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[Diegonightmare]

Neither Georges St. Pierre nor B.J. Penn is the Best Fighter at UFC 94: Lyoto Machida Is

by Kid Nate on Jan 27, 2009 5:47 PM EST in Events

According to those statistical whizzes at Fight Metric:

One of the best ways to measure effective defense and dominance is to look at the number of strikes a fighter absorbs. Because of variable fight lengths, the easiest way to consistently calculate this is to figure the number of strikes absorbed divided by the number of minutes fought. That gives you the number of strikes absorbed per minute of fighting, which we abbreviate as SApM. Here are some SApM figures for the five current UFC champions:

Anderson Silva: 0.71 SApM
Georges St. Pierre: 1.01 SApM
BJ Penn: 1.23 SApM
Rashad Evans: 1.39 SApM
Frank Mir: 2.7 SApM

Let's wrap things up with two more fighters' numbers:

Fedor Emelianenko: 0.59 SApM
Lyoto Machida: 0.64 SApM

Both Fedor and Machida have proven harder to hit than all of the UFC's champions. And it's not like there is a shortage of data on any of these guys. These numbers are from their entire careers. Does it mean Fedor and Machida are better than the other fighters? Not necessarily...this is just one subset of their entire fighting profile. But it is interesting to note that Fedor and Machida come in #1 and #2 in terms of the hardest guys to hit in MMA history.

There's no arguing with statistics.

UPDATE: As known wise-ass Luke Thomas points out in the comments, Rami backs off from making any broad categorical claims about the meaning of this statistic. But I don't. Note that Fedor is pretty much the consensus #1 MMA fighter of all time and that the order of the UFC champions according to their SApM stats is eerily consistent with their standings in the eyes of fight pundits. Everyone knows that Anderson Silva is the best UFC champ, GSP is next and B.J. is third. Now we know why. It's their SApM score. From now on, don't even try to argue with me unless you've got some SApM scores handy to back up your claims.

(SOURCE)

I am a real statistics/data geek myself, as many of you know, so stuff like this is interesting to me. I wonder if these guys have applied this level of rigor to ALL top-10, let's say, fighters over their entire careers; and if so I would be interested in the result.

As they point out, this "SApM" figure is only part of the picture. Fighters like Nogueira and Chuck, among many others, have taken a lot of shots in their career yet both are great fighters.

I do think there is some merit to using the stat as a measure of dominance (which they point out) as opposed to greatness.

I would think a guy like Cung Le must have a pretty good SApM figure as well.

[initial_zen]

i think these kinds of data are interesting but to me, they dont really say anything about who is better.

[Esox Express]

that is pretty interesting. I would like to see that stat on all fighters.

[Hondu Is Awesome]

Originally Posted by initial_zen

i think these kinds of data are interesting but to me, they dont really say anything about who is better.

agreed.


very interesting post, but until machida earns his legacy in the UFC, like st pierre and penn, then i wont consider him one of the best just yet. dont get me wrong, he is a very good and skilled fighter, and is very very hard to catch and land a punch on, but he still has some to prove (which will definitely come the more he fights and the better he gets).

thanks for the post though, it was very interesting!

[bega]

Statement should say - fighter that avoids strikes best. Actually following this logic I would love to see SApM for Kalib Sternes (sp).

[Sakara=Excitement]

Wow, great find. Question though, who's this Fedor guy?

[Acebpg]

I wonder how much forrest griffin has taken i bet probaly one of the most in the ufc

[x2thaz]

Originally Posted by Diegonightmare

(SOURCE)

I am a real statistics/data geek myself, as many of you know, so stuff like this is interesting to me. I wonder if these guys have applied this level of rigor to ALL top-10, let's say, fighters over their entire careers; and if so I would be interested in the result.

As they point out, this "SApM" figure is only part of the picture. Fighters like Nogueira and Chuck, among many others, have taken a lot of shots in their career yet both are great fighters.

I do think there is some merit to using the stat as a measure of dominance (which they point out) as opposed to greatness.

I would think a guy like Cung Le must have a pretty good SApM figure as well.

Very interesting read.

I wonder if a fighter's SApM is positively correlated with total duration of time a fighter is on his back. I don't really remember ever seeing Fedor, GSP, Machida or Anderson (except for the hendo fight) on the bottom in trouble, with an opponent on top - and those are the 4 fighters with lowest SApM.

I'm assuming that from the bottom, it's a lot easier to absorb strikes, which would increase SApM. the Total Time a fighter is back might be another interesting stat to investigate.

[Diegonightmare]

Originally Posted by Acebpg

I wonder how much forrest griffin has taken i bet probaly one of the most in the ufc

Yes, his TUF Finale fight against Stephan Bonnar alone blew his rating - and the beatdown at the hands of Keith Jardine sealed the deal.

[Kansas]

In GSP's defense .69 of his .71 times getting hit happened in the Matt Serra fight.

BTW, Anderson also sepnt a alot of time on his back against Lutter but I dont think Lutter did much in the way of GnP. I wonder if they factor strikes while on the back or if this only applies to pure striking dynamics and stand up.