One term I see people throwing around more and more is “strength of schedule”. What this term refers to is the level of competition faced by a given fighter. Like all statistics though it’s important to understand exactly what the number represents. My hope is that this rant will help you understand the different ways strength of schedule can be calculated and help you better understand the pros/cons of each method.
One important note to make is that when talking about strength of schedule we always refer to the fighter’s competition at the time of the fight. Some people like to look at an opponent’s current standing when calculating strength of schedule for previous fights and that’s a big mistake.
Fighter A shouldn’t get the same amount of credit for beating Fighter B in Fighter B’s first professional fight as Fighter C does if they beat Fighter B 5 years down the road after Fighter B has dramatically improved and become champion. Additionally, beating a fighter in their prime shouldn’t be diminished at all because that fighter chose to keep fighting past their prime and tanked their record/rating. An entire rant could be dedicated to this point, but I’ll leave it here for now. If you have any questions though I can provide examples, charts, and graphs. 8)
Method One
One of the most common ways to calculate a fighters strength of schedule is to look at the average rating of all of their opponents.
Top 30(ish) with this method are:
1) Pawel Nastula – 1962 Fights – 4
2) Marcelo Pereira – 1960 Fights – 1
3) Tatsuya Iwasaki – 1959 Fights – 1
4) Istvan Majoros – 1932 Fights – 1
5) Aleksei Medvedev – 1919 Fights – 1
6) Hong Man Choi – 1919 Fights – 2
7) Vepcho Bardanashvili – 1917 Fights – 1
8) Mika Nagano – 1910 Fights – 1
9) Ryan Sturdy – 1898 Fights – 1
10) Bu Kyung Jung – 1893 Fights – 3
11) Jason Peck – 1891 Fights – 1
12) Albert Basconcelles – 1891 Fights – 1
13) Mitsuhiro Matsunaga – 1880 Fights – 1
14) Cesar Gracie – 1871 Fights – 1
15) Cami Hostetler – 1871 Fights – 1
16) Mark Hunt – 1867 Fights – 9
17) Nate Sauer – 1865 Fights – 1
18) Ray McDaniel – 1863 Fights – 1
19) Sergey Ignatov – 1862 Fights – 1
20) Jacob Zobnin – 1862 Fights – 1
21) Maynard Marcum – 1862 Fights – 2
22) Robert Stines – 1860 Fights – 1
23) Pang Ji Won – 1854 Fights – 1
24) Mike Cizek – 1851 Fights – 1
25) Aaron Williams – 1851 Fights – 1
26) Doug Edwards – 1850 Fights – 1
CONS:
As you can see from the list it’s very easy for a fighter to only have one or two fights against a highly rated opponent and secure themselves a very high strength of schedule rating.
Looking closer at the above list we also notice that most of the fighters listed above actually *LOST* their fights. This is because we are only looking at the strength of their opponents and not whether they actually managed to defeat them or not.
PROS:
The benefits of the above approach is that we get a career wide picture of the average opposition faced by a fighter. Having losses against highly ranked fighters can sometimes help explain why a fighter has a lower personal rating. Something along the lines of “Wow Frank has a pretty low rating, but take a look at the amazing fighters that have kicked his ass~!!!”
Method Two
Another method for looking at strength of schedule removes losses from the equation and only looks at the strength of opposition a fighter has actually defeated.
Top 30(ish) with this method are:
1) Georges St. Pierre – 1829
2) Mark Hunt – 1805
3) Chuck Liddell – 1803
4) B.J. Penn – 1802
5) Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou – 1801
6) Randy Couture – 1785
7) Andrei Arlovski – 1779
8) Josh Barnett – 1773
9) Mirko Filipovic – 1771
10) Anderson Silva – 1770
11) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira – 1754
12) Ricardo Arona – 1752
13) Mauricio Rua – 1751
14) Fedor Emelianenko – 1745
15) Kenny Florian – 1741
16) Tito Ortiz – 1735
17) Paulo Filho – 1734
18) Dan Henderson – 1734
19) Fabricio Werdum – 1733
20) Demian Maia – 1733
21) Josh Koscheck – 1731
22) Shinya Aoki – 1728
23) Thiago Alves – 1726
24) Antonio Rogerio Nogueira – 1723
25) Ryoto Machida – 1720
26) Joachim Hansen – 1719
27) Rashad Evans – 1713
28) Patrick Cote – 1710
29) Jon Fitch – 1709
30) Takanori Gomi – 1708
31) Tyson Griffin – 1707
32) Gilbert Melendez – 1702
33) Aleksander Emelianenko – 1700
CONS:
One of the problems with this approach is that it can reward fighters with very few fights/wins. For example, Mark Hunt has only 9 career MMA fights. Of those 9 fights, only 5 are wins, and two of those were against very highly ranked opponents.
Additionally, fighters that have been around for awhile (ex. Matt Hughes, Wanderlei Silva) are penalized to a degree because not every single one of their opponents was as highly ranked as they are. As such their strength of schedule rating is relatively low despite the fact that they have faced some of the highest ranked fighters ever.
PROS:
One of the main benefits of this approach is that it prevents losses from factoring in. This means a fighter can’t improve their strength of schedule rating dramatically by being stomped out like a brush fire by a highly ranked opponent.
Additionally, this approach shows career long average which lets people see who has consistently faced very difficult competition their entire career.
Method Three
The final method I’ll mention also only looks at a fighter’s wins. However, unlike the last method it only looks at their biggest wins. Instead of calculating strength of schedule for all of the opponents the fighter has beaten it instead looks at only the rating of the ten highest rated fighters they have defeated.
Top 30(ish) with this method are:
1) Fedor Emelianenko – 1966
2) Anderson Silva – 1952
3) Georges St. Pierre – 1948
4) Chuck Liddell – 1929
5) Mirko Filipovic – 1913
6) Quinton Jackson – 1913
7) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira – 1910
8) Josh Barnett – 1896
9) Wanderlei Silva – 1894
10) Randy Couture – 1891
11) B.J. Penn – 1871
12) Rich Franklin – 1865
13) Mauricio Rua – 1863
14) Shinya Aoki – 1861
15) Takanori Gomi – 1856
16) Matt Hughes – 1852
17) Dan Henderson – 1852
18) Andrei Arlovski – 1850
19) Renato Sobral – 1844
20) Thiago Alves – 1837
21) Tim Sylvia – 1836
22) Joachim Hansen – 1828
23) Alistair Overeem – 1820
24) Paulo Filho – 1819
25) Jon Fitch – 1817
26) Tito Ortiz – 1816
27) Nathan Marquardt – 1813
28) Yushin Okami – 1810
29) Ricardo Arona – 1809
30) Karo Parisyan – 1807
CONS:
The real drawback to this approach is that you greatly limit the sample size. Some fighters on this list have 30+ professional fights and this stat only looks at a handful of them. When talking about a “career strength of schedule” this number can be very misleading.
Another potential drawback is that the above stat might not change very much or very often for some fighters. For example, both #5(Cro Cop) and #26(Tito Ortiz) from the above list haven’t had a win against a highly ranked opponent in almost two years. Both of them likely have numerous fights left before they retire, but if neither of them was to get another big win then the above rating wouldn’t change at all.
PROS:
As with method two the above numbers only count wins. Another benefit to this method is that fighters aren’t penalized for having a few weaker fights mixed in with numerous difficult ones.
Almost out of soda
Since I’m almost out of soda I’m going to wrap this up now. I know some of you are wondering which method is “best” and the answer (as usual) is that it depends.
Some people when they talk strength of schedule want to know the person who fight after fight for their whole career has faced the strongest opponents. For those people Method 1 is likely best. However, it’s important to keep in mind fighters with very few fights and fighters with losses against top competition padding their rating.
Other people will want to know who has beaten the best fighters time after time. (if you fall I will catch you I’LL BE WAITING~!!!) For those people Method 2 will likely yield results similar to what they are expecting. It’s important to keep in mind though that this approach favors fighters with fewer fights and can penalize fighters who have been competing for awhile.
Finally, if you are looking for that “big game hunter” type of number. That fighter that has stepped into the ring with some of the toughest fighters ever and walked out victorious, then the results from the third method will be more to your liking. Just realize that your results might be a bit dated in the sense that John “Dragonslayer” Doe might not have actually done much slaying of late.
As usual it’s not about “right” and “wrong” it’s about “accurate” and “inaccurate”. When speaking with other people about strength of schedule be sure to qualify your criteria. Additionally, if someone tries to tell you that Fighter A has had a very difficult strength of schedule ask them their criteria. It’s ok if their criteria and yours don’t jive. The only problem comes when their criteria doesn’t match what they are claiming. If that’s the case then send them here and I’ll have my charts and graphs ready. 8)
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I don’t think you can talk about strength of schedule and ignore losses. The second and third methods don’t accurately reflect SOS, it’s more of a “most impressive victory” tally. It seems like you’re trying to figure out a way to define the best fighter, or which “top” fighter has consistently performed the best against top competition, and not looking for an honest SOS rating. I think the first method most accurately reflects SOS, but you need to amend it with a minimum number of fights. It’s a simple adjustment that reflects the hardest SOS. Even if John “I fight the best” Doe loses every fight, he still has the toughest strength of schedule. SOS has nothing to do with wins and losses, it shouldn’t even be brought up.
Method 1, with a minimum of 10 fights should paint a pretty accurate picture of a big name fighter who’s stepped up the most.
As usual I’m not trying to find a way to define the “best”, but rather trying to help others quantify what they are talking about. For some people fighting hard competition win or lose is what they are after. Others only care about who you beat since beating “decent” fighters and losing to “great” fighters can still yield a fairly high overall strength of schedule.
Much like with any sport I think different people will tend to favor different stats. Some like total rushing yards, some like all-purpose yards, some like yards per carry, etc.
This can quickly remove any chance at reasonable debate/discussion when one person is talking about “strength of schedule” in the classic sense (method 1), but the other person is talking more about “big game hunting” as I called it or, “most impressive victory tally” as you put it. My aim isn’t to say “this number is right”, but rather an attempt at getting both sides to recognize the other person’s method for arriving at that number. It is very possible for both people to be correct, but simply to be talking about different things. It’s also possible someone is simply wrong, but it’s easier to explain that if you understand exactly what they are talking about.
When talking specifically about method 1, a min number of fights is very useful as it prevents a fighter having only a few fights and achieving an incredibly high strength of schedule. This is why the list builder on the main site allows setting a minimum number of fights.
I agree that stats are what you make them, but if the stat you are trying to define is Strength of Schedule there isn’t really another way to define it other than “who has fought the hardest schedule.” You must, however, have some qualifiers for the strength of schedule to have any merit. Someone who only had one or two fights, and they happened to be against top fighters, I wouldn’t even really consider a professional fighter in the “career” sense. So if you’re trying to define the hardest schedule of a pro fighter(for arguemtns sake, 10 or more fights) there’s only one way to do it. If you’re trying to define “which fighter has beaten most top competition” then method 3 works best. My point is that method 3 is not defining strength of schedule, but “most valuable victories” or something like that. I’m not arguing which stat is more impressive or important (I happen to think method 3 is the most valuable statistic we’re discussing), but what is Strength of Schedule.
You write very well.
The latter two methods aren’t strength of schedule, but rather strength of victory or some variation thereof.
Mariah – Thanks, I’ve got so much stuff in my head I’m always afraid what I write will only make sense to me.
Richard – That’s very true. The reason I made the rant was because I see lots of people talk about “strength of schedule”, but lots of people have different ideas about what that means. When using the term of strength of schedule it absolutely should include wins and losses. However, some people don’t want to talk about losses. In those cases it’s still possible to discuss a number, a stat, etc., but it becomes more of a “big game hunter” stat, or a “high score” stat or whatever.
Remember that what I’m after here is for people to be discussing the same thing. I’m not going to walk into a discussion between one person using option 2 and one person using option 3 and tell them both to use option 1. What I want to have happen is for those two people to realize they are discussing *DIFFERENT* things. Then they will hopefully take some time to discuss option 2, and then some time on option 3. They might even use others, but to watch people argue for 15 pages across a thread when neither is talking about the same thing is very frustrating for me.
As an example from above, someone talking about Fedor’s strength of schedule should realize he has a fair amount of weaker fights and thusly his overall strength of schedule isn’t as strong. If they instead want to discuss hardest wins or another stat, then things can be very different.
An additional benefit of looking at the above is to realize how some systems become very flawed. Most people talking about “strength of schedule” aren’t looking for guys with 1 or 2 fights and they aren’t looking for fighters that have never won a fight in their entire career.
Cases like that lead to sub-stats, increased parameters, etc. Again, I won’t say which is “right” because that depends on the situation. However, it is very wrong to argue with someone when you aren’t even discussing the same thing. Someone can yell until they are blue in the face about how great Peterson is, but if I’m talking about european football the discussing isn’t going anywhere until we get on the same page. We can ultimately still disagree, but we should at least be using the same criteria to reach those conclusions. *shrugs*
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