Doing the math on the UFC's roster cuts
All these recent roster cuts have gotten FightTicker.com members (notably chuck) wondering: what's the UFC's target roster size?
So, I did some very rough math to figure out how many cuts we may be looking at and what the UFC's target number might be for fighters on its roster.
Assumptions:
Let's say we currently have 200 fighters on the UFC's roster (or an average of 40 per weight class.) Counting pay-per-view events, TUF finales and Ultimate Fight Nights, we're at just about 20 fight cards in a year. In fact, looking at UFC.com there were 19 fight cards last year, so let's go with 20 as a nice round number. Let's also say there are 10 fights per card. The UFC had been going with 9 fights per card for a long time but it appears they are adding more fights each card so we'll just say a nice average is 10.
The math
20 cards per year x 10 fights per card = 200 fights per year
200 fights per year x 2 fighters per fight = 400 fighters per year (similar to man hours)
To achieve 3 bouts a year per fighter (which I think is a good number), the UFC needs 400/3 fighters or approximately 133 fighters on its roster. Let's round off to 135 to make this easy.
Suppose the UFC keeps 3 guys on notice in each division that can step in because of injuries, etc, we then have 3 x 5 = 15 fighters on notice.
So, in total the UFC could keep 135 + 15 = 150 fighters (or 30 per division).
If we are at 40 fighters per division now, we're probably looking at 10 cuts per division or 50 total cuts to get from 200 fighters to 150 fighters.
Let's see what the UFC does in the weeks and months to come...
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Comments
Well done Pramit...glad you
Well done Pramit...glad you had the inspiration to do the math....
chuck, the inspiration came
chuck, the inspiration came directly from you! thank you for that!
i hate math. so after
i hate math. so after cutting kalib, doerkson, and lutter and with miseralbe chainsaw retiring, that would be 194 fighters with 44 fighters are going to get cut?
Underboss MMAfia
Head of the West Coast Family
ULTIMATE CHALLENGE CHAMPION UFC 83
Phoenix, that depends on how
Phoenix, that depends on how Dana White did in subtraction...
There is only room enough
There is only room enough for one Chuck around here! and I am EERS! lol
EERS_1_Fan
Head of South East Tribe MMAFIA
MMABRAT, CaptnCrunch, and Michael are all going to start training in the devils MMA lol
Well, according to UFC.com,
Well, according to UFC.com, they have 162 fighters listed on their website. There are 37 lightweights listed (and those include Alex Karalexis and Jamie Varner, both fighting in the WEC), 43 welterweights (including John Alessio [WEC] and Sammy Morgan [last I saw him was in ShoXC]), 36 midleweights (including Danny Abbadi [?], Royce Gracie [still under contract?], Justin Levens [hasn't fought in the UFC since 2006 - had a few fights in the IFL], Travis Lutter [just released], Charles McCarthy [just retired], and Chael Sonnen [WEC]), 26 light heavyweights (including Tomasz Drwal, James Lee [both had their last fights in the UFC and were none too impressive], Ken Shamrock [really?], and Eric Schafer [fought on a Gladiators Fighting Series card in Wisconsin in February, probably not coming back]) and 20 heavyweights (including Randy Couture [who knows whats happening here], Justin Eilers [no fights in the UFC since February 2006], and Dan Severn [no fights in the UFC since 2000]). Knocking those 17 out brings us to 145 fighters, or just about where Pramit said they'd end up.
Thanks TBC for the detailed
Thanks TBC for the detailed look. I'm going based on reports that place the fighter roster at about 200 and I also admit that the divisions are quite unbalanced. For example, I don't believe there are 40 fighters in the heavyweight division. If there are, I can't name them.
This was just a rough cut, really spurred on by chuck's desire to delve deeper into the question.
This Chuck or the other
This Chuck or the other one?
EERS_1_Fan
Head of South East Tribe MMAFIA
MMABRAT, CaptnCrunch, and Michael are all going to start training in the devils MMA lol
usnername chuck i
usnername chuck i think...upchuck.
Underboss MMAfia
Head of the West Coast Family
ULTIMATE CHALLENGE CHAMPION UFC 83
And that doesn't address new
And that doesn't address new fighters on the cusp of comming into the UFC which the organization needs to stay healthy.
eers, you're officially eers
eers, you're officially eers to me! lol
member chuck is indeed a different person, as you've by now figured out.