In case you didn’t know, we have our own list of annual awards we issue. They’ve all been posted for 2023.
There is a lot of fine print on that page, so please read. Furthermore, please be aware that the awards are at minimum, strongly guided by the data.
If time allows, I’d like to provide some commentary for each award in the coming weeks. This post covers the upsets of the year, of which we post four. All four are 100% objective.
Those four flavors are:
- “Most Noteworthy (FM)” – Largest difference (by subtraction) in pre-fight ratings using the standard rating points.*
- “Most Noteworthy (Glicko)” – Largest difference (by subtraction) in pre-fight ratings using the Glicko rating points.*
- “Most Noteworthy (GlickoNoReq)” – Largest difference (by subtraction) in pre-fight ratings using the Glicko rating points.
- “Most Lopsided” – Largest difference (by division) in pre-fight ratings using the standard rating points.*
#1, #2, and #4 do not include all fights (hence the asterisk). See the Awards page for more details.
Chihiro Suzuki KO(1) Patricio Freire (#1,#2)
This fight led the way in two of the four methods and definitely shocked me when I saw the result. A KO(1), your classic big upset ending. Interestingly enough, this was not a massive betting upset with Pitbull around -600, perhaps because he lost his previous fight. Then again, Suzuki did as well.
Two sidenotes…
- I’ve recently done some predictive-based research which concluded a TKO outcome is a statistically more decisive outcome than KO and SUB. Makes sense.
- We loosely keep track of fight odds. The biggest betting upset in 2023 that I have a record of, was Jefferson Creighton SD(3) Joey Davis. When we grabbed the odds, Davis was something like a -1500 favorite, but at some books, for some period of time, he was listed as -2500.
Mark Gregory Valerio KO(1) Hussein Salem (#3)
The winner (Valerio), took this fight on 5 days notice and won by KO in 11 seconds. I’d love to see the video! At best, the Elo systems here gave Valerio a ~4.6% chance of winning, with the Glicko system giving him less than 2%.
Sean Strickland UD(5) Israel Adesanya (#4)
We’re all aware of this upset, so there is not much to add. Adesanya had a MASSIVE point advantage going into this one.
> I’ve recently done some predictive-based research which concluded a TKO outcome is a statistically more decisive outcome than KO and SUB. Makes sense.
Interesting. I suppose a TKO is called when a fighter is dominating, but a KO can be a lucky punch…