We're going to be adding some advertisements to the forums! If you notice any weirdness around this or spot bad/inappropriate ads, please make a thread in the bugs forum.
MMA X: Captain Guillotine: Fear the man who has practiced one choke 10,000 times
Posts
The idea of fighter statistics is that if Joe Rogan says something like "GSP is great at passing guard from the top!" there's then a stat to back that up. An actual quantifiable stat. I'm not saying that MMA needs to be like Baseball and invent new stats every year but having some sort of stat system wouldn't hurt.
If this were true, then no one would ever talk about a fighter "stealing a round" with a late flurry.
I've never liked the "look at their faces" metric. Some guys simply bruise and bleed more easily than others. How is it fair to punish Forrest because he has a ton of facial scar tissue from previous fights? Or Fedor, who got cut in training, which was then re-opened by Rogers?
Also, bruises show up more prominently on lighter-toned skin.
I'm sure people do that but you think stats are going to help? My point is still that I'm not sure MMA stats are meaningful to understanding either individual fights or individual fighters like they are in other sports.
If it's just for matches I get it; some people like exact numbers of things like strikes thrown, sub attempts, etc. But I don't think any of those numbers gives you the true story of a round and I'm also not sure I trust the systems generating the numbers yet. They seem weirdly off sometimes.
What are you basing this on?
Oh indeed, but if you watch the fight you will see Dan rocking Davis, cutting Davis and very nearly TKO'ing Davis. Marcus scored some TD's, attempted some subs and caught Dan off balance for a moment and thats it.
It was close yes, and I was being glib with my example, but Davis was a sore loser for sure.
Ok, example time: There's a fight. Round one, Fighter A throws a whole bunch of punches, Fighter B is doing an excellent job of evading, throwing leg kicks, and the occasional counter hook. Machidaesque. Watching it, it seems clear that Fighter B won the round based on damage done and strikes landed.
There's another fight. Fighter A again throws a lot of punches, aggressively chasing Fighter B around the cage. Fighter B is basically backpedaling, waiting for an opening that's not there, and throwing punches once in a while but generally being passive and letting the first guy dictate the pace. It looks like Fighter A won the round and Fighter B's ducking him.
The stats for those two rounds could look very similar but watching it your impression of who won the round would be totally different. What's going to tell the more true version of the round, the stats or actually watching it?
That's true of any sport though, at least to some extent. How many rebounds are worth a steal in basketball? How good is a double compared to a runner thrown out? What about a pancake block compared to avg kickoff return yards? The stats can be somewhat subjective (see errors in baseball, assists in basketball), not directly add up together, and still paint a good picture. In fact, since baseball went to advanced stats (since the late 80s or so), the understanding of the game has gone up. Even the old douchebags who were like, "Hurgleblurgle stats don't tell the whole story" have shifted over to discussing OPB/OPS at least. You don't have to see a 15 K game to understand that pitcher was on fire. On the other hand, a no-hitter could be deceptive, and you might need to watch tape to see that the other team's hitters just had an atrocious game, or they just happened to hit to the fielders every time.
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
edit: I think stats can tell you about fighters (A Silva is the most accurate striker in the UFC, GSP has the most successful takedown percentage, etc.) but they're probably a really weak way of telling you about fights.
The only way the first fight looks like the second fight is if Fighter A connects with those punches. Otherwise, you go, "Hmm, 28 punchs thrown, 2 landed... looks like he was whiffing a lot!" If he's peppering him, say, 19/29 landed, but not damaging him, you'll see 0 power punches (which is subjective, but 0 is pretty obviously indicating that it wasn't like he was blasting Fighter B. You'll also see somethign like power-kick/strikes of, say, 3-4, for fighter B, indicating he controlled the round and blasted A a few times.
In the 2nd fight, you'd more likely see 19/28, maybe a power punch, for fight A... and, say, 4/14 for Fighter B, 0 power strikes. Pretty obvious again what happened.
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)
True that. If they ruled by damage done, Fedor would have lost his fight with Crocop, and GSP would have lost his first fight against Penn.
Judging needs to be a lot more detailed than just looking at blood 'n bruises.
Unfortunately MMA judges are still pretty poor and don't know a whole lot.
Also, they need monitors (with a neutral overview feed) at their little desks ringside, so they can get a view of the action when they can't see it through the cage.
This is my main gripe with the system as well. I like that it exists, and it's a cool idea. I don't want it to become "official," and I don't want the fighters/judges to be able to look at the "numbers" and say "Well, obviously I/He won all three rounds!" It's rarely that clear cut.
I'd like to go back to my example of the Jacare/Kennedy fight a few weeks back. Kennedy had more strikes landed by a little bit, and a good chunk of his strikes were ineffective leg kicks. The numbers don't reflect that at all. On paper it looks like Kennedy won. He did not win.
In other news, sherdog shows the result of Lashley/Griggs as follows:
Chad Griggs.......Bobby Lashley.......TKO (Retirement)
The only difference is the effectiveness of Fighter B in the two examples. How do we judge the effectiveness of a counter-punching strategy? By strikes landed and damage done, both of which can be reasonably conveyed using statistics.
I don't want stats being used to judge fights, but you've shown me literally no reason why they can't be used to inform fights.
Now if you could kindly stay off my lawn, it's time for my nap.
The punch stats for boxing have multiple columns. One is total punches. Another is power punches. They don't equate a jab with an uppercut.
I thought we were talking about girls who still actually fight.
Speaking of Genki's music videos, does anybody have a copy of the original World Order music video? We spoke of it in a past MMA thread. There are several version on youtube now, but a couple of original ones were removed, one of which is by far my favorite. Its a bit over 3 minutes long I think and has the best combination of choreographed dance stuff. Anyone know where I might find something like that? Did anyone here happen to download it to their hard drive? I really want it, the others just dont measure up.
GSP is 6 feet tall? Certainly doesn't say so in UFC broadcasts, he's at 5'11 or 5'10 I think. Not that I particularly trust height measurements, sports organizations have a way of padding those numbers a bit.
note what James "I can't speak English" Toney got as payment
ugh
Yeah but Ali was one of the most famous athletes of his era. I don't really follow boxing but I had only heard of Toney in passing, he wasn't a global icon.
Good for both of them though. Couture got $250,000 and probably a nice gift from Dana for dominating an easy fight. Toney probably really needed that money and I can't blame anyone for firing up the hype machine and getting paid. I'm sure they sold some PPVs and they deserve their money for that.
I am surprised how little Edgar got paid as the Lightweight Champ. I know that BJ is the big name but Edgar was only making about a quarter of what Penn was (without the win bonus)
PSN: SoulCrusherJared
He almost certainly also got a percentage of the PPV buys. I know his old deal he had it (the one he disputed when he took Zuffa to court), and I don't see why he wouldn't still.
So I can't figure out when the fuck Bellator's going to air. There are two college football games on FSN tonight, and it's not listed. Bleh.
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie
Well he is Lightweight champion, at some point you need to promote your champions so your titles mean something. Right now they promote Brock incredibly hard, Silva is a big name (though he has a hard time pulling PPV numbers on his own), GSP is a big name they promote hard (Especially since he is coaching TUF), Shogun would probably be promoted hard if he wasn't injured. I just don't see them pushing Edgar as champion.
I'm pretty sure they wanted Penn to win the title back so they would have a more marketable name to promote as lightweight champion. However at some point they are going to have to start promoting Edgar as a legit champion.
I wish we were able to see how much Edgar made for UFC 112, but since it wasn't in the US it wasn't disclosed.
PSN: SoulCrusherJared
It's real easy to miss the news, so I figured I could just sum up what I read into one condensed post for convenience. Thanks for the feedback.
NOW HERE COMES YOUR DAILY MMA NEWS!
The Demolition Man versus The Last Russian Emperor: Next Year?
The Heat is on! Karo Parisyan back in the UFC!
Karo "The Heat" Parisyan, the one-time top ten welterweight and former 170lb title contender has been asked to return to the UFC and face Dennis Hallman at UFC 123 in Detroit. Since leaving the UFC, Parisyan has only fought once, a submission victory over Ben Mortimer in Impact FC in Australia. How can the man who dropped out of a fight during weigh ins and grinded Dana's gears managed to get back into the UFC octagon? Below is some tid bit information from The Heat.
"But it had nothing to do with Dana or the UFC. The last thing I wanted to do was anything toward them. I don't [expletive] where I eat."
Belcher's career on the line. Will he able to come back to the octagon to go after Anderson Silva?
GSP or Koscheck? We know who Referee Yves Lavigne chooses.
The Gracies are coming back to the UFC!
This shamrock's out of luck. Ken Shamrock back into the octagon.
Tapout tapping out? Tapout facing potential buy out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT3EUUXRLdc&feature=player_embedded
I would really like to see Fedor vs. Overeem, I hope it actually happens and I hope they have that one on CBS.
PSN: SoulCrusherJared
As he gets whaled on, he'll be screaming "GENTLEMEN, WE ARE ON NATIONAL TELEVISION." It'll be his final words.
Man, you have to make the fans want to see you. The average fan doesn't find Edgar exciting. I'm sure he has some new ones after his last fight, but he's not a big draw. You get paid what you're worth. James Toney (like him or hate him) put asses in seats. GSP puts asses in seats because he is exciting, and he is Canada's national treasure. Anderson is extremely exciting. Brock brought over a ton of wrestling fans (probably) and is a great heel. I'd be willing to bet that MMA fans in general are, on average, more upset over fighter pay than the fighters themselves are.
EDIT: I pretty much agree with everything Yves Lavigne said in that little blurb re: Kos/GSP.
This is news to me. I loved him when he was fighting Leben and Franklin, but it was all downhill from there. Except the Griffin fight I guess, but that was a strange fight anyway.
BJ and Edgar are both fighting under contracts that are old more than likely, like x fights for y dollars. He'll get 100k+ a fight once he re-ups, but right now they have him contracted. Brock, BJ, GSP, Rampage, Forrest, now Sonnen I guess, BJ, are all big names and have been for a while. They are paid accordingly.
TylerJ on League of Legends (it's free and fun!)