Effective Strikes per Minute Predicts UFC 132 Victories

Unpredictability in MMA is part of what makes this such a great sport.  MMA has been host to some of the best and most thrilling sports upsets in the last decade.  But is there a method to the madness?

Lets find out!

The first thing that we will need is some DATA.  I have taken approximately 200 different stats ranging from fighter age, stance, and record, to less trivial things like effective takedowns per minute for 20 of the fights from UFC 132.

Below is a set of examples:

After some data conditioning and the magic of statistics, the biggest most robust predictor of WINNING from UFC 132 was the difference of "Effective strikes / Minute".  The fighter with the more effective strikes per minute in their previous bouts would likely get the win.

This statistic successfully predicted 8/10 fights on UFC 132 (I didn't have the statistics for Hougland v Walker). So the better you are at successfully hitting the other guy, the more likely you will be to win.  This makes a lot of sense intuitively, but imagine what would happen if this predictor held true for more than just UFC 132... wouldn't that be something!!!

Stay tuned after future UFC fights to see if statistics can successfully predict future winners!

THE MMA MESSAGE TEAM

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Fight of the night:
Dominick Cruz
Urijah Faber

Knockout of the night:
Carlos Condit

Submission of the night:

Tito Ortiz

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Fighter Algorithm

The basic rules are as follows:

WIN:

If a fighter wins:

9 pts - KO, TKO, Submission

3 pts - unanimous decision

2 pts - split decision:

1 pt  - majority decision, draw, majority draw

X2 pts - fight of the night, knockout of the night, or submission of the night.

WIN STREAK - If the fighter has strung together multiple wins, then the points for that win rise exponentially (X^win streak).  For example.  If the fighter wins a submission victory, on his 2nd consecutive win, they would be awarded 9^2 pts, or 81 pts. Each consecutive win, the pts are added ontop of existing points from previous wins. For example: 

Brian Stann:

2011 Fight 1 - win, TKO, 9 pts

2011 Fight 2 - win, TKO, FIGHT OF THE NIGHT, (9X2)^2 = 324 pts

2011 TOTAL = 333 pts

CONTROVERSY - If the fighter wins or loses in a controversial decision (e.g., Nik Lentz v. Charles Oliveira), nothing happens to existing points.

LOSS:
1 pt - loses in a FIGHT OF THE NIGHT

For all other loses, the fighter's existing points are divided by 2.

AND THATS IT!

The resulting algorithm rewards fighters that fight recently and often, with added bonuses for exciting fights, and fight finishes.

This is the first version, so good user suggestions can be worked in easily!

To see the end results, visit our list "HOTTEST MMA FIGHTERS OF 2011"

THE MMA MESSAGE TEAM

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HOTTEST MMA FIGHTERS OF 2011

This is the complete who's who in the UFC as of June 30th 2011.  The hottest fighters with the greatest momentum according to a newly designed statistical algorithm are:

1.    333 - Brian Stann
2.    327 - Chris Weidman
3.    326 - Gleison Tibau
4.    099 - Jon Jones
5.    090 - Matt Mitrione
6.    083 - Jake Ellenburger
7.    027 - Clay Guida
8.    027 - Donald Cerrone
9.    027 - Jeremy Stephens
10.  018 - Anderson Silva

Click to understand more about how the algorithm was made!!

BREAKDOWN BY WEIGHT CLASS:

Heavyweight:

1. Matt Mitrione
2. Brendan Schaub
3. Cheick Kongo

Lightheavyweight:

1. Jon Jones
2. Kyle Kingsbury
3. Lyoto Machida

Middleweight:

1. Brian Stann
2. Chris Weidman
3. Anderson Silva

Welterweight:

1. Jake Ellenberger
2. Johny Hendricks
3. Tony Ferguson

Lightweight:

1. Gleison Tibau
2. Clay Guida
3. Donald Cerrone

Featherweight:

1. Chan Sung Jung
2. Erik Koch
3. José Aldo

Bantamweight:

1. Brian Bowles
2. Reuben Duran
3. Demetrious Johnson

Stay tuned for more detailed analyses coming soon,
The MMA Message Team

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Stay tuned!!! Lots of great news and stats to come

Hello everyone,

This blog has just started, thanks to Nate Marquardt's highly anticipated press release explaining his inability to fight at UFC on versus 4 on Sunday June 26th 2011.

Stay tuned for lots of simple and easy to find news and statistics about the worlds fastest growing sport, mixed martial arts!

The MMA Message Team

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Fight of the night:
Charles Oliveira
Nik Lentz

Knockout of the night:
Cheick Kongo

Submission of the night:

Joe Lauzon

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