Badges, My nikkas. Badges.
Badges = Power and more than likely them cats in the top 5/10 you scrapping with done bumped off a few people and got their power levels up, so when they all attacking you, and you barely hitting and them get swamped; It's a wrap for you even though your skills could be just as good if not better than theirs most the time.
If you know you can reach in the top 50-30 around that time you should be trying to hit people off (Choose KO) or if you got a good setup, try and attack a badge'd player in hopes of knocking him off and absorbing all his shyt....but yeah, Badges, man. They go a long, especially in the homestretch.