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ASK THE TORCH: Amadi answers reader questions on pound for pound rankings, splitting heavyweight division limits
Mar 15, 2012 - 2:30:50 PM ASK THE TORCH: Amadi answers reader questions on pound for pound rankings, splitting heavyweight division limits

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By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

Jake writes: I don't understand why Junior dos Santos is so low on the pound for pound list compared to Ben Henderson who also just won the belt in his weight class and even a couple others... JDS has destroyed the heavyweight class almost as dominantly as Jon Jones ran through the light heavyweight class. I think JDS is far underrated still, and most people don't recognize pure talent with their own eyes. They just want to go off of hype.

A: Well, pound-for-pound rankings are going to favor lighter fighters over heavyweights; that's kind of the point. But, I don't really disagree with the rest of that at all.

The heavyweights that really got over in the last ten years have all had something about them outside of their fighting ability that captured the imaginations of the MMA audience. Alistair Overeem is a hulking mass of humanity, Fedor Emelianenko has his stoic demeanor, Brock Lesnar was a jerk, etc. Outside of his fighting ability, Junior dos Santos is just like every other successful Brazilian in mixed martial arts; he's happy, he's polite, he thanks God when he wins and doesn't really have a bad word to say about anyone.

That being said, the UFC Heavyweight Champion is one of the most destructive forces ever in MMA and doesn't get the respect from the American audience that he deserves. You could easily make the argument that Junior dos Santos is just as dominant, if not more dominant, than Jon Jones, but he receives one-tenth of the praise. I'm not sure how many more men have to get concussed by "Cigano" before people get the picture, but it doesn't appear that he'll be going anywhere any time soon, so we'll probably get to find out sooner rather than later.

Kevin writes: If we can't have a super heavyweight class over 265, why not split the heavyweight division heavyweight 206-230 and super heavyweight 231-265 that way it levels the playing field for the weight classes.

A: What people need to understand about the heavyweight class is that the pool of talent in that division is significantly shallower than in any other division in MMA.

Creating a cruiserweight division wouldn't change anything. Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos are the last two UFC Heavyweight Champions and they could dominate at cruiserweight just the same as they do today. From what we've seen do we really need to create a new division to shield Junior dos Santos from Shane Carwin? Did we need a separate division to save Cain Velasquez from Brock Lesnar?

The fact is, there are guys competing at super heavyweight outside of the UFC and it sucks. We've seen what kind of shape guys like Tim Sylvia show up in at super heavyweight and that really doesn't need to be featured on a major platform.

If anyone is really dying to see the best that the world of super heavyweight MMA has to offer, perhaps they should purchase the upcoming Worldwide Mixed Martial Arts pay-per-view. The main event is Sean McCorkle vs. Brian Heden (17-10). Yeah, that's what I thought.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @JasonAmadi and direct your "Ask the Torch" questions to mmatorch@gmail.com