Over the past few weeks I’ve proposed an assortment of MMA fights. One my primary goals when looking at all of those matches was to consider them in terms of Risk Vs Reward for both of the fighters involved. Obviously fighters are “risking” injury and they are to be “rewarded” with pay, but it goes a lot deeper than that. Lets start by looking at a few matchups.
GSP Vs Matt Serra (the first time)
It was back in April of 2007 that the UFC decided to guarantee Matt Serra a shot at the title for winning a reality TV show. Here are some assorted facts from just before the fight:
Matt Serra:
8wins
4losses
1789 rating
1W – 1L in his last 2
3W – 3L in his last 6
GSP:
13wins
1loss
2102 rating
Won 6 in a row after losing to Matt Hughes
Last win was a victory over the very same Matt Hughes mentioned above
Won 7 in a row prior to that one loss
That is where the fighters basically stood coming into the fight. Now lets look a bit deeper at what they had to “gain” and “lose”, what they were “risking” and what their possible “reward” was.
Matt Serra – Risk(s)
Injury.
Honestly, that’s it. He was .500 in his last 2 fights, .500 in his last 6 fights. He’d just earned a title shot by avenging a loss to Shonie Carter and winning a very weird decision over Chris Lytle.
If Matt Serra were to lose this fight no one would say anything. He wouldn’t plummet in the rankings (he wasn’t top anything most places to begin with).
GSP – Risk(s)
His status/ranking.
GSP at this time was considered the #1 welterweight pretty much everywhere. He had won six in a row, he’d just avenged his only loss ever, and was considered by many one of the top p4p fighters in the world.
Matt Serra – Reward(s)
I don’t really have to speculate on the potential rewards for Matt Serra since I know what did happen. For winning this fight Serra immediately leapfrogged a few dozen other fights and landed squarely at #1 on several ranking lists. Additionally, Serra went back to the TUF house as a coach.
Serra also remained very high on the many ranking lists for quite awhile. His next fight after beating GSP didn’t happen until over 1 year later. Following that loss to GSP in the rematch, Serra remained on many lists until over a year later again when he finally had another fight and lost to Matt Hughes.
I say none of this to take away from Serra as a fighter or as a person, but simply to illustrate the point that Serra literally built *YEARS* off of this one single win. That shows just how much “reward” was available for him.
GSP – Reward(s)
Equaling his previous career high of 7 wins in a row?
In all seriousness, there was nothing for GSP to gain from this fight. Serra was an unranked(ish) fighter that though liked, was a tremendous underdog. After just beating the only fighter to beat him and the man considered the greatest welterweight of all time, GSP got matched up against someone no one mentioned prior to the show.
Imagine if GSP had simply beaten Serra on that night, and I’m not talking about a really brutal beating, but just a solid, undisputed unanimous decision. Looking back from today would we mention Matt Serra when talking about GSP’s best wins?
When talking to a friend of yours about why GSP is one of the p4p best would you have even gotten to Serra’s name given the list of other fighters GSP has beaten? Even now when looking back at GSP’s career do you mention his win over Serra?
Heath Herring Vs Brock Lesnar
A more recent fight that helps illustrate bad Risk vs Reward in matchmaking happened last August when Heath Herring got matched up against Brock Lesnar.
Brock Lesnar:
1win
1loss
Coming off a submission loss in his UFC debut
Heath Herring:
28 wins
13 losses
Coming off a win over Cheick Kongo following a “loss” to Big Nog that could have easily been stopped in Herring’s favor.
What makes this fight so weird (from a ranking point of view) is that Brock Lesnar actually wound up higher ranked for beating Heath Herring than Heath Herring would have been if he’d won. Please take a second and think that over.
Heath Herring was obviously the higher ranked fighter going into the fight. He’d fought some of the best in the world, he’d just beat an up and coming contender in Kongo, he’d gotten within fractions of a second of beating Big Nog (#2 in the world at the time), etc.
Meanwhile, Brock Lesnar was 1 and 1 at the time. His first fight ever was a win over a guy that was 3-5 (3 wins, FIVE losses). After that he fought Frank Mir and lost that fight in the first round.
Knowing all of that, I pray it’s safe to say that Heath Herring was ranked higher at the time of the fight. Now lets look at the fight from both sides. First the side we know…
Brock Wins
Brock Lesnar beat Heath Herring via decision and in doing so earned a title shot. That’s right a fighter beat a 3-5 fighter, got submitted in the first round of his next fight, and by winning a decision in their third ever fight was given a title shot in the “best organization in the world”.
Yet again I am forced to point out that I take nothing away from Brock, but rather it is important to realize the sheer amount of “reward” this fight garnered. A decision win over Heath Herring was enough to get a 2-1 fighter a title shot in the biggest organization in the world. That is a *LOT* of reward.
Heath Wins
Lets now take a look at it from Heath Herring’s side of things. If Heath Herring wins does he get a title shot? If so then why wasn’t this just billed as a #1 contender fight? Also, if Heath Herring wins that means Brock is now 1-2. His only win coming against a 3-5 fighter and he’s lost two in a row in the UFC. Would Heath have even gotten much credit for beating Brock at that point?
Going back to the question I posed about mentioning Matt Serra when explaining GSP’s career, would a 1 win, 2 loss Brock Lesnar really make the list at that point for Heath? Remember Heath has wins over Evan Tanner (his first loss ever after winning 6 in a row to start his career), and Igor Volvchanchyn (seriously look up his fights if you want to be entertained…and frightened a little). Heath also had fought fighters such as: Fedor, Cro cop, Big Nog(a few times lol), Vitor Belfort, and many others.
Put yourself on August 10th, 2008 after Heath Herring beat a now 1 and 2 Brock Lesnar and tell me how you’d use that win in a discussion to promote Heath Herring without mentioning Brock was “large”.
Can’t have it both ways
What I find interesting is that in a lot of cases the bad matchmaking relies on both fight outcomes to justify the fight. For instance, people try to give GSP credit for beating Matt Serra in the rematch, but the only reason for that is that Serra actually won the first fight. Had GSP simply won the first time, no one would even mention it.
In a similar case some like to claim, “beating Brock would have helped Heath’s career” because they are piggybacking on the fact that Brock actually won and got a title shot. If Herring simply won and Brock fell to 1 and 2, no one would have been accepting that. To make matters even worse, Brock is still very early in his MMA career. His loss against Frank Mir is already discounted by some and if he were to win the rematch many will “forget” it entirely.
It seems very likely that even if Heath had won and Brock still went on to be great in the next couple of years people wouldn’t have given Heath very much credit because Brock was still so “new”.
Again I pose a question, what is the scenario where Heath Herring really would have gained from beating Brock Lesnar? Obviously a win at that time wasn’t going to do him much good, and Brock had far more to gain from a win.
Know a scenario where a win over Brock would have really gained Heath something? A year or two down the road after Brock had actually fought a few more people. If Brock came into the fight at even 5-2 as a slightly more established fighter then the risk vs reward would have been more even between the two fighters.
Year of the Upset
It’s fairly common to hear people talk about big upsets and what not in MMA, but understand they are bred out of poor matchmaking. When you see a fight announced try to step back for a second and look at it from all angles. Ask yourself:
“What if Fighter A wins? What do they gain? Where do they stand?”
“What if Fighter B wins? What do they gain? Where do they stand?”
In many cases these “bad fights” are simply inevitable because the matchup makes a “good” outcome almost impossible.
Disclaimer
I know some people will read this and think I’m hating on Fighter A or Fighter B specifically and that simply isn’t the case. My intention is to piggyback onto this rant tomorrow and address another key point in discussions like this. Till then I’m off to do other evil things…