MMA Statistics – Page 32

Conor McGregor: Most Similar Career Arcs

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Jason

Since the Conor McGregor hype train is still screaming down the tracks, I thought I’d take a look at fighters with the most similar career arcs.

The methodology:

I used data from the Generated Historical Rankings which are recorded in quarterly snapshots.
I took Conor’s ranking data from his 5th appearance until current.
I ensured that fighters only qualified if they had at least the same amount of appearances.
I took the absolute value of the difference between his ranking in each appearance to other fighters’ ranking in that same appearance. The lower the overall average, the closer the career arc.

Most Similar: Kyoji Horiguchi
Record At 17th Appearance: 13-1-0

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Average Time In Between Fights

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Jason

Some quick stats….

For Fighters Ever: 203.2 days
For Fighters Since 1/1/2010: 222.2 days
For Fighters With Consec. Fights in UFC: 170.9 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in UFC: 177.0 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in UFC and at least 1 being a Title Fight: 206.0 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in UFC and both being a Title Fight: 201.7 days
For Fighters Between Their 1st and 2nd Pro Fights: 295.9 days
For Fighters Between Their 2nd and 3rd Pro Fights: 233.2 days
For Fighters Between Their 3rd and 4th Pro Fights: 208.7 days
For Fighters Between Their 4th and 5th Pro Fights: 196.9 days
For Fighters Between Their 5th and 6th Pro Fights: 186.8 days
For Fighters Between Their 9th and 10th Pro Fights: 165.0 days
For Fighters Between Their 19th and 20th Pro Fights: 143.4 days
For Fighters Between Their 29th and 30th Pro Fights: 145.6 days
For Fighters Between Their 39th and 40th Pro Fights: 119.0 days

Some more…

For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in the United States: 219.6 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in Japan: 193.7 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in Brazil: 228.3 days
For Fighters Since 2010 With Consec. Fights in Russia: 204.8 days

Stat of the Day: Fighter Win % In UFC Fight #

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Jason

The above graph shows Win% averages by fighter, based on the fighters’ UFC fight # of their respective careers.

In short, fighters aren’t often successful in their first few attempts and do poorly after their 17th fight, with the most success coming between fights 4 and 16.

“No contests” included in fight enumeration, but not in Win% calculation. TUF fights not included.

Frankie Edgar takes record for most Octagon time

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Oleg

With a 5-round decision victory over Urijah Faber at UFC Fight Night 66, former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar jumped from third place into first in the ‘Most Octagon Time‘ category. Clocking in at 5 hours, 35 minutes, and 23 seconds in the UFC cage, Edgar’s record is likely to stand a while: the fighters in the second and third place (Georges St. Pierre and BJ Penn, respectively) are retired, while #4 Tito Ortiz no longer fights in the UFC. The next fighter in the list, Gleison Tibau, stands at 4:51:15. Even though Tibau fights often, he has never been in a 5-round fight and is not likely to headline a card or get a title shot any time soon, which means it will take him at least three fights to overtake Edgar (assuming Edgar stays inactive, which is not likely).

Looking further down the list, #6 Randy Couture is long retired. Which leaves the next 3 guys (Diego Sanchez, Clay Guida, and Michael Bisping) nearly an hour or more behind Frankie Edgar in total UFC fight time. Given the fact that most of Edgar’s fights are five-rounders, and usually tend to go the distance, I expect him to further separate from the rest of the pack in the coming year.

Is Ronda Rousey the Most Dominant Athlete as SI suggests?

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Jason

Unless you’ve been living under a stone or in a cave, you probably know that SI recognized Ronda Rousey as the most dominant athlete today. Let’s keep other sports out of it and focus just on MMA.

“Dominant” is quite subjective, as are most adjectives. However, we -can- use the “Division Point Dominance” rankings to see where she fits if we mixed the men and women lists. As they are based on proportional differences, they can be mixed together with the disclaimer that by volume alone, the men’s portion of MMA is much deeper.

Top 10 Divisional Point Dominance – Mixed Gender

Rank	Name	DD Pts	Gender
1	Chris Weidman	586	M
2	Jon Jones	510	M
3	Jose Aldo	396	M
4	Ronda Rousey	353	F
5	Rafael dos Anjos	349	M
6	Demetrious Johnson	344	M
7	Frankie Edgar	269	M
8	Robbie Lawler	240	M
9	Luke Rockhold	222	M
10	Rory MacDonald	215	M

If you follow our site, you’ll understand that the points above are as much about the fighter as they are about the division in which they fight. For example: Demetrious Johnson has had a longer tenure at the very top of a division than Rafael dos Anjos, but Lightweight is a much stronger division than Flyweight.

Our “P4P” ratings value the more cumulative aspect and remove the divisional aspect, but can be more influenced by the volume of history.

Top 10 Pound for Pound – Mixed Gender

Rank	Name	P4P Pts	Gender
1	Jon Jones	460	M
2	Jose Aldo	294	M
3	Chris Weidman	280	M
4	Demetrious Johnson	244	M
5	Rafael dos Anjos	171	M
6	Fabricio Werdum	137	M
7	Anthony Johnson	135	M
8	Ronda Rousey	130	F
9	Robbie Lawler	125	M
10	Johny Hendricks	125	M

Given the two lists above, Rousey is not the most dominant in MMA, but she’s in the conversation once you get past Jones, Aldo and Weidman.

One more for the record books

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Oleg

A year ago, UFC made some changes to their bonus system: instead of awarding submission and knockout of the night bonuses, they replaced them with ‘Performance of the Night’. Since then, 15 fighters racked up multiple ‘POTN’ awards. Last Saturday at UFC 184, Ronda Rousey became the first fighter to earn her third POTN. To commemorate this achievement, we are adding a new page to our UFC records section. Check it out and check back often, as this list will surely fluctuate a lot – in the two most recent events, four fighters snatched a POTN each, in lieu of a ‘Fight of the Night‘ award.

Most UFC ‘Performance of the Night’ bonuses

UFC on FOX 14 / Ratings vs. Odds

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Jason

This is not an attempt to suggest the rating system is more accurate than gambling odds. Gamblers can analyze each fight individually, while the rating system uses a variety of mathematical routines to supply a primary fighter rating that is focused on ranking recent achievement, with a secondary priority of gauging future expectation.

Before focusing too closely on our ratings vs. odds, please remember, that we take an overall average of the odds presented by roughly a dozen major sites.

With that said, there are some caveats to using the rating vs. odds comparison straight-up — the “Gotcha” list:

System inability to project the exact effects of a recent divisional change.
System inability to project the exact effects of recent inactivity.
Poor matchmaking / limited careers / “changing of the guard”.
Notable home advantage.

Experienced gamblers know that it’s not about being right the most, it’s about making the most money. So in the usual table, I’ll add the “I’d bet on” column and analyze the rating/odds gap plus points #1-4 that I listed above. In addition to those, there should also be considerations to stylistic differences and the possibility of bad scoring — both of which, will not be considered here.

The gotchas aren’t necessarily comprehensive, but I have noted them as I come across them and when they are considered in the decision.

Having said all that, let’s get started:

Ratings vs. Odds

Fight	Odds Favorite	Rating Favorite	I’d bet on	“Gotchas”
Beal vs. Seery	Beal (-207 / Moderate)	Beal (1.41x / Small)	PASS	#1
Bektic vs. Redmond	Bektic (-707 / Very Large)	Bektic (1.38x / Small)	Redmond	#1, #3
Erokhin vs. Pesta	Erokhin (-372 / Large)	Erokhin (4.18x / Massive)	Erokhin
Christodoulou vs. Taisumov	Taisumov (-865 / Very Large)	Taisumov (2.40x / Large)	PASS
Krylov vs. Nedkov	Krylov (-126 / Very Small)	Krylov (1.75x / Moderate)	PASS	#1, #2
Amirkhani vs. Ogle	Ogle (-152 / Small)	Ogle (1.00x / EVEN)	Amirkhani
Robertson vs. Aliev	Aliev (-156 / Small)	Robertson (1.11x / Very Small)	PASS	#1
Musoke vs. Tumenov	Tumenov (-134 / Very Small)	Musoke (1.27x / Small)	Musoke	#4
Corassani vs. Sicilia	Corassani (-128 / Very Small)	Corassani (1.85x / Moderate)	Corassani
Davis vs. Bader	Davis (-253 / Moderate)	Davis (1.77x / Moderate)	PASS
Mousasi vs. Henderson	Mousasi (-504 / Very Large)	Henderson (1.80x / Moderate)	Henderson	#1
Gustafsson vs. Johnson	Gustafsson (-284 / Moderate)	Johnson (1.16x / Very Small)	PASS	#4

Now, to the results — given the odds above:

The PASS suggests that the odds and ratings difference are nearly identical and/or there are too many relevant gotchas, so neither fighter is a good bet.

Favorites to consider: Corassani and Erokhin are the two favorites I’d consider backing here. Erokhin, due to the substantial rating advantage and Corassani mainly due to the hometown advantage.

Underdogs to consider:

Redmond over Bektic – Bektic is a huge odds favorite and while Redmond is dropping a division, this seems like a reasonable chance to take.
Amirkhani over Ogle – The ratings are basically even and with Ogle having such a poor stretch, I’d side with the newcomer in this one who is also close to home.
Musoke over Tumenov – Styles aside, I see no reason to go against Musoke. Rating advantage + Hometown advantage typically equals favorite.
Henderson over Mousasi – I’ve been known to side with the aging legend when I shouldn’t. In this case, Mousasi to me, is not a -500 favorite. He feels more like a -250 favorite to me, at best. It’s almost as if people are getting Mousasi mixed up with Machida.

Johnson is a really tempting pick. If this event were anywhere else, I would’ve picked him in a second.

Stat of the Day: Multiple UFC Events in the Same Calendar Month

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Jason

In case you didn’t know, Donald Cerrone is now scheduled to fight again on UFC Fight Night (1/18) after fighting on UFC 182 (1/3).

This will only be the 4th occurrence of this happening:

Mike Thomas Brown | January 2011

(LOSS) – Diego Nunes – UFC 125 [2011-01-01]
(LOSS) – Rani Yahya – UFC – Fight for the Troops 2 [2011-01-22]

Lavar Johnson | May 2012

(WIN) – Pat Barry – UFC on Fox 3 [2012-05-05]
(LOSS) – Stefan Struve – UFC 146 [2012-05-26]

Dustin Pague | June 2012

(WIN) – Jared Papazian – UFC on FX 3 [2012-06-08]
(LOSS) – Ken Stone – UFC on FX 4 [2012-06-22]

The Rise and Fall of Tim Sylvia

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Jason

With the news that Tim Sylvia was unable to fight this weekend, because he failed his medicals — weighing in at 371 pounds probably didn’t help matters — I decided to use our Generated Historical Rankings to show the rise and fall of Tim Sylvia using his rank in the Heavyweight division through time.

Tim Sylvia's Historical Ranks

The format of the horizontal series labels is Year – Fights – Age, as of the first and midpoint of the year (no contests excluded). The major gridlines represent the first and midpoints of the year.

UFC 182: Stat of the Day

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Jason

The match-up between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier is the first UFC title fight where the fighters have 35 or more combined wins with only 1 or fewer combined losses.

When throwing in non-title fights, this has only occurred once, when Brock Larson (21-1) faced Keita Nakamura (15-0) back in 2006.

2014 Awards: Men’s Fighters of the Year

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Jason

As a recap, most “Fighter of the Year” awards on other sites are really “Breakout Fighter of the Year” awards in that fighters who win, were usually not top fighters in the beginning of the year, but became so by the end of the year.

A fighter like this can and has won our FotY awards, but our award is more about maintaining a high standing during the award year by performing well a sufficient number of times and against sufficient quality of opponents. It is more comparable to a season MVP, not a playoffs/surprise MVP.

Winner: Jose Aldo

It was a quiet year for elite fighters, but Aldo held steady, again, defending his UFC title twice in the same year. As low as twice sounds, try finding better in 2014.

Runner-Up: Demetrious Johnson

After winning the award in 2013, Aldo edges him out for 2014. Like Aldo, he defended his UFC title twice but against lesser competition.

3rd Place: Robbie Lawler

Surely the pick for FotY from a “breakthrough” perspective, Lawler finally made it to the top of the Welterweight mountain just before the year ended. After going 3-1 in 2014, it will be interesting to see if Lawler can stay at the top of the heap.

2014 Awards: Women’s Fighters of the Year

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Jason

Winner: Ronda Rousey

This is the 3rd straight win for Rousey, who maintains “status quo” as the best female fighter in the sport. She again, remained #1 all year, beating two quality opponents within the first round to further cement her dominance within the sport.

Runner-Up: Jessica Aguilar

Those dubbing Carla Esparza as the top Strawweight, may have forgotten about Aguilar. In 2014, she defended her lesser regarded WSOF championship three times against respectable, but not elite competition. She has not lost a fight in over 4 years.

3rd Place: Herica Tiburcio

In her first fight away from Brazil, she found success in her first fight at 105,which is probably the best weight class for her. She throttled the “Karate Hottie” in 2014 to gain the only 105lb title belt that really matters. Her options in this division are limited, with a rematch against Waterson and a fight against Hamasaki as the only two fights that make sense unless a ranked Strawweight drops down.

2014 Awards: Rookies of the Year

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Jason

Men: Chris de la Rocha

Ending his year with a win over the respectable DJ Linderman, the Heavyweight from the northwest is 3-0 heading into 2015 with a ranking well inside of the Top 100 in the Heavyweight division.

Honorable Mentions: Alvaro Correa, Zelimkhan Umiev, Chris Padilla

Women: Jessica Miele

Getting into the Top 5 at 3-1 speaks partially for her triumphs and partially for being in what is likely the weakest division in the entire sport. Nevertheless, her latest two wins were over a previously 5-0 fighter that was once ranked in the Top 15. Our honorable mentions may be the fighters to watch moving forward as they have undefeated records in a division that the UFC observes, but I would not be surprised to see Miele on a major card (Invicta) before Santos and Moroz.

Honorable Mentions: Marilia Santos, Maryna Moroz

2014 Awards: Most Improved Fighter

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Jason

Most Improved Fighter of the Year: Tom Gallicchio

Tom Gallicchio went 1-3 in 2011, took off 2012 entirely, and had something of a tune-up bout in 2013 — which left him toward the bottom of the Welterweight division. Whether it was improvement, or finding his optimal weight class, he has since moved to Lightweight and reeled off two wins over Kurt Southern in 2014. This boosted Gallicchio well into the Top 100.

Honorable Mention: Bubba Jenkins

2014 Awards: Upsets of the Year

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Jason

Note: We have two ways that we derive biggest “upsets” based on points difference between winner and loser.

“Most Noteworthy” (X minus Y)
“Most Lopsided” (X divided by Y)

Most Noteworthy: Andrei Arlovski KO(1) Antonio Silva

Arlovski turned back the clock in an unbelievably unexpected win against Silva. I’m not sure Arlovski himself saw this one coming.

Honorable Mentions: Anthony Johnson UD(3) Phil Davis, Ben Rothwell TKO(1) Alistair Overeem

Most Lopsided: T.J Dillashaw TKO(5) Renan Barao

When you’re roughly a 9.5-to-1 favorite as Barao was, you’re just expected to go out there and take care of business. Well, that didn’t happen and hopefully the sequel is on tap for early-mid 2015 as Cruz has again proven to be weak in the knees.

Honorable Mentions: Andrei Arlovski KO(1) Antonio Silva, Ben Rothwell TKO(1) Alistair Overeem