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Now visible in the fighter ranking “hover overs”, is our initial iteration of a statistic we call combat age.
For years, fans have subjectively argued about which fighters were battle-worn and have attempted to link this to the foreshadowing of the end of a fighter’s prime. With combat age, we are looking to add our objective touch to this.
At it’s most basic level, one can equate “combat age” to “dog years” in that it will mirror the basic human lifecycle. With this new computation, we expect fighters to hit their respective “peak” in the years that your typical adult “peaks” in life, somewhere between 25 and 40. We will expect most fighters to start their descent at some point in their 40s and be far removed from their peak by 60. Please keep in mind, that there will be anomalies, just like in life. These anomalies (for the most part) will be welcome. Anomalies we cannot prevent, are those that basic fight data can’t convey, such as serious career-altering injuries, non-MMA fight careers or a predisposition to not get knocked out (incredibly hard heads).
In this computation, we will be considering:
- Biological age.
- Total fights.
- Total losses.
- Stoppage losses.
- Cumulative fight time.
The included factors, as well as the weighting of said factors are subject to and may very likely change.
For a quick demo of combat age.
| Age | Combat Age | Diff | |
| Forrest Griffin | 33 | 44 | +11 |
| Wanderlei Silva | 36 | 56 | +20 |
| Georges St. Pierre | 31 | 38 | +7 |
| Andrei Arlovski | 34 | 50 | +16 |
| Anderson Silva | 38 | 44 | +6 |
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Posted on April 29, 2013 by jcs
Fighter Highlights, MMA Statistics | Comments (5)
We used fighter peak ranking/rating statistics. Win/Loss is not revealing as a guy way past his prime often times will win more than ever before, because he is facing tomato cans.
Was this developed from results?
Did you compare the win/loss ratios of fighters of different “combat ages” to come up with the weightings of each factor.
For example, how did you decide how important “biological age” was relative to “total fights” in “combat age”.
jnewingham – not in the near term… maybe some day 🙂
Very interesting stuff.
Sweet. Are there any plans to see this in an overall list? That is to say we could sort by highest/lowest combat age and differential.