Ranking System

Last week some people e-mailed me regarding the ranking system used on the site and I felt the need to clarify a few things.

Old Fights Vs Recent Fights

One common misunderstanding about the ranking system on this site is that old fights matter as much as recent fights. That simply isn’t true.

A while back I ranted about a lot of different Elo System Examples. I don’t want to go back over the whole rant, but there are a lot of good examples there that show recent fights definitely carry the most weight.

I won’t deny that older fights matter a lot more on this site than many flavor-of-the-month-what-have-you-done-for-me-lately-matt-serra-is-the-number-1-welterweight-in-the-world sites. That isn’t a bad thing though and that leads me to…

System Results

Many don’t fully understand how the system on this site works or what they are seeing really means. Occasionally I see someone bash the system because of a result, but they don’t fully understand what the result means.

Please understand that this site treats MMA as the sport that it is. The system is more fluid and less volatile than many others. It is also incredibly accurate.

Right now the raw prediction percentage remains well above 60% and the system integrity is over 95%. That means the system does very well as designed and has an incredible edge versus a coin toss.

Whatever, you think Fighter A is #Y!!

First, my personal opinions have nothing to do with the rankings. Secondly, the system is one piece, ONE PIECE!, ONE PIECE!!! of the total picture.

The system has no control over matchmaking, suspensions, reffing, or judging!

I agree that there are some people that are “too high” right now and some that are “too low”, but if you look at why it’s very easy to understand. Almost every issue someone has ever had with where a fighter is currently ranked can be fixed with just a couple simple matches.

This site ranks tens-of-thousands of fighters and having an issue with a handful of fighters with complex situations doesn’t invalidate all of the other results.

Early Stoppages

This topic got a lot of attention recently because of Kongo Vs Barry. It has come up before and I’m certain it will come up again.

The biggest problem I have with some of the discussions I’ve seen is this belief that because Kongo *could* still win (as evidenced by him, ya know…winning), the fight shouldn’t have been stopped. That is a very flawed way of looking at things. Plenty of fighters could have won…if they hadn’t already lost!

I’m not saying that particular fight should have been stopped or not. If you truly believe Kongo was still in it, then that is fine. The problem I have is with people that say the fight shouldn’t have been stopped because Kongo wound up winning.

If the criteria for a stoppage is “inability to ever possibly win” then lots of fights wouldn’t get stopped and some would get stopped before the opening bell!

I’ve seen MMA fighters get surprise subbed that could have easily won if the fight was restarted.

I saw a fight once where a guy was literally choked unconscious, the fight wasn’t stopped and he came back to win. Is someone going to claim that fights shouldn’t be stopped when a fighter goes to sleep because they *could* wake up and still win?

I saw a fight where a fighter was getting pummeled, tapped, and the ref still didn’t stop the fight. The fighter then rebounded and went on to win. Should a fighter tapping no long be grounds for stopping a fight because they *could* still win?

What if Tim Sylvia had gone all Rampage on Mir? Are some going to claim that a fight shouldn’t be stopped due to a broken limb because the fighter *could* still win?

Slippery Slope

Fighter safety is always an issue and having refs hesitate because they think an injured fighter *could* comeback is very dangerous.

Ref stoppages are the safety net that let these high power athletes go all out and still avoid severe injuries. As a fan of MMA I don’t want to see fights stopped too early, but even more than that I don’t want to see a fight get stopped too late.

Think about Meathead walking away because he knew his opponent was done even if the ref hadn’t realized it yet. Think about Franklin yelling at the ref because he didn’t want to hit MacDonald anymore.

If we get slower ref stoppages and more comeback losses those situations won’t happen. MMA fighters will continue to push for fear of the injured fighter coming back and all it takes is one fight ending where a fighter *can’t* comeback to set this sport back a lot of years.

Cruz Vs Faber

Much like Barry Vs Kongo I’m just using Cruz Vs Faber to address a broader topic.

I hear a lot of people claim that anyone who doesn’t enjoy watching the lighter weight classes is a KO hungry savage that only enjoys watching heavyweights slug it out.

That is no doubt true for some, but the issues run a bit deeper than that for others.

Boot to the head

I once watched a bantamweight fight where one of the fighters landed 9 head kicks in the first few minutes of the second round.

I didn’t go into the fight hoping for a KO, I don’t mind that the fight went to decision, but I do mind that 9 head kicks had practically no effect on the other fighter. In fact, one of the head kicks traded with a jab and I think the jab did more overall damage.

When I see someone get kicked in the head, I expect it to matter. I don’t expect that between rounds I’ll actually hear myself say, “yeah, he landed a dozen head kicks, but the other guy had his jab working that round!”.

Significance and Effectiveness

What I think it really comes down to isn’t so much wanting the KO, but rather wanting the technique to matter. If you get into a situation where the technique isn’t effective or doesn’t have a significant impact on the outcome, then it is less important and less exciting.

When Gonzaga head kicked CroCop it was exciting, it was significant, it was highly effective. In the bantamweight example above the head kicks were really none of those things.

Technique Vs Power

I think the reason some people have trouble enjoying certain matches is due to the balance of technique and power. Once you consider different people have a different view of what is an enjoyable balance, then you start to see why some people enjoy certain matches that others don’t.

This issue certainly isn’t exclusive to just the lighter weight classes and actually goes to the very core of competition. Which actually goes to the core of what makes a good fight. Which actually is a great topic for a future rant!

- House: Three Stories
- Criminal Minds: 3rd life

If you haven’t seen both of those at least three times each, then you have better things to be doing than reading this rant!

For those that are still here, have you ever noticed that a lot of people are really just a moderately shaken and jumbled result of their life experiences?

I don’t claim to be an exception, so I figured I’d take a little time to tell you a story that helped cause me. The story does have to do with companies (though more than three), and towards the end I’ll actually try to bring some MMA into this.

As a semi-classic disclaimer, please note that the names have been changed to protect the stupid.

Picture it…

Some time ago in some place, there was some guy that was tasked with some job. Not just any job, but a pretty nice job for a very well known company.

This company (heretoforeafter refered to as “company”) was considering a major new initiative with the seldom seen goal of making money. Due to the nature of this initiative they were carefully considering how to open this up to other companies (not to be confused with “company” from above).

Part of their solution involved a shockingly handsome, redhead-chasing, functioning sociopath occasionally referred to as the “number whisperer”.

This person was tasked with analyzing lots of companies on a wide range of criteria and gauging how well they would fit into the initiative.

Why am I here again?

As is often a good idea when starting a task it’s important to fully understand the scope/objectives/assortedotherbuzzwordstodropduringperformancereviews.

Once things were clarified it was clear that the original explanations and metric requirements didn’t satisfy the underlying goal. I say, I say ya’re treetin the symptoms and not, I say not the disease boy!

Finally getting somewhere

Since it’s cumbersome to express the exact number of meetings that ensued without using scientific notation I’ll simply say “a lot”. Following “a lot” of meetings things got interesting…I know you were waiting for the point when this would get interesting and now it’s here!

With a clearer understand of the goals/objectives/blahblahblah numbers started to be crunched and bunched and munched!

Boy that was interesting!

Back to the rant…

Enter the Jitterbug

Not quite as intimidating as a dragon (also not nearly as smart depending on your mythos). Make no mistake about it though, this “bug” is a behemoth. One of those people that can make more in a year than some will in a lifetime.

Looking back it should have been obvious that Jitterbug would be a problem. From the beginning they *KNEW* which companies should be picked. At first this wasn’t so bad because they had reasons.

Maybe they have a point

During early confrontations (I mean “meetings”) Jitterbug was adamant that certain companies were obvious choices and there was no need to analyze them. This quickly devolved to the point of not needing to analyze any companies because Jitterbug already had…”the final list”. ooooooo—-aaaaaaa

A quick glimpse of the list and it was apparent that we were worlds apart. I was on earth…and they clearly were on some distance planet that didn’t have math, logic, or deodorant.

We can work it out

In an attempt to find some common ground I began to ask several sincere questions in the hopes of clarifying the criteria that resulted in such a huge difference between our lists.

Knife to a gunfight

Conflict one – Jitterbug wasn’t ranking these companies with a keen focus on this initiative, but was simply noting which companies he considered important.

2 + 2 = 5

During one of Jitterbug’s responses they accidentally mixed in some numbers with their words and that resulted in more confusion on my part. Some of the numbers they mentioned simply didn’t match.

One of the problems was that Jitterbug had incorrect information. A key report Jitterbug was using had a major error.

A second issue (among many not mentioned) was that Jitterbug didn’t understand the formulas they were round-pegging into the rectangular boxes of excel.

It’s what you can prove!

With all of the reasons now clear and the flaws obvious I expected a better discussion to ensue.

Sadly…it did not.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting him to immediately go “YOU’RE SO RIGHT HERE’S EXTRA MONEY!!!”. It seemed reasonable though to expect Jitterbug to take some time and re-evaluate things with the updated information they now had at their disposal.

Nope, not needed! Jitterbug acknowledged the flaw in the raw data, actually explained back to me the issueS! (PLURAL!!!) with his formulas and then said…

“none of that really matters though, these are still the right companies”.

Look, I get the whole:

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and is wearing a sign saying “I’m a duck” that many will lean toward “duck”.

The issue here is:

It didn’t walk like a duck, it didn’t talk like a duck and it was wearing a sign saying “I’m not a fucking duck!”.

Em Em What?

So what does any of this have to do with MMA? Nothing specifically, but it has a lot to do with people. There are a lot of people in this world, and sadly, there are a lot of Jitterbugs in this world. Thus it’s no surprise there are a lot of MMA fans that are Jitterbugs.

Often times when talking to people about MMA (and many, many other things) I’ll see them pull a Jitterbug. The most common is probably the worst. That’s where someone “knows” something, but they can’t explain why. If we are talking about an inability to express the obvious superiority of redheads in 5000 words or less, I get it. When we are talking about more clear cut and calculable things then I’m at a total lose.

Don’t be mistaken, I’ve seen a lot of people be right for all the wrong reasons. As a general rule though if every single one of your “reasons” (or even just one beeg one!) is called into question or outright refuted you might want to at least pause for effect before continuing the discussion.

It wasn’t a fucking duck!

Just for those that like closure, nope it wasn’t a duck. Jitterbug’s list was pretty terrible and thankfully largely ignored in the end.

Here are the two important things to take away from all of this…

1) Dont be a Jitterbug

2) Buy my new Evil Pooh T-shirt with horned-bear wearing an “I’m not a fucking duck!” sign.

1) *ZUFFA* purchased Strikeforce

The first thing that needs to be clarified is that the UFC’s parent company purchased Strikeforce. The “UFC” did *NOT* purchase “Strikeforce”.

Tons of the chatter I see continues to ignore this key detail. There are a lot of parent companies out there that own multiple companies that operate within the same industry.

Look at Wendy’s and Arby’s. Look at Yum! foods that has Pizza hut and Taco Bell and KFC. Activision/Blizzard, etc.

Certainly it’s possible we’ll see a WEC style merger at some point. However, that is not what we currently have going on.

Remember wayyyy back when “UFC” bought “Pride”? Remember how Dana kept talking about how he tried to get deals going, and then explained that at least he got the pride library and that was still valuable to him.

MMA is a global sport with incredible growth potential and Zuffa clearly has a lot of resources. It will be interesting to see what they think provides the most value.

2) What is the “UFC”?

This might sound silly, but a lot of people don’t realize that the UFC is an MMA organization and is primarily a brand.

What the UFC isn’t

Fighters – The fighters can go anywhere and fight. Whether they come from Strikeforce, go to Strikeforce, head to Bellator or whatever else.

Rules – The rules are basically state mandated with minimal variations.

Refs/Judges – State certified in most cases.

Arena – The “octagon” is hardly unique at this point and actually has a couple current variations as I recall.

What the UFC is!

So what does that leave us?

Well, the UFC is a production. The color scheme, the intros, the commentators, that’s all “UFC” through and through.

You know what else the UFC is? It’s a business. The fighters it signs, the events it schedules, the business plan it follows. Which leads us too…

3) The “UFC” Model

Probably the biggest fear I have regarding Zuffa purchasing Strikeforce is if we’ll see shifts in Strikeforce’s business model.

Exclusive Contracts

Probably one of the biggest things you see with UFC fighters is they are much more restricted in what they can do. With Strikeforce you saw fighters from other organizations, you saw fighters compete in K-1 and other sports.

There is a very fundamental difference between what a Strikeforce fighter could previously do and what many UFC fighters have been allowed to do.

Popular over Good

Historically you can see lots of cases where the UFC treats different fighters differently. Fighters that are popular move up the ranks faster, fighters that mess up and aren’t as beloved get scolded harder, etc.

Strikeforce doesn’t have a major history here, but little clues like Josh Barnett being in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix while Dana White for the UFC says no one cares about him.

If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense!

Finally, the UFC shows a bias toward making money. Obviously, they are a business and need to make money to stay in the game. However, as I’ve discussed several times, there comes a point where you have to act like a legitimate organization and let the sport do more of the driving.

The UFC has a very financially successful business model in regards to hyping fighters, their churn rate, their costs per event, etc.

Make no mistake about it, if I were investing money in an MMA company I’d be making it rain on Dana White.

4) SUPERFIGHTS!!111!!1oneone1!!1

Probably the most unrealistic hype I see surrounding the purchase of Strikeforce by Zuffa are these amazing superfights we are now going to get!

Really? Which fighters didn’t the UFC have the ability to negotiate and sign previously?

Notice how much excitement the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix has garnered. Yet Werdum signed a better deal with Strikeforce, Fedor negotiations broke down, Arlovski moved on, Barnett “isn’t cared about”, etc.

This again comes back to what the “UFC” really is, what their business model is and how Zuffa’s acquisition of Strikeforce will impact Strikeforce’s business model.

I find it very troubling that “UFC Fans” have basically been brain washed into believe that super fighters only happen if the UFC controls everything.

I bet dollars to donuts that UFC and Strikeforce could have worked out a deal to have two UFC heavyweights in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Remember Chuck going over to fight in Pride?

With the limited time Strikeforce had some of the spotlight we saw Aoki come over from Japan, we saw Diaz head over and fight Mach, we have Kawajiri setup against El Nino.

There’s no reason that we couldn’t see Overeem Vs JDS. See Brock Vs Fedor, see Machida Vs Mousassi, etc.

You don’t need the same parent company for that, you just need smart people running things to put some value on the fans and the sport and just a tidge less on the bottom line.

More questions than answers

At this point I think we really are left with more questions than answers. We don’t know how long before a merger, if a merger even happens. Maybe Strikeforce will be maintained for it’s “challengers’ series” and on cable to help drive sales and pay-per-views for larger events.

Maybe we will get some super fights, but didn’t we get some of those when Pride was aquired? To that end, couldn’t we have had them anyway?

What about the fighters? Strikeforce gave fighters like Mousassi (who likes to compete non-exclusively), Daley (sucker punch!), and Barnett (nobody cares) a place to compete at a high level and for fans of the sport to see them compete. If a merger happens, if negotiating strategies or business strategies change, what will happen in the future?

I think a lot of people need to step back at this point and really think about what this might mean. Forget the hype and the branding and all of the propaganda and really think.

What does this make possible that wasn’t possible before?

What did we possibly lose that might have previously been possible?

Is this good for the fans?

Is this good for the fighters?

Is this good for the sport!?

Like I said, more questions than answers…

GreaseGate

First of all, stop it with the “Gate” shit. Nixon resigned about 35 years ago. The events transpired (that means happened) before anyone 35 or younger was even born. I’m sick and tired of every controversy needing to be a gate: “Spygate”, “Greasegate”, “Redheadgate”. Just let it go. We don’t need fancy tag lines and theme music for every incident of note.

Secondly, who the hell complains about greasing *AFTER* a fight? Imagine losing game 7 of the world series and then coming out and saying, “Uhh yeah we think the pitcher was doctoring the ball in the 7th inning of game 4″. We aren’t talking about illegal gloves that are off by an ounce or something that is undetectable.

Here you are rolling with this guy for minutes, your legs are on his back from guard, your hands have been all over him. Honestly, was BJ getting rubbed down between rounds too from all the transfer?

Here’s how the situation should of played out…

GSP – Takedown
BJ – Holy Shit this guy is greasy. Hey ref, look at this, look at my hands, gross! touch this guys back.

Seriously, how do you go 4 rounds with someone you think is cheating in a very easily proven way? I’m pretty sure if I were in a fight getting cut up by glass glued to the end of gloves I might swing by the ref between rounds and show him some of the shrapnel in my face and ask him if he could stop ogling the ring girl long enough to check the guy’s gloves. I’m not saying that’s the best approach, but ya know, might be worth a try. *shrugs*

Close it, Close it!

I might be the only one, but did anyone else hear “Close it, Close it” in Yosemite Sam’s voice as Arlovski was crashing to the mat in the Fedor fight? Basically the fight went:

- Strike with me
- Strike with me
- Don’t hit me, don’t hit me
- I hate rabbits

On a more seriously note, I don’t think people grasp how much credit they are giving Fedor when they praise Arlovski. This was a 5X5 fight and by “winning” 3 minutes of it, that’s 12%. Arlovski got heaped with praise. Imagine that, 12% of the potential fight length before losing and Arlovski actually improved in some people’s eyes. This is a fighter almost universally accepted at #2-6(ish) and 3 minutes of not losing is being viewed by some as legendary.

Now let me be clear here, I’m one of the people that actually expected Arlovski to win. He’s got a toolset that can, and did, give Fedor problems. I am in no way taking away from him as a fighter, but some people are out of their minds on this fight.

It was 12% of the entire fight. It was only 60% of the FIRST ROUND. What if fedor doesn’t treat Arlovski like skeet shooting practice at that point and simple scores a knockdown. Fedor does some “weak” ground and pound, they jockey for position a bit and we’ll even say the round ends with Arlovski getting back to his feet. At that point does Arlovski even get credit for winning the round?

Remember, Arlovski had no knockdowns, no sub attempts, he didn’t cut fedor, etc. Arlovski controlled the ring quite well, was fairly agressive and I think most would agree he was winning the first 3 minutes (give or take crashing to the mat unconcious).

Are we really at a point where lasting 12% into a fight with Fedor before clearly losing is a major accomplishment?

Why don’t people talk more about other fights where one fighter was “winning” before clearly losing. I don’t remember a ton of people touting Forrest for winning two rounds against Rashad before getting pummeled about the head and shoulders. Many seem to ignore that Clay Guida had won the first two rounds against Roger Huerta before losing it in the third. What about Manny Vs. Nate on the TUF finale? Manny was winning the fight, he hurt his own shoulder going for a take down and nate wound up getting the win. Almost no one even talks about that.

Honestly people if not losing for 3 minutes of a 25 minute fight is a noteworthy accomplishment then you shouldn’t be in that ring. You need to get yourself a restraining order, a well trained sniper and a stunt double. Arlovski is an amazing fighter and I’d gladly watch a rematch (I’d probably even expect him to win then too), but there is no way you can tout Arlovski for what he “accomplished” without de facto saying that Fedor is just that far above other people.

Rain out

At WEC 38 Jaime Varner won a Technical Decision against Donald “cowboy” Cerrone. The thing that amazes me about this fight is that people talk about almost everything except the fact that, Varner won a Decision!

Some will talk about whether Varner should have continued or not. Some will talk about whether the Knee landed. Some people argue whether the moon landings are fake or not. All of those take a backseat to the simple fact that Varner *WON A DECISION*. Maybe caps and pretty asterisks will help get the point through.

People need to realize that this wasn’t a fight that Cowboy was dominating. This wasn’t like Anderson Silva versus Okami where Silva got DQ’d for an illegal kick. Cowboy wasn’t dominating the fight for 20+ minutes, then accused of making an illegal strike and DQ’d for it.

Whether Varner could have or even should have continued seems pretty moot. Unless you believe that cowboy was going to finish the fight for a win in the final few minutes (he hadn’t yet) then it’s irrelevant that the fight went to the score cards a few minutes sooner.

I know some will take this as Anti-Cowboy or Pro-Varner, but it’s honestly neither of those things. My issue is that some people talk like Cowboy was dominating the fight, that Varner was saved by the bell a couple of times and that in the midst of going for the win Cowboy accidentally landed a blow construed as illegal and had his win given to Varner.

What really happened is that Varner went out and won the majority of the fight (according to the judges), reportedly with a broken hand/foot, then when caught with an illegal strike choose to go to the score cards immediately instead of trying to continue and going to them in a few minutes if no one ended the fight.

If you want to say that Varner should have continued that’s fine, if you want to claim he wasn’t “that” injured that’s ok too, but people need to stop acting like an illegal strike is why Cowboy lost. The reason Cowboy lost is because the judges felt he lost the fight and scored it accordingly.

One of the biggest issues with ranking MMA fighters is a mistaken belief that certain fighters are unbeatable. People think that the #1 guy never loses, and when he does they think the guy that beat him is now Captain Indestructible. History, statistics, and common sense would all beg to differ though.

For those that understand MMA is a sport, and even the best can be upset I’d like to move on and talk about expected win percentage (it is what I titled the rant after all). When I say expected win percentage I’m talking about the overall percent of the time Fighter A is expected to beat Fighter B.

For example, if I say Fighter A has a 60% expected win percentage against fighter B that means if they were to fight 10 times, Fighter A would be expected to win 6 of them. It’s certainly possible that Fighter A wins more than 6 times, or even loses every fight. However, the stat is telling us Fighter A should win 6(ish) out of 10.

This concept of expected win percentage is very important on the site because it’s the basis for a lot of comparisons. Under the covers the site looks at Fighter A and their rating, then looks at Fighter B and their rating. From those numbers it makes a determination about how often each fighter should win. Based upon that calculation and the actual fight outcome it then adjusts both fighters ratings accordingly.

History, learn from it

One of the things I try to do with the site is provide a level of transparency that rivals the partial tax returns offered by presidential candidates. One way I do this is via the Site Stats page. This page has a table that shows the results for fights across various rating gaps. For instance, if we look at the page quick (it’s ok to click it real fast, there aren’t any nasty roll over ads that are going to bite you) we’ll see that when fighters are within 70-80 rating of each other the underdog wins 40% of the time. That is to say that 6 out of 10 times the fighter rated 70 to 80 points higher than their opponent wins the fight.

Dance or no dance

Much like how some people have problems believing their favorite fighter can’t be beaten, many people have a problem understanding how the site works. They see the 60% number from the 70-80 rating difference and think the results are poor. What people need to realize is that the comparison that should be made is between how often the system thinks a fighter of a certain rating should win and how often that fighter actually does win.

There are a few ways I could illustrate this: a song, interpretive dance, or a bland HTML table. For now I’ll post the table, but keep your eyes out on youtube for “Expected Win Percentage by Evil Pooh and the Pigtails”.

What the above table shows is the difference between the win percentage the site system expects and the actual win percentage achieved by fighters. For example, looking at fights where the fighters had a rating gap of 195-205 points the site was off by 3.42%. As a simple example, assume the site expected the higher ranked fighter to win 66% of the time, in actuality the higher rated fighter won 69.42% of the time.

Looking at the above it does appear that the system is a bit conservative in that historically the higher rated fighter has won a bit more than expected. However, the gap is only a few percentage points in most cases.

What have you done for me lately

The above table showed the results for all fights ever, so lets take a look at a more recent sample. This table will only show the results of fights that occurred since 1/1/2006.

Again we see that for most rating ranges the results are within a few percentage points even for the most recent fights. The one exception is at 295-305, but due to the much smaller sample size it’s not as out of place as it first appears. Additionaly, it again errs on the side of the favorite winning.

And I read this why?

For a couple reason actually. Here’s what you should take away from this little rant:

- Fighters lose, even the best of the best of the best SIR~!!! Don’t think a guy is over the hill because of one loss and don’t think a fighter scoring one huge win makes them Captain Bignasty.

- Numbers need context. If the site shows Fighter A has a rating of 1802 and Fighter B has a rating of 1804 that does *NOT* mean that Fighter A has no chance in hell of winning so much as a round from Fighter B. It does not mean the site is claiming Fighter B will win every fight the two ever have. What it means is that the fighters are very close, but historically the higher rated fighter has won slightly more often.

- The site is running very close to where it should be from a statistical point of view. Don’t look at the 60% number and assume the site got 40% wrong. The truth is the site is actually getting a few too many fights right atm. *shrugs* What a terrible problem to have. 8P

To infinite and beyond

So where do we go from here? I’ve got a few tests to run on the system itself to lower the expected win percentage gap a bit. I’ve also thought about potentially adding the historical and maybe even the expected win percentage numbers to the Fighter Compare section of the site. That might help some people better understand just how closely matched some of these fighters are.

Should I add the win percentages to the fighter_compare? Are there any other site metrics you’d like to see? I had some from 2007 (year of the upset) which overall was about as expected. Just remember that lowering the sample size really skews the results. Don’t expect to see metrics for April of 2003 (although, yeah, I could provide them lol).

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…)

The main parts of fighter compare are:

Rating Compare
This shows the current and max ratings for both fighters in addition to their one year and three year mods and their strength of schedule.

Stats Compare
This shows the wins, losses, draws, NCs, KOs, subs, Decisions, and unanimous decisions for both fighters. It also shows the percentage of these numbers in terms of overall fights/wins.

Fight Comparison
This shows head to head fights between both fighters. It also shows all common opponents for the two fighters.

Possible Problems
I’ve tested the page a lot and have had others look it over(thanks!), but it’s possible we missed something. If you run into any issues please let me know.

One known issue is that the auto suggestions can be a bit slow. That is due to the web server the site is currently hosted on and an attempt on my part to make the best of it. In most cases simply typing one extra character or typing slightly slower will make everything work properly.

Examples
Here are a few random examples to get you started…

Anderson Silva And GSP
Here we see GSP with a slight lead in current and max rating. A better one year mod, but a lower three year mod(serra loss…uhh FTL lol). Additionally, GSP has a higher strength of schedule, but I think most knew that.

Looking at the stats we see more wins for anderson, but a higher win percentage for GSP. We see more (t)KOs for anderson and a higher (t)KO%, and GSP has both subs and sub percentage.

Both have five decisions, with GSP having a single split (penn).

They have no head to head fights and share no common opponents.

I think it’s safe to say that both are amazing athletes who have had fantastic careers, but I’m sure some will try to use GSP’s current 3 rating point edge as definitive proof that he rules and anderson drools. *shrugs*

Fedor And Nog
Fedor has higher current and max rating. However, nog has the edge in strength of schedule, one year mod and three year mod.

Fedor has fewer wins, but a significantly higher win percentage.

Nog has the edge in sub victories (19 to 15), but the overall sub percentage is little more than a point different (52.78% to 51.72%).

Head to Head we see the two wins for Fedor and the one NC.

We see 8 common opponents including crocop, zulu, schilt, herring and sylvia. We also see TK on the list who fedor is 1 and 1 against and whom nog has a draw against.

Matt Hughes And Fedor
I know, I know, WTF…The reason for this one is because they actually share a common opponent. This is one of those “trivia”/”amusing” type of things I enjoy finding. Five bucks to the first person who knows the answer before looking and sends me a self addressed stamped envelope. 8)

And then???
No and then~!!!

Go play around with it. Look at rashad and forrest or penn and gomi or herring and sapp. *shrugs* If you have issues please let me know. If there’s additional information you’d like to see let me know. If you find other interesting results, definitely let me know. 8)

Judging in MMA

A little while back I wrote a rant about the scoring of MMA. This is a flawed system that has messed up before and will messed up again. Although I’m infinitely thankful to those that read the article and understood what I was saying. I’m afraid there were lots that fell into two main categories:

1) The fight is in the past, so don’t worry about it.

2) The right person won, so don’t worry about it.

If you can’t talk about something before it messes up (again) and you can’t talk about something after it happens (in the hopes of preventing it from happening again) that doesn’t leave a very large window for discussion. *shrugs*

It might just be how I am, but I tend to treat all flawed systems like they are brake systems on a car. I want it fixed *NOW*. The thought of a mechanic looking at someone and going, “Wow those brakes are flawed to holy hell and back……..but they haven’t caused you an accident yet so we’ll leave them on there” is kind of troubling in my opinion.

UFC 88

Although not an issue with the scoring system, UFC 88 provided another example of an ongoing issue in MMA. During the batman fight there was a point where his opponent tapped… maybe… sorta… uhhhh, yeah. *shrugs* This situation could have been used to illuminate a potential problem in MMA and helped bring about change. Sadly, a lot of people simply dismiss the situation by saying, “the right guy won, don’t worry about it.”

A referee missing a tap, or misunderstanding a tap can be the difference between a win and a loss. In recent history I can think of several controversial “taps” and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider measures to ensure fights in this situation are properly stopped/re-started if necessary. Unfortunately, most people don’t want to fix the system before it happens again, and they don’t want to hear about it after it happens either.

Injuries

Injuries in MMA are one of those situations that often feel like a bad relationship. There apparently is never a “right time” to talk about them.

- If a fighter losses a fight and then mentions an injury then he is simply making excuses.

- If a fighter *WINS* a fight and then mentions an injury he is being disrespectful to his opponent. (some claim he’s taunting his opponent by claiming to have beat them at less than 100%)

- If a fighter is preparing for a fight you can’t mention an injury because then you are just making potential excuses for why a fighter might lose.

Some will say that fighters should simply not fight if they are injured, but that is unrealistic. There are numerous cases of fighters requesting fights being rescheduled and being told no. In some cases replacements can’t be found in time, in others the fighters simply need the money.

Honestly, when is the “right time” to talk about these injuries? When is the “right time” to get this flawed scoring system looked at and improved?

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)