Fightnomics: The Hidden Numbers in Mixed Martial Arts and Why There’s No Such Thing as a Fair Fight PDF
Preview Fightnomics: The Hidden Numbers in Mixed Martial Arts and Why There’s No Such Thing as a Fair Fight
IGHT The Hidden Numbers and Science in Mixed Martial Arts OMRES ...and Why There's No Such Thing as a Fair Fight REED KUHN How UFC Fights End (Take 1) The Effect of Fatigue Slam Science: With a Bang Not a Whimper The Reach Advantage: The Reality of Range It’s the Brain, Stupid v% World Cup of MMA: Breaking Down Fighters by Geography The Balance of Power Deciphering the Fightnomics “Uber Tale of the Tape” Always Read the Credits REED KUHN with KELLY CRIGGER Fightnomics The Hidden Numbers and Science in Mixed Martial Arts ... and why there’s no such thing as a fair fight By Reed Kuhn With New Y ork Times Bestselling Author Kelly Crigger Fightnomics ® is a registered trademark of Calvert Strategies LLC. Copyright © 2013 by Graybeard Publishing LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-9912382-0-0 Graybeard ® is a registered trademark of Graybeard Publishing LLC Printed in the United States of America Disclaimers: Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), the Octagon, World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC), Strikeforce, Zuffa, PRIDE, and DREa are all registered trademarks, and are referenced here as part of the public domain. fight • nom • ics fight: an attempt to overcome opposition, especially physically, through confrontation -nomics: suffix meaning “law;” the laws defining the underlying properties of a given subject This book is dedicated to the men and women “of the Arena.” Where to Find Stuff Foreword Prologue Wednesday, April 1, 2009 Sifting Signal from Noise 1. Introduction: The Evolution of Combat Sports The Natural Evolution of Fighting From Common Ancestor to the Melting Pot How the Gladiator Got on TV 2. Numbers in the Cage: What Stats Can Tell Us About Sports & MMA Introduction to Quantitative Sports Mythbusting MMA Stats 101: Winners, Losers, and Neithers How UFC Fights End (Take 1) How UFC Fights End (Take 2) The FightMetric System Don’t Forget the TIP 3. Advanced MMA Stats: The Standup Game Position-Target-Strength-Success Strikes That Finish Fights The Reality of Knockout Power: Size Matters The Effect of Fatigue 4. Beyond Standup: More MMA Striking Stats Clinch Striking Ground Striking When and Where UFC Fighters Strike How the Strike Became “Significant” The Evolution of MMA Striking The Pace Advantage 5. Advanced MMA Stats: The Ground Game How Takedowns Work in the UFC Slam Science: With a Bang Not a Whimper How Submissions Work in the UFC The Slickest Subs of All The Grappler’s Ticking Clock 6. Hacking the Tale of the Tape: How Size Matters, and How It Doesn’t Weight Class Matters The UFC Arms Race & the Incredible Shrinking Middleweight The Reach Advantage: The Reality of Range How Reach Works The Truth About the “Height Advantage” 7. Beyond the Measuring Tape: Rookies, Veterans, and Southpaws The Trouble with Lefties A Brief History of Lefties Quantifying the Southpaw Advantage The Youth Advantage The Price of Wisdom: Age and Knockouts in MMA 8. Assume the Position: Fighter Position & What it Tells Us The Decline of the Clinch The Ground Game Are Wrestlers Ruining MMA? 9. MMA Betting Lines: The Odds Are Good, but the Goods Are Odd Running the Numbers on the Odds Makers The Power of Hype, and Why It’s Profitable Not So Quick on the Draw A Few Simple Betting Strategies That Will Get You Paid 10. Fistful of Dollars: Fight Night Bonuses A Brief History of UFC Fight Night Bonuses Who Wins Fight Night Bonuses? But Who Really Wins Fight Night Bonuses? 11. World Cup of MMA: Breaking Down Fighters by Geography Where Do UFC Fighters Come From? Best Overall Finishers Best Standup Strikers Best Wrestlers Best Submission Artists Where Do American Fighters Come From? 12. For the Record: Settling the Biggest Debates in MMA (for now) The Truth About Finish Rates The Home-Cage Advantage The Balance of Power Missing More Than Just Weight What About the Extra Pound at WeighIns? Octagon Jitters Is Ring Rust Real? The Value of Streaks Agree to Disagree: MMA Judging The Money Chart: Advantages & Disadvantages in MMA 13. The Fringe: Strange Forces That Matter in Fights, and Some That Don’t Small Fish in a Bigger Pond: The Dirty Secret of the WEC Merger Below the Belt: Do Low Blows Affect Fight Outcomes? The Loser’s Smile The Astrology of MMA: Pitting Zodiac Signs in a Cage Fight Snake Oil in the Cage 14. Deciphering the Fightnomics “Uber Tale of the Tape” There’s No Such thing as a Fair Fight 15. The Future of MMA: The Last & Greatest Combat Sport MMA Killed the Kung Fu Star The Science of the Circus: Why UFC Shows Are So Thrilling The Future of MMA Next Generation MMA Analytics Optimizing the Ultimate The Final Word 16. Always Read the Credits Foreword There really is no such thing as a fair fight. The first time this realization punched me in the gu1 was when Pete Williams knocked out Mark “The Hammer” Coleman at UFC 17. Williams was a 22 year old unknown in his UFC debut while Coleman was an Olympic silver medalist wrestler ant former UFC heavyweight champion who had ground and pounded through more impressive opponents, with his only loss being a decision in a championship fight. He was virtually unstoppable, and in my mind Williams was taking a quick trip to the hospital with a healthy dose of trauma counseling afterward. It was like watching Friday the 13th when idiot teenagers get drunk in Jason’s house. You watch, but only to see them get what’s coming for making such a horrible decision. Within seconds Coleman had taken Williams to the mat and was implementing his very violent will and I was heading to the fridge for another beer. I thought this fight was already in the record books, but after twelve minutes there was no winner and we were going into a three-minute overtime. Suddenly Williams knocked Coleman out with a brutal head kick that he’d set up with several low strikes. He rejoiced while the MMA world’s smartest guys slumped along with Coleman’s body. Using the basic fundamentals of mixed martial arts Williams negated Coleman’s strength and exploited his weaknesses. I was dumbfounded, awestruck, and kerfuffled. Williams displayed the three main tenets of battle that every soldier learns - know yourself, know your enemy, and know the ground on which you fight. Utilizing these principles is what separates good fighters from the ones who get Gatorade commercials, but what about the rest of the chaotic chaos? A variety of external and internal factors can affect a fight - heart, chance, jitters, ring rust, and newborn babies - so the big question is “how do we account for all those things?” With data. Watching fight tapes to know your enemy and the ground you fight on is great, but it’s limited and only provides a fighter with a piece of the pugilistic puzzle. He still has to know himself and what he can and cannot do. Hard data is far more definitive and allows a fight camp to develop a sound strategy long before fight day. Gathering and analyzing that information sounds like a simple concept, but in fact it’s laborious and monotonous to mine numbers from fight videos. It’s even harder to then find patterns and develop actionable intelligence that arms a fighter with all the knowledge he needs to win. It also takes a 200-pound brain wired for science. I never would have believed someone could develop analysis that could be used to more accurately predict future performance in MMA based just on numbers. This is the first time anyone has had the hard drive and moxie to attempt it. I’ve always been skeptical of numbers because they can be skewed to reach whatever conclusion the writer desires. Numbers are the whores of bias that will lead you to whatever conclusion they want with just a little manipulation from the John. That’s why I like Reed’s approach. He doesn’t let the data become cheap or easy. He treats it with respect like a beloved daughter and presents it in a fair, unbiased way until it’s a bride at a white wedding and he’s the proud papa giving it away. No one else has had the gumption to attempt anything like what Reed has accomplished, so he’s a true trailblazer in MMA statistics and it was a no-brainer to get involved with this project. If he’s Meriwether Lewis on a journey of discovery, then I’ll happily be his William Clark. While writing this book I learned exactly why Williams shocked everyone and defeated Coleman at UFC 17. While Coleman’s takedown attempts and accuracy were high and his time in a dominan position was even higher, his cardio
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