Four degrees of Evil Pooh

A couple days ago a friend of mine started talking to me about MMA (normally good). Then they started talking to me about BJ Penn (normally bad). During this conversation they quoted me some information a friend of theirs had relayed to them concern BJ Penn and GSP. The information sounded about right overall, but I was intrigued and sought to be told more.

Google FTW

I get back home and google for mmalinker and BJ Penn information. I finally find the post and note the author of the post says, “I found this on BJ Penn.com”. Ok, well I start reading the post and take note of some of the data. Overall it looks right, but it also looks…familiar. The article mentions it’s BF (Before Florian), so maybe I’ve already read this. Surely duplicate information is never posted on an MMA forum!!! I decide to continue my search…

Google…Take TWO!

I now set out to google down BJ Penn…on his website. Amazingly enough, there are some hits regarding BJ Penn!

I find the “original” article in question and begin reading it over. It’s basically the same thing and reading it again it just feels as though I’ve read it before. No! Not “before” as in 15 minutes ago on the other site.

Finishing up the article I see the comments and one of them mentions that the person writing the article didn’t “write the article”. You guessed it!

Google Three…This time…It’s not Google Two!

Now I’m back to google and I plug in the BJ Penn information and information from the comment and I find…

BJ Penn MMA Career by the numbers

I now start reading this article and I’m proud to say it only took me two and a half paragraphs to realize…I WROTE THE ORIGINAL FUCKING ARTICLE~!!!

Good god lol.

Normally I try not to comment on other people’s writing, but since I started this clusterfug, I figured I might as well do what my friend asked and offer up some feedback.

1) BJ Penn’s MMA Career and Time

Having reread the article (yes a third time, you think you have trouble with reading a rant once, imagine how I felt!) and some of the comments I noticed that many people seem to completely ignore time.

1a) Activity

For example, even though the article mentioned it was before Florian and the original article was clearly dated back in March, some still talked about the Florian fight. Additionally, some people are already talking about the Diego fight.

One reply I saw basically bashed the activity section because BJ “will” fight three times this year. How silly of me back in March to not know that he’d hopefully (a few weeks from now) actually have his third fight this year. It’s also amusing how a third fight (that still hasn’t happened) completely invalidates previous years of 2, 1, 2, and 2 MMA fights.

Look, when I wrote the article I never said BJ would *NEVER* fight three times in a year. I never even said that they hadn’t fought three times in a year previously. The only thing I was pointing out is that BJ Penn has low activity for an MMA fighter. For some people that matters. For others, it doesn’t. Whether it matters to you or not doesn’t change the fact it’s true. Let me put it to you like this: a friend of mine is a chubby chaser and I’m happy for them, but the fact remains that I wouldn’t let their other “half” sit in my comfy chair.

1b) At the time

Perhaps one of the biggest issues when talking about BJ Penn’s MMA career (and other fighters, sports, etc.) is the concept of at the time. It’s amazing how people can read something from months ago and use information since that time to somehow invalidate the points made.

Lebron Vs Melo

I think a good example of this happened a few years ago when Melo and Lebron were going for rookie of the year. At the end of the year Melo had more points, more rebounds, and went to the playoffs. Yes, Lebron had more assists and a worse supporting cast. Melo also had a higher shooting percentage and a higher three-point percentage as I recall (forgive me if I got that one wrong, I didn’t even remember my own rant from this year, 2003-2004 is even fuzzier).

Since I try to limit my fights to one at a time, please ignore who won, who you think should have won, etc. What I want to point out is that in the years since Lebron has become the “better player” in most people’s eyes. No problem with that…except some actually use that as grounds for him receiving the rookie of the year award back then.

The crucial thing to keep in mind is that when giving out the Rookie of the year award for 2003-2004 we are *NOT* looking at playoff performance in 2008. Seriously, the awards would be backed up 10+ years and they would give out all awards at your hall of fame ceremony. It’d be like, “congrats, here’s your hall of fame plaque, here’s a rookie of the year, two mvp’s…and one comeback player of the year award”. Seriously, shit doesn’t work like that.

Just because I have to mention it…Emeka Okafor won the rookie of the year award in 2004-2005. Is he the “best” current player from that year?

Fedor *WILL* Lose

I keep saying it and I honestly believe it’ll happen eventually. Whether I’m right or not I don’t know(I also mumble “hot redhead” under my breath every time the doorbell rings).

Here again I’d like to ignore Fedor being the “best” right now, or where he might be in six months or two years. What I want to focus on are the people that keep waiting for him to lose so they can “prove” Fedor was overrated three years ago. Once Fedor loses it won’t mean he sucks right now and it certainly isn’t going to invalidate the incredible run he has been on for years.

Back to BJ Penn

Now lets get back to BJ Penn. Where BJ Penn ranked in March was lower than where he ranks now. Know why? Because he won an MMA fight since then! Shocking I know. Wanna know something else? If he beats Diego in a few weeks…He’ll rank even higher!!!

Hold the gasps because you are going to want to yell at me in a second…*IF* Diego wins (via greasing, BJ taking him lightly, BJ under traininer, BJ overtraining, BJ giving him the win to setup the rematch, a bad ref decision, a bad judging decision, sniper in the rafters, someone spiking the water, altitude, BJ stubbing his toe on the way to the cage, a camera flash temporarily blinding him so he gets clipped, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc) IF…JUST IF then BJ Penn will move down some.

The last statement is really the one that gets some BJ Penn fans. Let’s finish up this section by looking at BJ Penn’s MMA Career at the time.

2006-09-23 – BJ Penn lost to Matt Hughes. This was his second loss in a row and his third loss in three fights. At this point in time (keep repeating that to yourself) BJ Penn hadn’t fought at lightweight since…2003-10-10. That’s right, almost 3 years without a single fight at lightweight. Despite this, some people still had him ranked #1 at lightweight. Even more impressive is that some still had BJ ranked *AT THE TIME* in the top 3 or 4 p4p (only the haters had him that low, clearly BJ was still #1) despite having lost three of his last four fights (more on that later).

2007-06-23 – BJ Penn now beats…Jens Pulver (<3 little Evil). Of course BJ Penn is now #1 at lightweight. I mean, 1 lightweight fight in over three years, and he took out a top...uhhhh (<3 little evil but...) a top...20? 15? Honestly what can I say, before the fight Jens even said he was dropping to 145. He also had just lost to a UFC newcomer who then went on the TUF show.

2009-03-18 - The day of the original rant. Since 2007-06-23 BJ had two solid wins at lightweight, and then went right back up to WW and lost to GSP...again. (because of the greasing, and the cage, and the lights, and the camera, and the weight, and the greasing and the cage andgreasingandtrainingandhistoeandsomeonestolehishatandthegreasing). It was after this fight against GSP "to the death" (stopped after the 4th round) that the rant was originally typed.

At that time BJ Penn had four wins at lightweight in the last *FIVE* years. During that time they also had *FOUR* losses at higher weight classes. They also only had a total of 11 fights, which is less than 75% of what you'd expect.

Yet somehow, *AT THAT TIME* people were still claiming BJ Penn #1 at lightweight and top 4 (or better) p4p.

I mean really, at each of those points in time and any other point inbetween that I didn't focus on was BJ Penn still #1 at lightweight and top four p4p? REALLY!?!?!?! Not a single point in time in the last five plus years where people can concede that maybe he slipped just a bit? Please just tell me at what point he cemented his status and why nothing he does can change it. People wait for Fedor to fall, some knocked GSP down for the Serra loss, some still look back at Anderson's earlier losses. Why is it that *NOTHING* changes BJ Penn's ranking. He can lose and it doesn't matter, he can go inactive and it doesn't matter.

2) BJ Penn’s MMA Career and Weight

Another hotly contested point about BJ Penn is his p4p status and how weight factors into things. As with the above and the original rant, I really just want to talk as factually as possible.

2a) BJ Penn’s weight

One of the big slashes in the pro-BJ Column is that he has fought bigger people. This is true and I’d expect even haters to admit such a thing. Where things get a bit blurry is just how that stacks up against other people.

Anderson Silva

Anderson has fought multiple times at light heavyweight now. Although many don’t rank Irvin overly high there are some that have Griffin in the top 5 range. Either way, Anderson has far more wins at his weight class, and a higher activity level.

GSP

One of the knocks I see on people against GSP is that he stays at welterweight. Although true, it’s not like everyone is the same size in that weightclass. GSP has mulitple wins against people that later held belts at middleweight. Where they stood at the time of the fight is unknown.

If we had more accurate information (that I keep begging for) we could also look at fighters within the division currently. Although I’ve heard reports of GSP at 190, I’ve also heard those dismissed and people say it’s closer to 180-185. Contrast that against fighters like Rumble and Thiago Alves. Both fighters have missed weight before. Both have been talked about in the 200+ range. Recently I saw something claiming Rumble was around 205 in the Koscheck fight.

Since we don’t have accurate information I’m not going to get into this too much, but I again plead for people to stop using “weight” and “weight class” interchangeably. If BJ Penn is 155 on the nose and GSP was 180 for their fight(s) that’s a 25lb gap. If GSP is 180 and Rumble is 205…that’s a 25lb gap!

Fedor

A situation where we do have some (slightly) more accurate numbers is Fedor. He usually weighs around 230-235. His fight against Rogers he weighed in at 232 (I believe). For this fight Rogers weighed in at 264 (I believe). The numbers might be slightly off, but I’m pretty sure the difference in weight was ~32lbs.

That’s a 32lb weight difference without Fedor cutting anything and possibly with Rogers cutting to make the 265lb limit. Again, don’t talk about “weight class” as though it’s the same as “weight”.

BJ has fought bigger guys, and it’s totally understandable to give him credit for that. However, if you give BJ credit for fighting bigger guys, then you can’t ignore other fighters that do the same. More accurate information would make this easier to see. Even without it though it’s clear that other fighters do fight “bigger” guys sometimes and that even within a “weight class” fighters have different “weights”.

2b) BJ Penn’s wins at higher weights

The theme of “talking fact, not smack” continues here. I have an incredible level of respect for BJ and all of the opponents I mention. Having said that, I think it’s important that we take a look at BJ Penn’s successes at higher weight classes.

Let’s start with a little exercise, grab a piece of paper (or open notepad or whatever) and write/type the name of the “best”(hardest) fight BJ Penn had at a higher weight. I’ll play along and although your list might be slightly different, just keep going. At first I’ll go with….

-GSP (the second time)

Ok, now add another name (or the same from a different fight) I’ll add Matt Hughes and my list looks like…

- GSP (the second time)
- Matt Hughes (second time)

Yours can look however, it might have GSP X2 or Hughes X2 or even Machida…just keep going a few more…

My list:
-GSP
-Hughes
-GSP

Ok lets go for “top 5″ because that’s a number most people like.

- GSP
- Hughes
- GSP
- Machida
- Hughes

Ok, there are my five…now draw a line (or put a hyphen) and list the fight outcome. Mine looks like:

Now, as I said, your list may look different. Maybe you’ve got Machida higher, or the two GSP losses grouped up, or maybe the Hughes win and the Hughes loss at the top. Any of those I think will match what most people have.

Did anyone put Renzo Gracie? If so, please read 5.0.2 of the original rant, understand:

- Renzo hadn’t fought in almost 2 years leading up to the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo hadn’t *WON* in over 3 and a half years before the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo had lost 2 in a row going into the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo had lost 5 of his last 6 going into the BJ Penn fight

Given that, please explain how Renzo was a higher end “fight” for BJ than any of the five above that most people have.

Maybe Rodrigo Gracie? They were 5-0 at the time and had beat Mach recently. Do you swap out Machida for that? Maybe a Hughes fight?

Here is what it comes down to, BJ Penn has some fights at higher weights and he has some wins at higher weights, the problem is most people confuse the two of them. Here is the list people quote of who BJ Penn has *FOUGHT* at higher weights:

“OMFGZORZ HE FOUGHT – Hughes X 2, GSP X 2, and Machida!!!”

Ok, that is actually true. Now lets look at a list of who he *BEAT* at higher weight:

Hughes (once out of two!), Rodrigo Gracie, Renzo Gracie.

Maybe some throw Bang in there as well, go for it if you want.

Does anyone spot the differences in the two lists!? Honestly question *RIGHT NOW*, I want everyone to take a second and think on this and then we’ll all blurt out our answers together here goes…

“After Matt Hughes, who is the second biggest win for BJ Penn outside of lightweight”

get ready…
3…
2…
1…
ANSWER…

Ok, what did you say? I went with Rodrigo, but I might be wrong.

Seriously, does this basic exercise on the paper help at all? BJ Penn has had 5(ish) BIG fights at higher weights. He’s fought Hughes X2, he’s fought GSPX2, and he’s fought a young Machida (had 5 fights at the time, but had already beaten Rich Franklin). Of those five “big” fights he’s won…One of them.

It seems I’m again forced to ask why it’s so hard for some to understand how others might question BJ Penn just a bit, just a little, just the teeeennnnnsssiiiiest bit. These people that question him concede he’s fought at higher weights, they just follow up by pointing out which of those fights he actually won.

Lock it up

The topic will never die and I’m sure seven or eight months from now someone will be talking to me about this rant…that someone mentioned…that someone posted…that someone saw linked…that someone copied from a piece of paper that was printed out that stuck to the bottom of their shoe with bubblegum while they were walking…..Or whatever.

What always strikes me about a “discussion” like this though is how both sides approach things. The “Pro” BJ camp seems unwilling to ever acknowledge he dropped in rankings, his losses don’t matter, his inactivity doesn’t matter, nothing does. He’s just #1, he’s been #1, and he’ll be #1.

On the “anti” BJ side, I see people talk about facts like inactivity, little details like losses, or a breakdown of those “BJ PENN FIGHTS BIGGER PEOPLE!!!!” arguements. Yeah BJ Penn fights bigger people, he also loses to them a lot. “BJ PENN HAS A HIGH STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE” No shit…he also…LOSES TO THEM A LOT. BJ Penn is #2 on SoS right now. If you remove the Hughes fight he lost and the GSP fights he lost, he’s suddenly right around #10 (still good mind you). Losing should matter, no one proclaims Yuji to be one of the best ever, but he clearly managed to lose to some high ranked people as well.

Look, BJ Penn has tons of potential, heaps. I don’t think anyone can argue it. At the same time, I don’t see how anyone can argue that he doesn’t fight often, that he does lose and that his “higher weight fights” are often overblown. He might win 5 fights next year and capture belts in three weight classes. When he does I’ll say that he did, he’ll rank high, and world peace will break out. Even if all that happens though, some people will (rightly?) still ponder how anyone could justify *ZERO* wins at a weight class in over three years as being #1 *AT THE TIME*.

My goal with this rant is to hopefully provide some information that might otherwise go overlooked. If you hate Brock, then I’m sure you’ll find information here that further proves he sucks. If you love Brock, then I’m sure you’ll find information below that helps explain how he’s already better than Zeus. Really though, this rant is for those that fall somewhere between hater and hugger. For those people that want to take an honest look at what he’s done thus far, and how it compares to others.

Brock Lesnar’s Fight History

Let us start by taking a look at each of Brock’s fights thus far. We’ll see how Brock ranked after each fight and where others stood early in their career.

Min Soo Kim – Win

This was Brock’s first fight and honestly it was a pretty bad choice. At the time of the fight Min was 3-5 with a rating below 1500. Why you would pair a “future #1 HW” against such a weak opponent in their first fight is beyond me.

I’m a big advocate of Risk Vs Reward. In this case Brock’s name would have provided sufficient enough reward for him to fight a higher rated fighter. I’m not talking someone 2k rated, but he should have at least been given a solid veteran with more wins than loses.

Having such a weak first opponent definitely cost Brock some points early in his career. Still, he won the fight and earned a solid 48.

Where fighters stood after 1 fight

Here’s a table showing the highest fighter ratings after a single career fight.

Strength of Schedule gets a lot of discussion as well, so here’s a list of people who had the highest Strength of Schedule after a single fight. The chart basically says who fought the highest rated opponent in their debut. It also shows mostly people who got their butt kicked. 8P

Frank Mir – Loss

The most interesting thing about this fight is that Brock lost. That put him at 1-1. However, he lost to an experienced fighter and a former champion. As a result the mma-elo.com system didn’t ding him too hard for the loss.

Despite not being dinged hard for the loss, Brock did suffer in the sense that he missed an opportunity. A win over a reasonable opponent at this point would have been worth 50+ points.

The other thing to realize is that this fight took place 2008-02-02, that’s a full 8 months after his debut on 2007-06-02. I’ll get into activity more later on, but in case you don’t make it through the rest of the rant I want to note that 8 months is a long time. On average fighters compete every 4 months, and early in a fighter’s career they tend to compete even more frequently than that.

Where fighters stood after 2 fights

Let’s again take a look at where other fighters stood two fights into their career.

Definitely more household names on the above list. Now let’s look at strength of schedule.

Heath Herring – Win

Heath Herring is a solid veteran fighter. At the time of the fight Heath had a rating of 1860 (would put him about 20th in the HW division). Heath is definitely a solid win on anyone’s resume and even more so for someone with only two previous fights.

The most controversial thing about the Heath fight is probably what followed. Before we get into that though, let’s take a look at…

Where fighters stood after 3 fights

When we look at overall rating after 3 fights we see a few interesting names. Aleks sits at #2, BJ is up to #4 Cain at #9, Lyoto at #10 and Frank Mir at #23 to name a few. The reason Brock isn’t on the list at this point is because of his loss to Mir. Again, if that fight had simply been a reasonable win he’d have cracked the top 25 and likely around top 10.

Strength of Schedule at this point has a few interesting names. Including HMC (Fedor and Cro Cop within first 3 fights), and Zulu (Fedor and Nog within first 4 fights). Neither farred so well, but that’s still a pretty crazy schedule. 8)

Randy Couture – Win

This is probably the most controversial fight in Brock’s career thus far. Not because of the outcome, but because the match got made in the first place. Following a win over Heath Herring (top 20ish) and sporting a 2 win – 1 loss record, Brock was given a title shot in the UFC against Randy Couture.

I don’t think anyone believes Heath Herring (top 20ish at the time and 4-4 in his last 8) was going to get a title shot if he’d beaten Brock. Furthermore, Brock was coming off a loss and it’s possible a win by Heath would have resulted in Brock being cut. Certainly having one fight outcome be the difference between a 1-2 record and possibly out of the UFC versus a 2-1 record and a title shot is pretty crazy.

In the war between MMA and MME, this is definitely a battle that MME won. There’s no doubt Brock is marketable and some people wanted to see the fight. The fact that a 2-1 fighter would be given a title shot in the “best” organization in the world after beating a top 20(ish) HW and a “can” (with a loss thrown in) is just too much for some people to swallow.

What needs to be made clear though is that many of the people who object to the fight taking place don’t “hate” Brock. If it’d been a 2-1 Cain or a 2-1 Aleks or whomever many of these same people would have had the exact same problem. Seeing a 2-1 fighter get such an oppurtunity almost entirely because of outside the sport factors is insulting to the sport (and the other fighters).

I know some people will say, “But Brock won, so he deserved it”. That simply isn’t true. In many cases getting the title fight is the hard part. Some fighters win numerous fights against guys ranked well above 20th and still never get their opportunity. It needs to be understood that someone can give Brock credit for winning the fight, but still acknowledge it should have never happened in the first place. Much like if Lutter had beaten Anderson, or when Serra did beat GSP.

Where fighters stood after 4 fights

As we look at overall rating after 4 fights we now see Brock on the list (at number 12). Again, if he’d won his second fight he likely would be sitting at #1. Some other interesting names we see are: Filho(#1) I’ll never understand how this guy gets no credit from some people, King Mo (#2) the number of people taking notice seems destined to grow, Cain (#3) constantly overshadowed by Brock but off to a solid start, Hunt (#8), Mir (#10), GSP (#11), Hughes (#20).

For Strength of Schedule I just have to mention Pawel. In his first 4 fights he fought: Big Nog, Josh Barnett, Aleks. I honestly have no idea who’s wife he slept with, but damn they better have had red hair!

Additionally, we also now see Brock Lesnar on the list as his overall schedule overcomes the very weak first opponent. He comes in at #9.

Frank Mir – Win

Brock’s most recent fight was a rematch against Frank Mir. This time Brock was victorious. Avenging a loss is always a good thing, and doing it against a former champion (and current interim champion) only makes it better.

That puts Brock’s career record to 4-1. Let us take a look and see where other fighters stood five fights into their career.

Where fighters stood after 5 fights

With the win over Mir, Brock passed a lot of fighters and landed at #2 on the list. Barely ahead of Cain, but very close to #1. There’s no doubt that if he’d have won his second fight (making him 5-0) he’d have easily had the highest overall rating after five fights of any previous fighter in history.

Brock Lesnar also comes in second when we look at Strength of Schedule. The debut against a very weak fighter (sub 1500) was a bit too much for Brock to overcome. Still, #2 highest Strength of Schedule after 5 fights is pretty impressive.

Brock Lesnar Vs Shane Carwin

Brock’s next fight is scheduled to be against Shane Carwin. Obviously we don’t know who will win, but let’s see how things might look…Btw, isn’t it great have a reliable and predicitable system that allows something like this? lol I know some might hate it, but the fact that I can offer up information and analysis like this is pretty awesome imo. *shrugs*

Here is the table showing overall rating after six fights…

With a win Brock will gain 66 points, putting him to 1863, that is exactly 1 point behind where Cain stood after 6 fights (and currently still stands). The interesting thing about that is again, *BROCK LOST*. Had Brock won his second fight he’d have easily been #1 after six fights. However, even with the loss the strength of Brock’s five wins in this case would be basically equal to Cain’s six, even with the loss factored in.

In terms of Strength of Schedule it’s not even close. Here’s the currently list for fighters after six fights…

Brock’s Strength of Schedule will be over 1800 following the Carwin fight. As long as the fight happens Brock is guaranteed having the highest Strength of Schedule after six fights.

If he loses

If Brock loses he’ll still have the highest Strength of Schedule after six fights. However, his overall rating would drop to 1763. Still not too bad for six fights into a career.

Activity

I mentioned Brock’s fight activity above and now I’d like to explore it in deeper detail. Thus far for his career Brock has competed less than expected. How much less could be debated, but here’s some information.

On average an MMA fighter competes every 4 months (3 fights a year). Brock had his first fight on 2007-06-02 and his fifth fight on 2009-07-11. If Brock had fought once very 4 months he’d have had his fifth fight around 2009-02-02. Instead he didn’t have his fifth fight until over five months later.

The previously mentioned fight against Carwin is currently scheduled to happen 2009-11-21, which is about four months after his last fight. However, that still means Brock will be at least one fight behind for his young career.

I say at least because history shows fighters competing far more frequently early in their careers. Here are just a few random fighters I picked out from the assorted top 25 lists above that you might recognize:

King Mo – His second fight was barely a month after his first. His third was about two months after his second. With another fight about two months after that. In fact, King Mo now has five career fights as well and he did that in about 1 year (12 months). That’s about half as long as it’s taken Brock.

Cain – Things get a little interesting because Cain’s second fight was only about two months after his first. However, his third fight didn’t happen for over a year after that. Once he started fighting again Cain had breaks of about 3, 4 and 5 months between fights (not in that order).

BJ Penn – BJ Penn is interesting because overall for his career he has actually competed less than expected. When looking at the start of his career though we see that BJ Penn’s second fight was less than two months after his first. Following that he had breaks of about: 4 months, 2 months, 4 months, 4 months.

Obviously there are the people that go nuts like Jon Jones (8 fights in less than a year to start his career), but no one is talking about Brock competing nearly that much.

Why Activity matters

Some might be wondering why activity is so important. There are actually a few reasons for it. One is that MMA is an incredibly physical sport (obviously). It really is too common for a fighter to get injured during training. The training itself also takes a toll on fighters. The truth of the matter is that having more fights win or lose takes added toll on fighters.

From a ranking point of view we also have to realize how early in his career Brock still is. He’s at 5 fights now, should be at least six, and he lost one of those fights. A couple more wins would do wonders to boost his ratings. Not just in terms of this site, but also for fans still unsure of how he will continue to perform.

What If

All this talk about activity brings up an interesting What If situation. For the sake of discussion we will assume Brock already had that “missing” fight and that it was a win over Shane (sorry Shane). That would have put Brock’s rating to 1863 and I’ll assume in this case setup a match against Big Nog. A win against Big Nog (based upon Big Nog’s current rating) would put Brock up around 1950 rating. Obviously a lot can happen, but historically that high a rating would put him in the top 10.

As I’ve touched on a few times we also have the issue of that loss. Not for the small amounts of points it cost him, but for the missed opportunity to gain points. Had that fight been a win it is very possible that the hypothetical situation listed above would have put Brock over 2k rating. That is a *VERY* good rating and would have likely put Brock top 3.

What we know

We have looked at the opponents, at the fights, and at where other fighters stood early in their careers. With all of that information, what are some of the things we can conclude?

Tough Opponents

The first thing that jumps out is that Brock has had a very high strength of schedule thus far in his career. With the exception of his first fight all of his opponents have been solid veterans with decent ratings.

Brock lost and it cost him some

Looking at the numbers it’s clear that the loss cost Brock some. The system didn’t directly ding him too much for the loss, but it was a missed opportunity. It seems apparent that some completely ignore the loss, but that is silly. You are talking about someone who’s only fought for two years and only has five total fights. To ignore 20% of them and something that happened not that long ago is foolish.

Even if you don’t want to directly ding Brock because he was young or has a tattoo on his chest or whatever, you still should acknowledge the missed opportunity. A win in that fight would have given Brock 25% *MORE* Career wins. That is how small his fight history is, and that is why the fight needs to be acknowledged.

Frank Mir is 40% of Brock Lesnar’s Career to date

Frank is a solid fighter and a former champion, but he has had a spotty fight history. The fact that Frank Mir makes up such a large percentage of Brock Lesnar’s entire fight career is one reason some people remain skeptical.

Some people are living in the future

From the numbers above it seems as though some people are living in the future. In a time when Brock has already beaten Shane and possibly already beaten Big Nog. There is no doubt that those two wins would significantly increase his rating (and his ranking). For now though he is just 4-1 and that means beating Shane and Big Nog would be a 50% increase in his career win total.

Brock hasn’t fought nearly as much as he could have

The above point gets even more interesting when we consider it wouldn’t be that outlandish for Brock to have already beaten Shane and Big Nog (or at least fought them). His current fight pace is lower than expected and significantly below what we usually see for new fighters.

What we don’t know

Even though the above information sheds some light on a few parts of Brock Lesnar’s MMA career there are still some questions that remain.

Why hasn’t Brock competed more

He has been healthy, he is considered a major draw, there are plenty of opponents. Why is it that Brock has competed so infrequently to this point in his career?

To the haters

What is it going to take for Brock to be “legitimate” in your eyes? I’m not talking #1, I’m just talking acknowledgment that he is a professional fighter and no longer a WWE personality.

To the huggers

Is it really so hard to see that many who raise questions about Brock or have issues with certain parts of his career are not blind hatters? Brock *HAS* lost. I’m not saying crucify him for it for life, but understand that losing 1 out of 5 is quite a lot.

Also consider that Brock really hasn’t fought that much. If you hug him so hard, shouldn’t you want him to fight even more? If he had a couple more wins under his belt I think you’d see more people start to give him credit. MMA isn’t as fast as some like to think and some fans being hesitant about a 4-1 fighter isn’t uncalled for (think Sok).

Speaking of belt. Understand that there are many people who like Brock that still are able to acknowledge the title shot was a bit much.

Finally, for the people that put Brock top 3 or whatever, how can Brock be ranked so much higher than many of the people he’s beaten? Min wasn’t top anything, Heath was around top 20, Randy was 10(ish) and inactive for over a year and Mir was somewhere in the top 15-20 depending on who you ask (Brock is 1-1 against him).

What if a MW beats a 3-5 guy, loses to a top 20 guy, then beats another top 20 guy, top 10(ish) guy and then avenges his loss. Does that immediately make him a threat to Anderson? Does he leapfrog fighters like Okami, Henderson, and Nate?

Wouldn’t you want to see maybe one or two more fights before you put them into that upper echelon of fighters? Even if you don’t want to wait for a couple more fights, is it really so hard to understand that some might want to see a guy have just a couple more wins before declaring exactly where the sun rises and sets?

To all the others

If you made it this far and are still reading, please leave me a message and let me know why…

Given how often the topic comes up; I felt it might be useful to have some of the more common issues/facts available in one handy-dandy place. So let’s get started…

Pre-nup

Oh wait, before we get started there are a few things that need to be made clear. I (Evil Pooh) don’t personally give a rat’s ass what you think of BJ Penn. My intention with this rant is *NOT* to make you love him, not to make you hate him, not to make you buy Apple stock so I turn more of a profit. Nay~!!! My one and only goal here is to attempt to provide clear information that some may choose to use in making their decision about where they stand on the issue.

If you find yourself to be someone who doesn’t enjoy facts, decisions, logic, reading, thinking, and/or statistics then please just leave now. Seriously, go. You don’t “have” to read this. The last thing I need is someone skimming every 10th line to find a few words they can complain about while having no clue at all what the bigger picture is.

Having said that I think it is also important to note that what follows is in no particular order. I’m going to number some points in an attempt to avoid repeating myself and to make referencing a bit easier, “Nah dude, check what EP dropped last Wendz at ELO bout mah boi BJ, Numero Dos, Fer shiz” (feel free to adjust phrasing based upon target audience).

1) Achievement Vs. Ability

This needs to be its own rant, but I never get around to finalizing it. Despite what readers might think I actually do proofread these things. (scary I know). Anyway, the point here is that this site and sports in general are more about achievement than ability.

Ability is a great thing, it’s potential, it’s possibility, but at some point ability loses out to achievement. Sure it’s great that someone “might” do something great, but at some point it’s more about who actually did do something great.

If you want to talk, “coulda”, “shoulda”, “woulda” then again, I’m afraid you are in the wrong place.

2) First American…

One of the very first things people often mention about BJ Penn is that he is the first American to win the BJJ Championship. For some this is a very important point and adds to the “plus” column for those explaining BJ Penn’s greatness.

The thing many need to realize is that the statement usually places too much emphasis on “American” and not on the achievement that follows. What I mean by this is that BJ Penn wasn’t the “First” to do anything, he was the “First *AMERICAN*” to do something. Go ahead and remove “First American” and you see that BJ Penn won the BJJ Championship. That’s an accomplishment, no doubt. Does it sound like as big a deal though?

See the issue with “First American” is that it skews what happened. People in France don’t care that BJ Penn was the “First American” to do anything. People in Korea could care less. What should receive the emphasis is the feat that was achieved and *NOT* the nationality of the person doing it.

Think about it like this, have you ever heard anyone utter the phrase, “Michael Phelps is the ‘First American’ to win 8 gold medals at one olympics”? Ever? Nope, me neither, what I hear is “Michael Phelps is the first *PERSON* to win 8 gold medals at one olympics.” Sometimes it’s even phrased as, “Michael Phelps is the *ONLY* person to ever win 8 gold medals at one olympics.”

Do you see the difference between the two? People aren’t talking about what BJ Penn did, they are talking about who he is. If you are a strongly patriotic person then “First American” will no doubt stir up some emotion/pride/whatever, but should someone’s greatness hinge on the country they are from? Do people want to hear arguements that Hanz Gruber is the best baseball player of all time because he is the “First German” to hit over 500 home runs in MLB?

3)Activity

Since we looked at one of the points used to support BJ Penn, lets now look at one of the points used againist him. Activity in sports is one of those things that’s a bit hard to really gauge. Some athletes have amazing careers, but they get cut short. Some have a couple great years, but never can sustain that greatness. Whatever the case maybe it’s safe to say that for most fans activity (and usually consistency) are important factors in gauging overall ‘greatness’.

When we look at BJ Penn’s career we see:

2001/05/04 – First Fight
2009/01/31 – Last Fight
2009/03/18 – Today

Since BJ doesn’t have a fight scheduled within the next 2 months I’m just going to round up and say that BJ Penn has fought for 8 years. An “average” MMA fighter competes about three times a year. The math on that is somewhere on this site and if only I’d added cool numbers I could easily reference that. Shame on me, anyway, back to the math…

8 Years *TIMES* 3 Fights per year = 24 Fights.

Given an “average” rate of competition BJ Penn should have fought about 24 times at this point in his career. The actual number of times he’s fought is 19. That’s 13 wins, 5 losses, 1 draw.

19 *DIVIDED BY* 24 ~79.2% (I rounded up to further assuage any fears I’m Penn bashing)

As you can see BJ Penn simply hasn’t competed nearly as much as many would expect. For those maybe wanting a point or two of comparison here are a few other people BJ Penn is often compared to:

Fedor – 30/27 ~111% (I rounded down and that assumes no more fights before 2009/08/16 *AND* ignores the NC against Nog)

Spider – 27/27 ~100% (That assumes he doesn’t fight again before the 27th of May)

GSP – 20/21 ~95% (Going from 2002/01/25 to 2009/01/31 would technically be extra month and change between the 31st of January and today).

As you can see, the 3 fights a year holds pretty steady, yet BJ hasn’t even had 80% of the fights that he should given the length of his career.

Also note that the last year where BJ actually fought three times was 2004…He fought twice in 08, once in 07, twice in 06 and twice in 05.

Although activity is only one measure of achievement, for MMA it goes a bit deeper than that. People using this fact against BJ like to note that by not fighting as much BJ avoided a lot of strain on his body. He didn’t have to train as much, he didn’t risk injury nearly as much, etc.

4) Strength of Schedule

In response to those that argue BJ Penn hasn’t fought very much (See point 3 above) people often point out the strength of schedule that BJ has faced. You can find a pretty in-depth explanation of strength of schedule *HERE*.

Basically what strength of schedule does is give us a way to measure the level of competition BJ Penn has faced. People touting BJ Penn’s greatness like to point out that despite having relatively few fights (See point 3 above) those fights have been against very difficult opponents.

Taking a look at All-time Strength of Schedule we see that BJ Penn currently ranks #2. This shows that indeed BJ Penn has fought a lot of high ranked opponents and wasn’t simply bashing on cans.

In anticipation of the Anti-BJ Penn crowd, and to save another bullet point I’m going to mention here that BJ actually lost most of his matches against highly rated opponents. BJ Penn’s overall strength of schedule is about 1848, but the strength of schedule for opponents he actually beat is only about 1802. 1802 is still very good, but some would rightly point out that his overall strength of schedule is inflated by having lost to GSP twice and Matt Hughes (whom he also beat once).

5) Double Standards

There are several times where one standard is applied “for” BJ Penn and then later applied “against” other people. One of the issues some people have with this site is that it’s coldly logical. If you take Fighter A’s career and swap it with Fighter B’s, guess what happens? Yup, their ratings/rankings swap too. Sadly, this isn’t how it works for some people.

As a quick example, take a look at *THIS*.

What we see is a fighter comparison between BJ Penn and GSP. Now I need you to follow me *VERY* closely on this one. Right now when comparing BJ Penn to GSP we see that:

GSP:
More wins
Fewer Losses
More (t)KOs
Higher (t)KO%
Equal Subs

With those facts in mind (and the rest from the page I linked) there are some people that will say BJ Penn is greater than GSP. (Don’t freak out, I’m not even to the point yet)

They will ignore the win difference, they will ignore 250% more losses in fewer fights, they will ignore 2-1 vs Matt Hughes instead of 1-1, etc. They will ignore all of that and declare BJ Penn should be ranked higher.

Now, knowing that, if we *switched* the names at the top of that page so that BJ Penn: Had more wins, had fewer losses, had more (t)Kos, had a higher (t)Ko%, etc. Those same people would…wait for it……….*WAIT FOR IT~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

Still say BJ Penn should be ranked higher than GSP

I know that might sound silly, but it’s true. On this site switching what fighters actually did would flip-flop where they stand, that’s because we don’t care about names, we care about results. Much like point #2 though (with a bit of point #1 thrown in), BJ Penn for some has become more about the name, than about what it represents. If GSP lost to Matt Hughes people would say GSP should drop. BJ loses to Matt Hughes and BJ is still Number 1. BJ loses to GSP, he’s still number one.

BJ Penn at one point dropped 2 fights in a row and 3 of his last 4 and people *STILL* wanted him to be ranked #1. As it stands right now Matt Hughes has dropped 3 of his last 4 and people don’t even want him in the top 10. *boggles*

Take a second to look at Dan Henderson. Dan actually held two belts in two weight classes at the same time, and yet when he dropped two fights in a row (to Rampage and Anderson Silva) some claimed he was a washed up has been and no longer top 10.

What about Cro Cop. After winning 5 in a row (something BJ Penn has *NEVER* done) cro cop lost 2 in a row. Immediately people wanted him out of the top 10, were calling him a can, were questioning some of his previous opponents, etc.

Maybe these fighters fell off, maybe they had a rough spot, but why is it ok to bash certain fighters for losing two whole fights in a row and then turn around and bash people that question BJ Penn for dropping 3 out of 4? That is just one example of the double standards used in the “BJ Penn Debate”.

5.0.1)Weight

I decided to throw in an extra number to break up the rant a bit. Here is another area where a double standard is often applied to BJ Penn. When people talk about BJ Penn’s greatness they *ALWAYS* talk about his wins over heavier opponents. Part of BJ’s mystique and the reason why he gets so much p4p talk is because he’s moved up in weight class.

We’ve all heard that BJ Penn beat Matt Hughes at 170. We’ve heard about his fights at 185 against Renzo (more on that later). Clearly some find that winning against a heavier fighter is a bigger accomplishment. My place here isn’t to judge, simply to point it out and then try to carry that logic forward.

The question this begs is, why does BJ get so much credit “beating” heavier guys, and no one mentions his fights against lighter fighters?

Jens Pulver is a 145lb fighter. Before his rematch with BJ Penn he even said win or lose he was going back down to 145lbs. This is where things get a bit confusing because if BJ Penn gets more credit for fighting heavier guys, why doesn’t he get less credit for fighting lighter guys?

Some don’t want to give GSP credit for beating BJ because the fight was at 170lbs, but BJ took the fight, he showed up and he lost. By that same token Jens took the fight at 155, showed up and beat BJ, then took another fight, showed up and lost. Why is it GSP gets no credit for beating a “lighter” fighter, but BJ Penn gets credit for not only beating a lighter fighter, but “avenging a loss” to a lighter fighter?

This is the double standard that confuses some people. If you believe that beating a “heavier” fighter is important and grants additional “greatness”, then why isn’t that standard applied across the board? Again, to make this clear, I take no stance on the “great weight debate” (that’s the topic for a different rant at a different time), but if you are someone that does place value in it, then value should be placed across the board, not in select circumstances.

5.0.2)Renzo Gracie

This is nothing against Renzo Gracie as a fighter, but it’s another “information” point that gets lost at times. Many people will mention BJ Penn beating Renzo Gracie and it seems as though this is another point where the name carries more weight than what it represents.

Again I want it mentioned that all I’m doing here is trying to point out facts and flush out some of the arguments I’ve heard on both sides of this argument. Here is some additional information about Renzo Gracie at the time of his fight with BJ Penn.

- Renzo hadn’t fought in almost 2 years leading up to the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo hadn’t *WON* in over 3 and a half years before the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo had lost 2 in a row going into the BJ Penn fight
- Renzo had lost 5 of his last 6 going into the BJ Penn fight

Now maybe this information doesn’t mean anything to some. That’s ok. It is true though and things like the above are facts that need to be understood by all regardless of which side they find themselves on.

6)#1 Lightweight

One argument I’ve heard a bit more of late is that BJ Penn is #1 at lightweight. They aren’t talking about his welterweight losses to GSP, or his Middleweight victories. What they contend is that BJ Penn is #1 at lightweight based purely upon his performance at lightweight. Let’s consider that a bit more…

If you remove BJ Penn’s fights above lightweight you do a few things:

- Remove 4 of his 5 losses
- Remove 4 of his 13 wins
- Remove 40% of his submission victories
- Drastically reduce his Strength of Schedule
- Drastically reduce his activity level

Looking only at lightweight fights BJ Penn is 9-1-1 in basically 8 years of competition. That’s not a bad record, but people need to ask themselves how it compares to some of the other lightweights out there. Be sure to keep point #5 in mind and realize that if you put BJ higher than someone with his 9-1-1 record you have to also be willing to say that if the situation were reversed and BJ were 20-3 (or whatever) and someone else were 9-1-1 that BJ would be ranked lower.

Fin?

Believe it or not there are many other points I didn’t get to discuss here. If there is any information I have wrong or simply mistyped please let me know. Please also let me know any additional arguments on either side that you would like to see included.

I’ve tried to provide examples and keep the math simple. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I’ll attempt to explain further. Even for those that hate math I’d suggest trying to read through it a time or two.

With the disclaimer out of the way, lets move on. The point of this rant is to examine how best to measure and represent system accuracy. I’m going to go over three methods that have been suggested and show how the current system model on the site measures up. There will also be a brief(ish) discussion of what I perceive the pros and cons to be with each approach. Feedback here is much appreciated as I’d like this metric to be something people could quickly use to weigh one system against another.

Method 1: Heads I win, Tails you lose

The first approach is the most basic. It looks at every fight and measures how many fights the higher rated fighter won. It then divides that number by the total number of fights.

Example

Assume there were only 10 fights, and the higher rated fighter won 4 of them, then the result would be 40%. That is to say that the system was correct 40% of the time.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

PROS: One of the upsides of this approach is that the number is very easy to understand. It’s very easy for someone to look at past picks and understand they got 2 out 5 right. Another benefit is that this number is easily compared to other systems.

CONS: The biggest downside to this metric is that it deviates from the entire basis of the site. When talking about sports almost nothing is ever 100%. One of the major benefits of the site is that it is able to recognize that even though one fighter is rated higher that doesn’t guarantee victory or even proclaim vast superiority(such proclamations should be left to the fans and the fighter’s mom).

Another potential drawback is that every single fight is counted.

Thoughts: Although I like the simplicity of the number and how portable it is, I don’t like how it fails to utilize the site’s expected win percentage model. Additionally, I think if an approach like this were to be used it might make sense to specify additional parameters(ex. minimum number of fights).

Site result: 65%

Method 2: Fighter history

The way this approach works is by going fighter by fighter looking at every fight they had past their sixth fight where their opponent also had at least six fights previously. For each of those fights I calculate their expected number of wins, and total their actual number of wins.

The absolute value of the difference between expected wins and actual wins is then accumulated across all fighters and this number is ultimately divided by the total number of fights.

Example

Lets look at a two fighter example to get a better idea of how this works:

Fighter A
Total fights = 2
Expected wins = 1
Actual wins = 1
Absolute difference = 0

Fighter B
Total fights = 4
Expected wins = 3
Actual wins = 2
Absolute difference = 1

In this case our total absolute difference is 1 and our total number of fights is 6. From here we can divide the total absolute difference by the total number fights to get a percentage of incorrect outcomes across all fights.

1 / 6 ~ 0.167

We can then subtract that number from 1 to get a percentage correct for the system:

1 – 0.167 = 0.833 ~ 83%

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: The Quickening

PROS: Unlike the previous approach this method factors in the expected win percentage. Which is good because there is a lot of value in the expected win percentage and not just for looking at “pot odds” when placing a bet on a given fight.

CONS: The approach used in this method is definitely more complicated than the first. There is also the possibility that this number doesn’t represent a useful metric for people.

Thoughts: Overall I like this approach better than the first method. It factors in the expected win percentage and is an overall deeper number. There’s no doubt that it would be misinterpreted at a glance by some, but I’m willing to put in the time so that anyone truly interested would be able to understand it.

Basically this number helps give us an idea of the average fighter’s actual performance compared to their expected performance. I’m not sure how useful a measure that is though, so feedback is definitely welcomed on this method.

Site result: 86%.

Method 3: Slice of Life

The final suggested method is an extension of the rant I did a little while ago. How it works is by slicing all fights up into smaller pools of fights based upon the difference in rating between the two fighters. From there it looks at the actual percentage of fights won by the favorite versus the expected percentage of fights that would be won.

In order to get an overall picture of the system on a per fight basis we multiply the number of fights in a given slice, by the absolute difference, accumulate that value across all slices and then divide by the total number of fights from all slices.

I know that might sound complicated, but if I wrote it as a formula with sigmas and stuff you’d hate me even more. Even if the math sounds like gibberish please try to picture what it represents in real world terms. What this method boils down to is showing how close to the expected win percentage various rating slices actually come.

Example

Consider two very broad slices:

1-300 Rating difference:
Total fights = 10
Expected win percentage 65%
Actual Win Percentage 70%
Absolute Difference = 5%

301-600 Rating difference:
Total Fights = 5
Expected win percentage = 85%
Actual win percentage = 70%
Absolute difference = 15%

We then take ((5 * 10) + (15 * 5)) / (5 + 10) ~ 8.33%

That’s means that on average the above system would be off by about 8.33% or put another way it’s about 91.67% accurate in terms of expected win percentage based upon rating versus the actual win percentage.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Crystal Skull

PROS: The stat focuses in on the expected win percentage approach. It allows one to quickly see how real life results are measuring up against predicted outcomes. This number helps give an idea of the overall accuracy of the system when it says Fighter A is expected to win 65% of the time versus Fighter B.

CONS + Thoughts: At first I was going to say that it’s more of a system stat than a user stat, but that’s pretty much what we are looking for here. What we want is a way for a user to gauge how accurate the other numbers they are seeing are. It’s great to claim that Fighter A will win 45% of the time, but if in actuality the expected win percentages are off by 40% then the value of the original expected win percentage number is greatly deflated.

Site result: 97%

some words Just random

Whenever you deal with stats it’s important to know exactly what the number you are looking at represents and whether that number is remotely relevant to what you are doing.

For a lot of people all they will care about is method 1. Sadly, that wastes a lot of the systems value. There is a world of difference between a 1601 rated fighter taking on a 1600 rated fighter and a 1950 rated fighter taking on a 1700 rated fighter. To simply say A > B (even if by the slimtest of margins) portents guranteed victory is a mistake.

Being the numbers geek that I am, method 3 is the most interesting to me. It’s a number that helps clarify the validity of other numbers. It’s interesting to see how close (on average) to expected results the system is actually coming. This also provides a degree of cushion when weighing expected win percentage between two fighters of various ratings.

If there are any methods I missed or any additional parameters you would like to see applied to any of the methods, please let me know. I’d really like to reach a bit of a consensus on this in the near future as it will prove useful with a couple future features/rants.

Due to data limitations weight was determined by looking at the current weight for both fighters. If both fighters currently weigh the same, then that is the “bucket” the fight result was put into. If both fighters are not currently the same weight, then the fight was ignored. Obviously there are some exceptions to the rule, but even with this criteria the smallest bucket is still over 1200 fights.

Results

Conclusions

1) As fighter weight increases the overall percentage of fights that end in (t)ko increases.

2) As fighter weight increases the overall percentage of fights that go to decision decreases.

That is probably what most people would expect. What they might be a bit surprised to see is the submission percentage across all weight classes. Keep in mind that a “sub” due to strikes is still considered a sub. There are also fights where a sub is sunk in after a large(ish) amount of striking has softened up the other fighter. *shrugs*

Individual Results

Since we now have a rough idea how results breakdown between the various weight classes lets take a look at some non-HWs with lots of ko’s and some HW that go the distance a lot.

The criteria used here is the outcome of fights won by the fighter. A fighter having a propensity for getting KO’d might increase the likelihood of a fight not going to decision, but this approach allows the knocker to get credit for finishing fights instead of the knockee getting credit for being finished. 8P

Heavy Handed

Melvin Manhoef – 95%

Luis Arthur Cane – 89%
- 1 sub win, no decisions, and only loss is by DQ.

Scott Smith – 85%
Mauricio Rua – 81%
Robbie Lawler – 81%
Norifumi Yamamoto – 71%

Time to see if Cecil Peoples was watching the same fight as the rest of us…

Randy Couture – 44%
- 0 losses by decision

Justin McCully – 38%
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira – 29%
- 100% of losses by decision. (Insert, “Big Nog never loses he simply runs out of time” quote here). Additionally, both the decision loss to Henderson and the decision loss to Barnett were “split”. The @$$poundings by Fedor were unanimous @$$poundings though.

Blankets, Fight Finishers, and bears Oh My~!!!

Please note that Karo “coin toss” Parisyan has 1 submission due to strikes.

Interesting, eh? Any fighters that should be listed above that I missed? Any additional numbers you’d like to see included? Any pizza left in the fridge? (heads off to check…)