of your response was a kind of reinforcement to my warning about the articles being created with too much antecedence. I think we should have any advice on the WP:MMA page to prevent this mess. I've already talked about the "clique" in one of my previous reponses and also explained about my suggestion previously (i'm a little uncertain about it now, but it's still on), so i'll just wait and see for a while.
Regards to everyone - Poison Whiskey 14:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Notability by definition means people care about it (ie worth noting). Enduring notability means they continue to do so. Agent00f (talk) 15:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Rewording notability criteria

Outside perspective. I read the notability criteria and they are entirely vague and have zero bite. I suggest the following rewrite:

  1. Subject of multiple independent reliable sources from national or international media. Local or routine coverage does not grant the presumption of notability.
  2. If an organization promotes several significant mixed martial arts events annually. Significant events include: include what significant events include. Some examples are title fights, top 10 ranked players, $1mil prizes and up, big name sponsors, ect
  3. If an organization has signed multiple fighters who have played in insert big events here or ranked rank on insert charts here

If someone would be so kind to fill in the blanks since I'm not at all educated on MMA, I'd appreciate it.--v/r - TP 14:12, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Stand Alone Articles for MMA Events

I would really like to see more clear cut guidelines on what makes an event appropriate for a stand alone article.

i'm going to "show my work" so this could get a bit long.

first, a large number of the AfDs which result in delete (see: Article alerts Archive) are from Second Tier or non-notable MMA promotions. Many of the AfDs which result in redirect are from promotions that organize there events in tournaments. Bellator for example has seasons, so everything in one season logically can be put into an omnibus. 

First: The Event must be from a top tier MMA orginization.

Second: If the event is part of an overall tournament or seires of events (Example: Bellator) an omnibus will be used instead of individual articles.

WP:GNG "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list." I'll address them in the same order WP:GNG does:

  • "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material.
At least 5 different reliable sources where the event is the main topic of the source material. WP:GNG

Forth: Events that have already happened must have the following for sources (all sources must be reliable WP:RELIABLE:
  • "Sources", for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally expected. Sources are not required to be available online, and they are not required to be in English. Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability.
At least 1 of the sources must be from within the last year. WP:SECONDARY
  • "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator. For example, self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, the subject's website, autobiographies, and press releases are not considered independent.
"Official Pages" can be linked to but will not count as a source. WP:IS
WP:NOT breaks down as follows:
WP:CRYSTAL
Third: Upcomming events will be placed in an Omnibus Article (Example: Upcoming UFC Events). WP:CRYSTAL
WP:NOTNEWSPAPER
  1. Journalism. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories. Wikipedia does not constitute a primary source. However, our sister projects Wikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources. Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news, and can be updated with recently verified information. Wikipedia is also not written in news style.
  2. News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews.
Providing the above guidelines are followed, there shouldn't be a problem here as the following two sections seem to be the ones that apply, and are very similar to what is listed above.
WP:NEVENTS 
Please note it says or not and
Additional work should be done to demonstrate lasting effect. Prose about how this event impacted the sport, the promotion, or the fighters career would be helpful.
  • Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards (as described below).
if the above bases are covered, this critera should also be meet.
WP:NSPORTS
No guidance is given in Wikipedia:Notability (sports) for MMA Events.

this is what i think the guidelines should look like

  1. The Event must be from a top tier MMA orginization.
  2. If the event is part of an overall tournament or seires of events (Example: Bellator) an omnibus will be used instead of individual articles.
  3. Upcomming events will be placed in an Omnibus Article (Example: Upcoming UFC Events). WP:CRYSTAL
  4. Events that have already happened must have the following for sources (all sources must be reliable WP:RELIABLE:
  • At least 5 different reliabe sources where the event is the main topic of the source material. WP:GNG
  • "Official Pages" can be linked to but will not count as a source. WP:IS
  • At least 2 of the sources must be from sources where MMA is not their primary focus. WP:WG
  • At least 1 of the sources must be from within the last year. WP:SECONDARY
  1. Additional work should be done to demonstrate lasting effect. Prose about how this event impacted the sport, the promotion, or the fighters career would be helpful.
please not that some of the issues this would resolve are also being discussed with other options here. Kevlar (talk) 19:41, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment

(Moved IP comment to talk page) These events are rare, the fighters involved do not fight more than 3-4 times a year. One bout takes a fighter 3-5 months of training. A career of a fighter rarely involves more than 20 fights. That is an entire career. For example, Brock Lensar was huge in popularity but has very few fights and is involved in only a few events. MMA is not like other sports. It is a slow moving and slow developing sport. For example, Anderson Silva has fought only a few times a year. Same for GSP.

Individual events should be considered not notable only if there are no matches with a pair of notable fighters. Please take some time to reflect on this. 173.168.140.188 (talk) 05:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

That is a position that is untenable for the general development of the MMA WikiProject. These events should certainly be omnibused. There is a discussion taking place on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts if you want to join that. But creating notability for a single event needs to be a more specific thing. It's not enough to say, hey we know who these two people are, therefore this event is important. It has to be demonstrated that that event is otherwise significant. This may be because of it's location (first event in x location) because of an athletic narrative (first openly gay fighter to headline a card), or because of a significant incident (Kevin Randalman KOing himself backstage before the main event, Greasegate, etc.) If we can not develop serious prosaic context to demonstrate the lasting effects of these events then they can be cataloged but shouldn't get individual articles.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 15:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The Ultimate Fighter: Live

There is right now a debate on if two fighter's articles should be deleted: Chris Tickle and Chris Saunders. What makes this an issue (in my opinion) is that under normal circumstances these fighters have less than the three required fights under WP:NMMA, but since they fought on The Ultimate Fighter: Live this may not be normal circumstances. All other TUF seasons were tape-delayed so the fights were considered exhibitions. However, for this season the fights were live, sanctioned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and therefore official fights (I know this about the tournament fights, but not sure about the fights to 'get in the house'). So the question is 'do fights on this season of TUF count as professional fights with regard to meeting WP:NMMA?'

To me the answer is no. A question is if these were 'professional' fights. While clearly these guys were paid, were they paid to fight and for each fight or were they paid for being on the show? To me it is the latter and therefore TUF participation (outside of the Finale show) should be considered more under Wikipedia:Notability (Reality Television participants). Further, while I am sure these guys are under some sort of contract, the UFC promotes this as the winner getting a 6-figure contract to fight in the UFC. Therefore, I question how much the UFC considers these fights professional UFC fights. Moreover, on the UFC website they only list Tickle as having one fight in the UFC (as opposed to 2 (adding tournament fight) or 3(adding 'get in the house' fight)) and his record is consistent with the fights not being counted - http://www.ufc.com/fighter/Chris-Tickle. In view of all this I think that TUF:Live fights are not professional fights for the purpose of WP:NMMA, but I do think this should be addressed by the community. -RonSigPi (talk) 17:00, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether these are professional fights, it's whether they're fighting at the highest level (as required by WP:ATH) and as defined under the appropriate notability standards. I believe the answer is no because TUF is clearly designed as tryouts. First, the UFC doesn't count them in the fighter's record and advertises that the whole tournament is for a UFC contract. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, the original MMANOT discussion (which I looked up this morning) came to the consensus that only the finale counts towards notability. Jakejr (talk) 19:46, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I only have a minor caveat to add here, and it doesn't have to do with the fighters in question, but there is an exception to TUF being non-pro fights and that is TUF Season 2. All of the fights on TUF 2 were considered professional fights according to the Nevada State Athletic Commission and not exhibition bouts. Right now it's the only season like that, but with The Ultimate Fighter franchise seemingly spreading out to numerous other countries, that might change in the future if they go to a country whose fights regulated by the fledging International Mixed Martial Arts Federation. For instance, the IMMAF recently managed to get MMA regulated in Germany which is a significant accomplishment, and was a market the UFC had previously tried to break into but failed, so a TUF: Germany in the future is not unthinkable. So, just sayin', for the future, there might be suitable exceptions. Beansy (talk) 03:00, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I would still say that TUF fights aren't notable, at least until the finale, because they're tryouts and thus not fighting at the highest level. Jakejr (talk) 05:09, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm just making a technical caveat that mainly might apply in the future (and just might affect a single fighter from TUF 2 when all fights were considered pro fights by the NSAC). It's just a nitpick though, so I guess I retract it. Beansy (talk) 05:35, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

DREAM Revival continued

I would like to propose, as discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/MMA notability/Archive 7#DREAM revival, that we differentiate between the original DREAM (which went bankrupt) and the new DREAM promotion. The new promotion clearly lacks the highly ranked fighters needed to be top tier and there's no guarantee how long this version will last. This is akin to what was done for RINGS. Jakejr (talk) 05:09, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree. If they start doing regular shows full of scrubs, then maybe, but Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Bibiano Fernandes, and Marloes Coenen are all premier fighters currently, while Hayato Sakurai, Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef, and Phil Baroni have all had very significant careers. Finally Michihiro Omigawa, Satoru Kitaoka, Yoshiro Maeda, and Antonio McKee are hardly nobodies. Now if they start doing regular scrub shows, then sure, but this particular show has three or four current divisional Top 10 fighters and a bunch of other "name" fighters, and infrequency of shows alone does not mean a promotion should be demoted, so I don't see where you're coming from. It's not like they waited a number of years to revive like RINGS, there is clear continuity in this incarnation of DREAM even if everyone thought it was defunct for most of the year. At best I'd hold off on this issue. Beansy (talk) 05:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah I have to assume that Dream is looking to reboot as the exact same promotion it died as (except now with an equal interest in kickboxing). This discussion may be different next year if they can't maintain the quality and distribution of their product, but it's way to early to make that decision.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 01:27, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Renominating Super Fight League for second tier status

Proposal by Pound4Pound who has been blocked as a sock of the blocked BigzMMA (WP:DENY) ✍ Mtking ✉ 06:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I would like to renominate India's Super Fight League for second tier status. My reasons are as stated below through the supporting criteria -

Criteria supporting notability

  • Subject of multiple independent articles/documentaries--articles should be from national or international media, not just local coverage. -

Covered by India's biggest papers, The Times of India, News Track India, Indian Sports News, Hindustan Times, Indian Television and The Hindu Business Line as well as some international websites such as Yahoo and MMA in Asia.

  • Promotes a large number of events annually--the more fights it has sanctioned, the more notable. -

By this Friday they would of held 13 events over the course of 9 months, with an additional 24 planned events for 2013.

  • Has actively been in business for several years - the longer the organization has been around, the more notable. -

Despite only holding their first event in March this year, it is hard to argue that the SFL shouldn't be deemed notable under this when considering that promotions like ONE Fighting Championship has only held 6 events since its conception in September 2011. When I nominated ONE FC, the promotion was barely a year old, making it hard to pass this bit of criteria yet the consensus was to place it as a second tier promotion none the less.

  • Large number of well-known and highly ranked fighters. -

Probably it's weakest criteria to pass on based on the number of events they had to the number of notable fighters that have fought for them, but fighters such as Xavier Foupa-Pokam, Jimmy Ambriz, James Thompson, Bob Sapp, Ryan Healy, Paul Kelly, Alexander Shlemenko, Ikuhisa Minowa, Todd Duffee, Neil Grove, Zelg Galešić, Doug Marshall, Trevor Prangley, Baga Agaev, Kultar Gill, Joanne Calderwood, Bobby Lashley, Michael Page, John Troyer, Julia Berezikova, Manjit Kolekar and Kario Isaac Maheo have competed for them, so hopefully this will be brought into consideration.

If anyone wants to ask me anything over this subject, please ask me on here, and I will answer you soon. Pound4Pound (talk) 22:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC) Pound4Pound blocked as a sock of the blocked BigzMMA ✍ Mtking ✉ 06:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd second that nomination. Definately not top tier, but it's had enough events and has gained enough national and international coverage (have seen highlights of the events in the U.S.) to be second-tier. Luchuslu (talk) 15:47, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
90% of the fighters in the SFL have less than 10 fights or are making their promotional debut. While they have gained a certain amount of casual interest, and are certainly the only promotion operating in India, most of the Notable fighters listed were part of a promotional push to get initial notoriety, fighters of this caliber do not regularly compete on these cards. At this time with this short a history and such a low standard of competition I can't imagine considering them even second tier. They are as likely to go bankrupt next month as they are to be around next year.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 05:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
So? Virtually all of the promotions in second tier do not command top ranked fighters, they do use many fighters who have under 10 fight also and they also use fighters who are notable but do not necessarily stand much chance against a UFC level fighter. And to your point about many of these notable fighters being used to help promote the promotion to the public eye, so have many others, BAMMA for example, have used Alex Reid twice purely to help push their product in the past, the first time being successful, the second not so much but thats just one example. EliteXC used Kimbo Slice's name to help them bring in ratings and attention to their product, which ended disastrously, but unless you can name me something or someone else that made EliteXC famous than Kimbo, then thats what they are known for. Difference is that the Super Fight League changed their business model so that they focus more on the Indian talent, which has worked alot better for them, with their old model people were mocking them, but now those same people show them respect, and now they are making money, setting up side projects (training facilities, creating clothing lines and male grooming stuff etc), they have 24 events planned for next year (one every 2 weeks). Basically they are making the right moves, and because of this I believe that the time is spot on for them to become second tier. Pound4Pound (talk) 13:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Pound4Pound blocked as a sock of the blocked BigzMMA ✍ Mtking ✉ 06:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
This is exactly the sort of project that is ripe for deletion though. Just because they're "making the right moves" doesn't make them notable. And I would argue that the same is true for most smaller MMA promotions. The more we try and focus on developing content on every minor league promoter under the sun the more we open the entire project to mass deletion. SFL is not an important, historical, or otherwise meaningful part of the MMA landscape. At the moment it is a curiosity. Perhaps in a year or two when they have shown that they have a business model that will survive long term and they have developed real talent in India capable of competing in other larger promotions then they could be considered 2nd tier. But at the moment not one home grown SFL fighter has appeared in a larger promotion. At least with BAMMA Tom Watson went on to the UFC, and EliteXC featured many fighters who would later become Strikeforce stars and champions. SFL just isn't even close to there yet.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 16:14, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate your hyperbole, but I don't thing SFL would lead to wikipedia deleting the entire WP:MMANOT project. It's the largest organization in one of the largest countries in the world. That's the main basis for my support. I don't see it being any less notable than Universal Reality Combat Championship, the largest organization in The Phillipines. Luchuslu (talk) 17:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Considering the recent "sanctioning" plan I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but I would generally consider that an argument against URCC rather than for SFL. MMA organizations may live and die over a matter of months or years, creating articles and granting status to a promotion that has existed for less than a year and may be gone overnight, is not a good standard policy. I would suggest that it be one of many organizations built into a list of MMA organizations and could be spunout from that point once it shows sustainability and growth.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Right, well here is the thing, the SFL will without a doubt pass any deletion debate based on the fact that it meets WP:GNG, so deletion is not an option. Because of this there is no point in having a promotion that clearly has had an impact in MMA, particularly in India and the surrounding areas (Tigers Gym in India actually left the ONE FC Network to work with the SFL) being left out of this list, and it is not like I'm trying to say that any promotion that can pass criteria on here should be placed in second tier, but because the promotion has had an impact in the country it is from, such as bringing it to the India mainstream, being home to the biggest roster of Indian born fighters, owned by notable people etc, it should be more support for this. I get what your are trying to say Thaddeus Venture, but in the same way as saying that the UFC could also go bankrupt and be gone forever tomorrow morning, we cannot assume the worst ocase scenario for these promotions and instead look at what they are at this time and what they have going for them right now. I have seen AfDs recently for certain UFC events been voted delete based on WP:CRYSTAL, and your doing a similar thing based on no real support evidence of a worst case scenario happening, my evidence is from indepent websites that got press releases from the promotion saying that they have 24 events planned throughout 2013, and with 13 events already happened this year as well as the side projects they are doing/working on at this time, I can see a long term, sustainable future for the promotion and thats what I'm supporting for second tier status. Pound4Pound (talk) 23:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC) Pound4Pound blocked as a sock of the blocked BigzMMA ✍ Mtking ✉ 06:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I am not attempting to predict the future, my point is that SFL is brand new, unstable, and bottom of the barrel in terms of talent. It may be notable as India's only real MMA promotion, but it is not a meaningful part of the MMA landscape yet. If you think that the UFC and SFL are on equal footing financially and are equally as likely to be around in the next year then I think you are deeply mistaken. SFL has shrunk in scope almost continually since it's debut event and while it appears stable it is stable at an incredibly low level of the sport. In another year it might be at a place where it could be considered important to the sport of MMA, and part of this weird tier system we have, but right now, even comparing it to Jungle Fight seems misleading.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 20:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Women's MMA

  • Valkyrie and SmackGirl should be listed as defunct women's promotions.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Pancrase is also now a promoter of Women's MMA.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 18:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Agree with adding these two promotions, some research will need to be gathered to see whether these promotions meet top tier criteria or would be more suited for second tier. The current system states that the promotion/s must of had at least 3 out the top 5 ranked women in any of the divisions they used at the time, so for example if they had the the numbers 1, 3 and 5 ranked women fighting at Flyweight compete for them then they meet top tier status. Pound4Pound (talk) 22:58, 18 December 2012 (UTC)Sock of indef blocked sockpuppeteer BigzMMA Hasteur (talk) 13:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the default position should be Second Tier (I'm kind of on the fence on both). That being said, I really think that Bellator should be promoted to Top Tier when it comes to Women's MMA. It's not that they've promoted a ton of women's fights, but quite a few of the ones they have promoted have been very significant. The W115 tournament was basically an all-star field, including the qualifiers. Since that time they've done a superfight with the top two Women's Strawweights in the world with Jessica Aguilar and Megumi Fujii. They've also held a number of fights with divisional Top 10 fighters like Zoila Frausto, Felice Herrig, Michelle Ould, Munah Holland, Rosi Sexton (former World #1 at Women's Flyweight according to several major rankings) and Jessica Eye. Really they've been nearly as relevant to Women's Strawweight and Flyweight as Strikeforce has been to Women's Bantamweight. I was actually considering adding a new section just to say that. Beansy (talk) 03:09, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't involved but it looks like editors successfully cooperated to establish consensus and an objective criteria for women's MMA organizations. I see no reason to immediately change things. I agree with Beansy that it's not about the number of fights, but whether or not they've had the top fighters (as defined in the original discussion on women's MMA notability at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/MMA notability/Archive 7#Women's MMA Notability). Jakejr (talk) 05:09, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The criteria agreed upon is that a WMMA promotion can be agreed upon to be top tier if they have the majority of the top 5 ranked WMMA fighters in the divisions they promote at one given time. Now even though Bellator, combining the whole time they have been in business, has had more than the majority it hasn't had enough at any one point to be considered top tier for the women's criteria (a minimum of 3 out of 5 top ranked fighters all at one stage competed on Bellator cards before any of them fought for another promotion, that is why Cage Warriors hasn't been considered top tier for women despite at the time when criteria was being created they owned the ranked numbers 1, 2 and 5 Flyweight fighters in WMMA, but Aisling Daly has since fought for another promotion and has been knocked off the top 10 in the division). I do feel though that the second tier in both mens and womens needs to evolve from what is basically just a listing with no grounds for creating notability for their fighters to resetting the criteria so that it is much tougher for notability for fighters and promotions than top tier promotions, but can support notability for promotions that do not possess the majority of top 10 or 5 (respectively) ranked fighters in their divisions. Then we can create a third tier for both in which we can use as a list, but with regular monitoring and detail reviewing can decide whether it should remain in third tier or be bumped up to second. I have detailed a example of this system under the IFL subtitle below if anyone wants to see what I am trying to say. Pound4Pound (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2013 (UTC) Pound4Pound blocked as a sock of the blocked BigzMMA ✍ Mtking ✉ 06:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

IFL

I'll keep this one short and sweet....I think we should add the IFL to the list. I'm surprised it isn't in there, but I've not looked at the tier list properly in a while and today I've noticed the absence. Yay or nay? Paralympiakos (talk) 21:21, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes it should probably be listed as a defunct second tier promotion, possibly third tier if we can whip that idea into shape.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 01:31, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree, it was a solid second-tier promotion. All eight fighters who held IFL titles meet WP:N standards, plus it received significant media coverage during its (unfortunately) short existance. Luchuslu (talk) 04:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
It had a television network deal, was far more widely seen than any other defunct second-tier promotion or most active ones, and had a large number of significant fighters. I don't have time to research every one of them right now or where they were ranked at the time, but it's unquestionably a more important and a more credible promotion than most that are listed in the second-tier. So yeah, 100% for the IFL getting a second-tier ranking. Beansy (talk) 09:08, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Given further thought, definitely second tier, ignore any waffling in my previous statement.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 20:59, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry gang. didn't know this page was there! But yes, I agree about IFL being second tier on a third tier system. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 18:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Can't we just form a consensus right here to say that we want 3 tiers? PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 06:47, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I would say that it should be at least 2nd tier because the level of fighter on the IFL was basically neck and neck with Bellator. When it folded, the guys went to the UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator which should be a testiment to the level of competition, not to mention the teams were being coached by legends like Pat Miletich and Ken Shamrock. I'm not sure if this is the right place to bring this up, but I have a real issue with only top tier promotions being counted toward notability. I don't think 1 fight in a second tier should hold the same weight as 1 fight in top tier, but shouldn't 2 or 3 fights in a lower tier hold some weight. Willdawg111 (talk) 06:57, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
For the sake of being able to address that in the near future, could we agree that a 3 tier system is neccessary? Once we agree we need it, we can move on from the WP:MMATIER article to the main WP:NMMA guideline
  • I propose a move to consensus on having a 3 tier mma systemPortlandOregon97217 (talk) 07:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. We clearly need a 3 tier system. Evenfiel (talk) 14:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
What systematic way is there to determine what promotions/organizations go in which of the three tier? Is this going to be opinion based and thus subject to WP:OR? --TreyGeek (talk) 14:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
It's up for us to discuss which systematic way we should use. Evenfiel (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
We already have that now. Who's to say what a top tier organization is. We have Rings, Shooto, Affliction (who only put on a couple shows) listed as top tier. In my opinion, no way these promotions are more notable than KOTC or M-1. So are you saying we need to throw out what we have right now because its all original research? How about establishing the notability based on the number of shows an organization has done. Say, any organization that has put on more then 75 shows is top tier, 25-74 second tier, and less than 25 third tier. Isn't that about the only way to prevent it from being original research? Willdawg111 (talk) 16:46, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
The promotions in the current top tier are (supposed) to be those who have/had multiple top ranked fighter signed to their organization. This criteria is verifiable and can have a reliable sourced cited to show at what point a promotion met the requirements for the top tier. As for the current second-tier I have little care about it since it isn't used anywhere in terms of establishing notability. --TreyGeek (talk) 18:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Question What good is it to have a second or third tier list if we aren't going to use it. If only top tier organizations count toward notability, why bother?Willdawg111 (talk) 16:48, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Who says we are not going to use it? Evenfiel (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
*Very Good Point, Proposition I do feel that the second tier just stands as a list of promotions that meets with the correct criteria with MMANOT's policies but has no real value towards notability for the fighters, so it might be worth proposing a system for the second tier that would be very strict to reach in comparison to top tier (I agree with the system that multiple fighters ranked in top 10 in one promotion to be considered top), but there would be a reachable height for the promotions that do not possess top 10 fighters to create the opportunity to make certain fighters notable, and then we can create a third tier as the list, but we can use that tier as a way to monitor them and decide through consensus if they meet second or third tier. So for example, if we say that a fighter who wins rather than just fights for the highest title of a second tier promotion and/or competed for any number of second tier promotions a total of 10 times that has a major television network deal, that averages a certain number of notable fighters per card and gets what we consider mainstream coverage before and after each event (which will mean websites that primarily cover MMA will not do) as well as having any number of top 10 fighters compete for them at any point in its existence, then we can consider that fighter notable. This way we can move down certain top tier ranked promotions, but bump up what we will consider third tier so that second tier will represent enough strength to, on conditions, allow certain fighters to be considered notable, then like I said we can use the newly created third tier to monitor these promotions to see if they should be upgraded up to second tier. But this is just my opinion, what does anyone else think? Pound4Pound (talk) 17:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC) Pound4Pound blocked as a sock of the blocked BigzMMA ✍ Mtking ✉ 06:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Doing away with the tiered system

No matter how we refine this list it will be almost impossible for it to not be purely a construction of preference. Viability needs to be established based upon levels of notoriety that can be determined primarily through sourcing and potentially, in a secondary way, weight could be given due to history, notable fighters, or number of events/notable events per year. But those should only be secondary considerations to establishing baseline notability.

I strongly suggest the development of a List of MMA promotions along with a list of defunct MMA promotions that has reliable, but minimal sourcing requirements so that we can at least provide a baseline from which we promote organizations based upon the amount of information that can be gathered about them. This would require no changes to any UFC, bellator, strikeforce, or other major promotion articles, but may mean closing articles for promotions like URCC, OneFC, BAMMA, UCMMA, etc. or at least making serious discussions around why they should be spun out.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 21:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Clearly, dividing MMA promotions by notability into three tiers (including untiered) isn't a strict science, and some degree of bias may come into play here . Obviously there are a few promotions that are objectively top tier, while at the same time the vast majority of tiny indy promotions are objectively not worth listing; it's the two or three dozen in-between whose position is debatable, and thus subject to stricter levels of notability. However, I think the system is perfectly functional as long as the tiers get annual evaluations for active promotions, with certain promotions getting grandfathered in after a while. No one will question how important the UFC or Pride have been for the sport, for instance, while no one is about to suggest that Wild Bill's Fight Nights should be considered for anything other than a List Of MMA Promotions With Cool Names. Another consideration is that a few promotions have had their level of notability change at some point, such as WEC after the Zuffa buyout. So, maybe we can just go ahead and hold an internal evaluation on that subject? Beansy (talk) 05:11, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
That's certainly a good simple place to start. Most of my point is that at the moment, with this list being based upon how many "Top Ten" fighters the promotion carries, it really only creates a constructive picture of the UFC, which routinely has the majority of top ten fighters in the world, so discussing those middle dozen will become an intensely bias heavy procedure. I recently went through an AfD with another editor who was convinced that they NAAFS is every bit as important as the UFC. How we make decisions to tier organizations needs to be stable, and not just a yearly consensus on what's happened to each promotion over the last 12 months. That being said, just giving the list a good once over right now would at least give it more credibility.Thaddeus Venture (talk) 20:06, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I think this list, pulled from wilddawgs talk page, is the most spot on ranking of MMA organizations. Please ignore the points for now and just look at their order, and tell me if it is a good start. It is leaps and bounds ahead of what the notability essays organization list, and very fair I might add. I did add K-1 Heros and WFa to its appropriate spot on the list.

1,000 points UFC Championship fights 750 Points UFC main card fight (Zuffa era only) 500 points UFC undercard fights (Zuffa era) UFC (pre-Zuffa era) Pride FC 250 points K-1 Heros World Fighting Alliance Ultimate Fighter contests (does not include finale) Bellator Shooto Strikeforce Affliction Dream WEC Invicta FC Elite XC 150 Points (ammatuer fights for these organizations do not count) Fighting Rings World Victory Road M-1 Global King of the Cage One FC Pancrase 100 points (amatuer fights for these organizations do not count) BAMMA Cage Warriors Deep Jungle Fight Bad Breed Konfrontacja Satuk Walki Maximum Fighting Championship Shark Fights Ultimate Challenge MMA Universal Reality Compbat Championship NAAFS Cage Rage Championships Palace Fighting Championship Tachi Palace Fights WSOF 50 Points (ammatuer fights do not count) All organizations not listed above PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 19:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I find the idea of separating the UFC into multiple categories to be needlessly complex. Even during the dark ages and pride's heydey the UFC as been seen as equivalent to the very highest level of the sport. Fighters often get shuffled between the maincard and the undercard leading up to an event, someone who may have been set to appear on the undercard may get a last minute boost to main card status, etc. While that may boost their notoriety somewhat, I don't think it provides enough of a difference to account for an entirely separate set of values. Otherwise my problem with the list order with or without the point spread, is not that I disagree with his divides, but I have no idea how they were obtained. What is the methodology at work here that is being used to say Jungle fight is X good, and the UFC is Y good. Even if we all thought this order was more or less right, its based on opinion rather than reliable data. Without reliable data the structure will always be weak. If it can be explained how this order was established, then I think that would be the conversation to have and the point to agree on. A system of establishing and ranking the notoriety of MMA organizations that is not entirely dependent on the fighters in those organizations should be the way forward. Our opinions should be on what data is and isn't relevant to making a promotion more or less notable, not about the actual notoriety itself. Thaddeus Venture (talk) 19:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
As I said before, the idea of a points system is against the common sense system that Wikipedia prefers in terms of making judgments. The way and availability of having multiple different categories to score points in is gameable to the point of being a joke. I observe yet another attempt to turn the reasoned consensus process into a bright line pass/fail process that can be used to force subjects that fail to meet Wikipedia's pillars/rules/guidelines/best practices. Hasteur (talk) 20:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
As an extremely informed individual I say that is a good list. nevermind the splitting of the UFC into different parts if you must. Would anyone support assigning different members of this project with getting refs for each organization? How else to determine what is notable and what is not? Then maybe we can adjust the list based on what is notable. But as far as a preliminary ranking this looks good. I would say just draw two horizontaly and you have your three tiers. I also said ignore the points and just look at the order they are in for the sake of the discussion PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 20:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
If I'm just being asked to support a list that is someones opinion as a guideline then no, I would very strongly not support this idea. I don't go as far as Hasteur, although I do think he has a very good point, because I think that some further set process for how we organize promotions is needed at this point. We have too much trouble reaching consensus on even simple things to not start establishing some more hard and fast baseline guidelines. However the list above is putting the cart before the horse. We need guidelines that we can then judge promotions by, giving us a list, no matter how reasonable it may seem, and then saying, lets try and work on justifying it, is not a good step forward. If it is one persons opinion or ten it is still only representative of opinion and not process, and thus every new thing that may be added to it becomes a decision based on opinion. It's like saying "I think blue is prettier than yellow. If we can all agree that's true then we can rank blue higher than yellow from here on out." And then some one says "What about Green?" and it all falls down. Thaddeus Venture (talk) 00:25, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
you know? I'm starting to think WP:NOTINHERITED applies to fighters. ANd I mean that fighting in the UFC or any even doesnt make them automatically notable. Or even fighting 3 times. Its only if they have the proper refs that they are notable. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 14:34, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
That would go against how notability for athletes is determined. Evenfiel (talk) 17:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I see your point, but we need to have a way to determine if someone is competing at the highest level (which is the usual standard for any athlete). If you're not going to use promotions, then I think you need to use an independent ranking system such as Sherdog and use the boxing criteria of being rated in the world top 10. Mdtemp (talk) 16:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
We could do it like they do for other professions. You just have to prove that you are inherantly notable by fighting alot of big fights. A big fight is determined by who fights in it, and how people feel about the fight, and how well it is covered by refs(even play-by-play would count). If you are being mentioned all the time in trivial mentions, are on alot of playbyplays for mid-top tier events, or can pass the GNG, then you are good. Theres no need for these rigid rules. I mean, you have people saying delete because a fighter passes GNG, but fails NMMA. I cannot fathom someone actually going through with hitting the save button after typing that, and then continue to use it after it being pointed out how ridiculous this is. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 06:14, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
If someone passes GNG, there is no need for him/her to pass WPNMMA. The required three fights are only for those who can't pass GNG. Evenfiel (talk) 00:54, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Again, not everyone thinks this way . As seen herePortlandOregon97217 (talk) 01:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
That doesn't matter. Whoever closes that debate will weigh in the arguments and decide what the result is. If that guy passes GNG, then his article is here to stay. Evenfiel (talk) 00:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Not exactly true. as is the puzzling case of Antonio Mckee. It's only a matter of time before he is nominated again. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 01:42, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
I'll admit I was a little surprised by that result, but I think it's because not everyone believed he passed GNG (I'll admit it wasn't a slam dunk for me). That said, I do think an article is likely to be safe once it's been determined to pass GNG. Papaursa (talk) 02:02, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Historical footnote When Paralympiakos asked me to join the effort to draft notability guidelines in 2010, we discussed how to determine notability. We specifically focused on notability for fighters and organizations. Suggestions includee using determinants such as the prize money, whether a fight was the main event or in the undercard, and other ideas. The idea of settling on organizational tiers was deemed to be the simplest objective criteria that everyone seemed to agree on. We used the criteria of top tier because all other athletes are judged based on whether or not they competed at the highest level. We used the most popular world rankings at the time to determine which organizations the top fighters (world top 10 in any weight class) were competing in. We settled on 3 fights because that was deemed reasonable, especially in light of the standard 2 fight UFC tryout contract. There was also a discussion on whether or not to include TUF fights--opinions ranged from counting all to counting none of them. In the end a compromise was reached--only TUF finale fights would count. I think the consensus reached (where nobody got everything they wanted) was a good one and the other participants agreed. If you want to change things, I would claim you still need to determine the "highest level" and I'd still advocate for an objective system. Note it clearly says the list can be changed as circumstances warrant. For those of you who weren't in on the original discussions, I thought a review of why we have the existing guidelines might be appropriate. Papaursa (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Flyweight division in MMATIER

(Moved from "Organization notability for Shooto" section) Now i realized something about this criterion of WP:MMATIER: "Active organizations with multiple fighters ranked in the top 10 in any of the 7 weight classes were placed in the top tier". Only seven weight divisions are considered. I presume they are: 1- Heavyweight, 2- Light Heavyweight, 3- Middleweight, 4- Welterweight, 5- Lightweight, 6- Featherweight and 7- Bantamweight (that would explain why Tachi Palace Fights isn't considered top-tier). If is that so, should we increase to eight including the flyweight division? especially since now it's pretty solid in the UFC. Poison Whiskey 22:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Flyweight is legit now that the UFC has introduced it and a champion will be crowned soon. So, if Flyweight is added does Tachi-Palace fights get added to top tier? Seems like it should since that is where the all the top ranked flyweight action was before the UFC added it. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 22:59, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Actually the UFC already has a flyweight champion (Demetrious Johnson). He will defend his belt against John Dodson in a thirteen days. Poison Whiskey 23:08, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
haha. Shows how much UFC I watch. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 23:25, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Support - Multiple top ten fighters at flyweight in the UFC. Tachi Palace would be for another discussion. Luchuslu (talk) 23:56, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Support -ditto. PortlandOregon97217 (talk) 00:03, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
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