Can CM Punk submit Tyron Woodley? EA UFC 2 ratings released

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!

***

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

***

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.

***

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.

***

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.

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!

***

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

***

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.

***

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

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.


***

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.