MMA Statistics – Page 36

The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 5

Posted on September 13, 2015 by Jason

#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#10 – #6: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3
#5 – #4: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4

If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.

#3 – #2

#3 – Renato Sobral (Rep Avg: #83.3 | Fight Matrix: #139)

As we hit Babalu, I am surprised the gap is quite as wide as it is. He does have some solid wins, but in the end, no major titles is an unfortunate stain on a very solid career.

EDIT: Sobral got inserted too high into the list. He should actually be in the bottom of the Top 10.

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The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 4

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Jason

#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2
#10 – #6: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3

If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.

#5 – #4

#5 – Dan Severn (Rep Avg: #63.3 | Fight Matrix: #120)

Nostalgia is respectable, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to super stardom. While 101 wins is nothing to downplay, the last 90 wins or so were of far lesser quality than the first 10. In some ways it is like Severn gave up the high profile fights and was then OK with mediocrity.

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The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 3

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Jason

#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1
#15 – #11: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2

If you missed the previous parts, you can visit w/ the links above.

#10 – #6

#10 – Mark Kerr (Rep Avg: #103.7 | Fight Matrix: #169)

Kerr, undoubtedly a credible heavyweight for a short period, simply doesn’t have the substance to justify a ranking at the threshold of the Top 100.

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The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 2

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Jason

#26 – #16: The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1

If you missed the first part, you can visit it w/ the link above. It has all of the details about how this list came to be.

#15 – #11

#15 – Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (Rep Avg: #80.0 | Fight Matrix: #117)

Not a huge leap from #117 to #80. To be at the 14 spot in this list and to only see this kind of gap, either speaks volumes about how representative our all-time rankings are, or vice versa. The area around #100 is REALLY crowded with “almost greats”.

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The Most Overrated MMA Fighters of All-Time: Part 1

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Jason

For those of you who do not know, in addition to our Current MMA Rankings, we also feature an All-Time MMA Rankings that is updated every month (usually on the 2nd).

In a previous post, I took a look at the most underrated fighters of all-time. At the time, I said I wouldn’t look at the most underrated — but what the hell? This list required some additional thought and rules to make sure fighters listed are notable, but here it is…

Not surprisingly, it is still tough to find (seemingly) reputable lists:

Crowd-sourcing Representative: Tapology Top 150 (2015-09-09)

“Peak” Mathematical Representative: MMA-ELO Top 100 (2015-09-09)

“Cumulative” Mathematical Representative: Sports-Ratings Top 250 (2015-01-03)

I would have loved to have added an “Expert” representative, but I could not find one readily available.

When compared to the last series, all of the lists above have since been updated — although the “Sports Ratings” list is still out of date. Furthermore, I went deeper on the Top X for two of the three sites and the All-Time Rankings here has seen (at least) two relatively major updates in order to increase the precision of some calculations.

Methodology & Notes

I am taking the average of a fighter’s ranks in the above three lists. If a fighter is not in one of the lists, that rank is the list maximum + 1.
I am then subtracting the above average from the Fight Matrix ranking as of the last run. A negative result = overrated.
Finally, I am valuing “higher” ranks more than “lower” ranks. Example: A fighter with a representative average of #15 that we rank at #40, is a slightly more overrated fighter than one with a representative average of #90 that we rank at #230. The break-even point is close to this though.
I removed women from the lists — men and women don’t belong in the same list.
Sports-Ratings has a fighter named Jesper Hallberg at #217. Sherdog has him as having zero professional fights, so he is removed from contention.
Fighters must be in the Top 250 at Fight Matrix and be in at least two representative lists to be considered.

Value Formula (How they are ranked): (502 / SumOf3RepRanks) * DiffOf3RepRanksAvgFromFM
502 = Max Sum of 3 Rep Positions seen in all fighters considered

An honorable mention…. well two.

Due to the minimum qualifications of the list, Rickson Gracie was left off. I felt it necessary to list him, as he easily would’ve made the top spot. Ironically, #2 would’ve been Renzo Gracie. Says a lot for name power, doesn’t it?

#26 – #15

#26 – Norifumi Yamamoto (Rep Avg: #118.7 | Fight Matrix: #152)

I had every intention of starting out the list with #25, but with Yamamoto at #26, I had to include him. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard gripes about him not being listed in one of our All-Time Top 25s. The answer is simple; the guy never accumulated much worth at a single division. Instead he bounced between 3 of them and didn’t do enough in any one.

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HBO reportedly uses Fight Matrix for domestic violence statistic

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Jason

Recently, the War Machine drama was covered on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, along with some other tidbits regarding domestic violence in sports.

In the episode somewhere around the 21 minute mark, they made reference to the fact that American MMA fighters ranked in the Top 200 were over twice as likely to be arrested for domestic violence when compared to a relevant segment of the general population.

I saw no citation or reference, but where else would they get this info? Jordan Breen assumed as much and Jonathan Snowden from Bleacher Report, apparently got the official confirmation that Fight Matrix was the source.

Not a big deal, but still cool. I recommend catching the episode as the interview with Mayhem Miller is alone, worth the time spent.

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.