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Did you know Tyron Woodley and CM Punk have the same ground rating in EA Sports UFC 2? Take a look at some of the key numbers in the in-game ratings list before next week’s full launch.

It’s a time-honored tradition for sports gamers to obsess and complain and compare video game ratings of the top faces in the NFL’s Madden series, NBA 2K series, FIFA soccer series, and so on. We’re just about a week away from EA Sports releasing its 2nd installment of their UFC video game, which boasts 250+ fighters, including non-UFC fantasies like two versions of Mike Tyson, as well as Bruce Lee.

The four basic ratings for all UFC fighters — Stand-up, Clinch, Ground, Overall — have been released as of late last week. I know you’re itching to find out what CM Punk’s ratings were, so here’s the breakdown:

Stand-up: 80
Clinch: 78
Ground: 82
Overall: 82
Fighting Style: Freestyle Wrestler

Predictably, he’s the lowest rated fighter at welterweight, and in the entire game. However, that isn’t to say that there aren’t fighters who are rated lower than CM Punk in select attributes, so let’s find out!

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Before we go into the meat of this article, let’s clear up a couple of things:

1.) The ratings are relative to the weight class. In other words, as one commenter elaborates, having 90 rated stand-up at welterweight has a different meaning than if you’re a bantamweight. This is why Conor McGregor’s stand-up is a 99 at featherweight but 92 at lightweight.

2.) There are unknown sub-ratings within the ratings. Punches, kicks, knees, takedowns, submissions, defensive grappling, choke defense, joint defense, etc. You probably get the idea. Essentially, two fighters can have the same 87 ground rating for two completely different reasons.

With that in mind, let’s completely ignore those points and have some fun with this, shall we?

Welterweights with equal or lower ground rating than CM Punk (ranked fighters in bold)

Tyron Woodley (82)
Jake Ellenberger (82)
Hyun Gyu Lim (82)
Mike Pyle (82)
Jordan Mein (82)
Tarec Saffedine (81)
Augusto Montano (81)
Omari Akhmedov (80)
Martin Kampmann (80)
Pascal Krauss (80)
Tim Means (78)

Welterweights with equal or lower clinch rating than CM Punk

Thiago Alves (76)

Welterweights with equal or lower stand-up rating than CM Punk

None

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Let’s get away from CM Punk for a moment and focus on some … rather interesting things I’ve seen having combed over the entire roster. It appears that “Fighting Style” is separated into the following categories: Freestyle Wrestler, Greco-Roman Wrestler,  Boxer, Kickboxer, Tae Kwon Do, Jiu-Jitsu (which they’ve spelled “Jiu-Jutsu” on the website for some reason), and Judo. There are a handful of fighters whose styles, at least to me, really don’t match how they actually perform in UFC competition, most notably:

Gunnar Nelson – Karate
Ilir Latifi – Boxer
Roan Carneiro – Boxer
Olivier Aubin-Mercier – Boxer
Gilbert Burns – Boxer
Beneil Dariush – Boxer
Dominick Cruz – Kickboxer
Darren Elkins – Boxer
Brian Ortega – Boxer
Johnny Eduardo (Muay Thai coach at Nova Uniao) – Boxer
Ray Borg – Boxer
Zach Makovsky – Boxer
Joanna Jedrzejczyk (Muay Thai champion and Kickboxing competitor) – Boxer

I can almost let Gunnar Nelson as a Karate fighter slide because that’s what his striking game is based off of, but I seriously doubt anyone watches a Gunnar Nelson fight and thinks about Karate anything over his jiu-jitsu. This is probably why Roy Nelson is considered “BJJ” and they’re persisting with Dan Henderson as a “Greco-Roman wrestler” even though they’re both all about landing the right-hand bomb. But Johnny Eduardo as a boxer? He has Muay Thai literally tattooed across his body! Latifi is many things, most notably the greatest fighter of all-time, but he’s not a boxer-first type of guy and never has been. The Jedrzejczyk-Boxer tag is just absurdly incorrect and probably my favorite pick of the bunch besides Eduardo.

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Here are EA UFC’s top 10 P4P fighters based on overall rating.

The Top 10 Pound-for-Pound fighters in #EASPORTSUFC2. #FighterRatings #UFC pic.twitter.com/nJDgOST0SG

— EA SPORTS UFC (@EASPORTSUFC) March 3, 2016

For the record, the current P4P list for the UFC heading into UFC 196 consists of Jones/Mighty Mouse/McGregor as 1-2-3, just like the game has them. GSP is inactive so he’s not ranked in real life, but it sure is amazing to see EA UFC 2 doesn’t have Aldo programmed as top 10 P4P.

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One final note, Daniel Hooker has a higher stand-up rating than Chad Mendes, ditto for Matt Hughes over Hector Lombard, Augusto Montano over Kelvin Gastelum, Paige VanZant over Claudia Gadelha, and Chris Beal over Justin Scoggins. (H/T to Keith Farrell for all of these numbers.)

EA UFC 2 is in stores on March 15th, and as a reminder to everyone, this is just a video game and the casual fan really won’t care about this sort of thing … but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with assessing EA’s assessments.

Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) issued its list of injuries and medical suspensions on Monday for the mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters who participated in UFC 196, which took place last Saturday night (March 5, 2016) inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Conor McGregor, despite a second round loss by way of submission, will not be spending any time on the sidelines, which frees him up for the upcoming UFC 200 mega event in July. Nate Diaz, however, was busted up en route to his bookie-busting upset, and will ride the pine until 4/20.

Yes, 4/20.

Elsewhere on the card, Miesha Tate and Holly Holm also escaped any sort of suspension after their four-and-a-half rounds of action. The same cannot be said for Swedish “Sledgehammer” Ilir Latifi, who could be out until September with a bum toe.

That’s not all.

Here is the full list of UFC 196 injuries and medical suspensions:

Nate Diaz: Suspended until 04/20/16. No contact until 04/05/16 – laceration over right eye.
Ilir Latifi: Must have X-ray on left second toe if positive then clearance by doctor or no contest until 09/05/16.
Valentina Shevchenko: Suspended until 04/05/16. No contact until 03/27/16 – left eye laceration.
Siyar Bahadurzada: Must have jaw cleared by doctor or no contest until 09/05/16; minimum suspension no contest until 03/27/16, no contact until 03/20/16.
Brandon Thatch: Must have left foot X-rayed, if positive then needs clearance by doctor or no contest until 09/05/16; minimum suspension no contest until 04/20/16, no contact until 04/05/16.
Nordine Taleb: Must have left knee X-rayed or a MRI and must be cleared by doctor or no contest until 09/05/16.
Erick Silva: Suspended until 04/20/16. No contact until 04/05/16.
Marcelo Guimaraes: Must have left knee X-rayed or a MRI and must be cleared by doctor or no contest until 09/05/16; minimum suspension no contest until 04/20/16, no contact until 04/05/16.
Chas Skelly: Suspended until 04/20/16. No contact until 04/05/16.
Justin Salas: Suspended until 04/05/16. No contact until 03/27/16 – laceration under right eye.
Julian Erosa: Suspended until 04/20/16. No contact until 04/05/16.

Just a quick reminder: Fighters often return to action much quicker once doctors give them the green light. The lengthy suspensions are just a precaution in most cases. In addition, not all injuries are recorded during the post-fight examination and often times surface in follow-up tests.

For a complete wrap up of all the UFC 196 weekend festivities click here.

Super-prospect Gordon Ryan wins the Sapateiro Invitational in spectacular fashion.

The world of professional grappling is evolving at an unbelievable rate. It seems like just yesterday that Garry Tonon was heralded as the next big thing and while he has arrived as the premier star in the sport, he has also transitioned capably into the role of mentor and coach. Tonon’s protege Gordon Ryan has been making waves in jiu-jitsu for the last few years. In 2014, Ryan shot to fame as a purple belt when he tapped numerous black belts out at the PGL tournament, but it wasn’t until this weekend that he got to show his skills to the masses.

On Saturday, Ryan competed at the Sapateiro Invitational and was faced with a difficult lineup of adversaries. On the opposite side of the bracket to Ryan stood Enrico Cocco. Cocco is among the most capable grapplers in the world; over the years he has won the ADCC trials on 3 different occasions, beaten Eddie Cummings and almost heel hooked Kron Gracie.  When both fighters breezed through their respective sides of the bracket, Ryan and Cocco were pitted against each other in the finals.

In the finals Ryan looked more than capable to trade leglocks with the more experienced Cocco. Ryan’s coach and leglock  impresario, Garry Tonon, offered Ryan step-by-step instructions throughout and Ryan followed studiously, eventually locking in an inverted-heelhook to get the tap.

At 20 years old, Gordon Ryan is a scary prospect and given the fact that he trains alongside Tonon and Cummings at Renzo Gracie’s, it is likely that his skills will continue to grow at a staggering rate. Ryan isn’t only a prospect for BJJ – the Jersey native has spent a lot of time at Tristar training extensively with Tom Breese and Georges St-Pierre. Like his coach, Ryan plans to transition over into MMA sooner rather than later and could be a force to be reckoned with if brought along slowly.

It is expected that Ryan will push to qualify for 2017’s ADCCs before he considers a switch to MMA and if Ryan does switch early, BJJ fans will be pleased to know that Gordon has a younger brother named Nick, who is 13 and has already began competing in and winning adult divisions at reputable tournaments.

Despite Miesha Tate’s big title win over Holly Holm, she is still a big betting underdog for a third Ronda Rousey fight.

Ronda Rousey got knocked out by Holly Holm. Meisha Tate finished Holm by submission. But bookmakers clearly are more interested in the two bouts between Rousey and Tate when it comes to setting betting lines for their expected third bout later this year. Rousey, who has defeated Tate twice by submission, is still the betting favorite, though the line is not quite as lopsided as it was when it opened. Check it out, via BestFightOdds:

or those new to BestFightOdds, they take the lines from many sports books and offer the best on each side in the handy chart above. If you’d like to see what each book is offering individually, you can do that over at their site.

Rousey opened at -1200 with one agency, with Tate at +600. But that quickly came down to what we’re looking at right now. Rousey is still as high as -625 on some sites and there is a large difference in the lines as sites continue to add them. But one thing is for certain – Tate will be an underdog in her first title defense.

It’s unclear when Rousey/Tate 3 will take place due to Rousey’s movie schedule, but I’d expect it to happen later this year.