On Submissions in MMA
by Mike Fagan on Mar 10, 2009 2:48 PM EDT
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Nate highlighted Josh Gross's piece about the lack of submissions in the past few UFC cards and whether or not it's becoming a trend in MMA. Being a big follower of sabermetrics and sabermetric thought, it irks me when people make blanket statements based strictly off personal observation. I assume Gross has access to a fight database, and it wouldn't be hard to test his theories with concrete data. I'm not as lazy though, so here you go:
ALL STATS UFC ONLY
Since September 2000 (introduction of the Unified Rules)
845 fights
222 submissions26.3% submission rate
In the past 3 years
545 fights
149 submissions27.3% submission rate
In the past 2 years
386 fights
103 submissions26.7% submission rate
In the past year
204 fights
47 submissions23.1% submission rate
It's safe to say the average submission rate is probably between 25-27%. I wouldn't look to deep into the lowered rate in the last year either. Adding just 5 submissions raises the rate to 25.5%. Josh, in my opinion, is speaking wholly on conjecture and doesn't have much of a case here.
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Any stats to show more decisions in the past year opposed to finishes? It seems as the UFC matches more and more evenly skilled fighters against each other that we get more decisions then previously seen.
Since Sept. 2000
31.5% decision rate
Last 3 years
33.6% decision rate
Last 2 years
39.3% decision rate
Last year
32.4% decision rate
There might be a trend upward, but I’m not so sure. The last couple years have also seen the rise of the lightweight division which has the highest decision rate as a weight class.
http://www.sackmikegoldberg.com
BOOM.
Numbers is our friendz – more so than baseless conjecture and failure to do even the most preliminary research.
by Derek Suboticki on Mar 10, 2009 2:56 PM EDT reply actions
Oh, and can anyone tell me whether Cantwell dislocating that dude’s elbow was a TKO or a technical submission?
by Derek Suboticki on Mar 10, 2009 2:59 PM EDT reply actions
I would never suspect Josh Gross of unfounded hyperbole.
"I see him beating Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart. Him at a 131 years old...(trails off)." - Tito on Belfort at Affliction:DOR
by Rundownloser on Mar 10, 2009 3:02 PM EDT reply actions 9 recs
"Perhaps it’s too soon to call it a trend, but the lack of submissions during UFC 96 is worth discussing. Saturday’s card in Columbus marked the third event in the organization’s last six that failed to produce a submission (tapout to choke or joint lock).
Prior to UFC 96, 94 and 92, the last time a UFC card finished submission-less was February 2007, at UFC 67 — a span of 36 events. Over the course of 94 Zuffa-era UFC events, only eight have failed to yield some sort of submission. That three of those cards took place in the past four months is at a minimum noteworthy, at worst disconcerting."
I don’t see any blanket statements there. In fact, he is clearly talking about the very recent history of UFC events, so the comparisons of 3 years ago, 2 years ago etc. aren’t even relevant to his observation. Saying that 92, 94 and 96 had a noticeable lack of submissions isn’t conjecture. I find it kind of ironic that you characterize Gross’ work as being lazy when you apparently didn’t read it that carefully.
by smoogy on Mar 10, 2009 3:24 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
True. Its just a matter on using stats and skewing numbers to make your point.
by MMASuPreMaCy on Mar 10, 2009 3:30 PM EDT up reply actions
But Gross didn’t try to make any arguments based on statistics. He isn’t talking about how many submissions happen now vs. 3 years ago. He simply stated that in the last few UFC events they’ve been hard to come by. The stats posted here have nothing to do at all with his observation.
Gross most certainly used statistics.
Number of Zuffa UFC cards without submissions: 8
Cards in the past 4 months without a submission: 3
Etc.
http://www.sackmikegoldberg.com
Semantics. No matter what skill level these athletes achieve in any discipline, anything can happen. But when the events start going 3 for five in 4 months, with no sub’s, it absolutlely should be brought up.
When a baseball player goes 0 for his last 12 at-bats it isn’t newsworthy. It’s a random cluster of data. The same is true here. It’s worth bringing up when we start to see the submission rate drop below twenty over a year or so.
http://www.sackmikegoldberg.com
by Mike Fagan on Mar 10, 2009 3:43 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Your article is dead on and you are right statisticly speaking. I think even at 20% the down trend is meaningless. The art of MMA has a way of becoming even. it is a back and forth that is appealing to me. If could be at 15% for years and the young guys would discount ground game and come in unprepared and boom, you get a Royce Gracie revolution. Everyone goes nuts for some form of sub game and history repeats it self. This is when Adult Nate becomes a get predictor or all thinks MMA.
This like taking 2 days of 60 degree weather in Maine in February and screaming global warming.
If we go a whole year and there is a significant lack of submissions (it strays from the established percentages) than there is a problem. 3 in a row (or 3 out of 4 or whatever) doesn’t prove anything.
Or it snows and you shriek ‘Al Gore lied for no discernable reason.’
by Derek Suboticki on Mar 11, 2009 2:40 AM EDT up reply actions
This statement is stupid to me. And Mike Fagan didn’t? Is there another reason we use stats? Science can prove anything and disprove anything: negative imaginary numbers, Quantum Physics, etc.
When your talking about trends there is such a thing as to large a sample. Yes things fluctuate. There are upward trend and downward trends. In this case I’m going to say that Fagan’s sample size is way to large for recent data. He use the last year as a marker which is almost 25% of all the Zuffa fights. That would only really leave room for one other trend or at most 2. If Gross wasn’t so lazy I bet he would be calling Fagan the simpleton that he is! I conjecture on Fagan’s conjecture on Kid Nate’s conjecture on Gross’s original conjecture that was a small part of his original article.
Wow!
Except I think it’s neither noteworthy nor disconcerting as Josh put it. Josh is being fooled by randomness here. Even though he prefaces his point with the operative that it might be premature to start labeling this a trend, he’s insinuating that this might be a big issue in MMA.
http://www.sackmikegoldberg.com
by Mike Fagan on Mar 10, 2009 3:33 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I think it’s noteworthy and a very good point. In 5 main cards in the time period (4 months) that Gross mentioned (UFC 92-96) there have be 3 true submissions in 50 fights. That’s 6%. Also it was more than noteworthy when Marcus Davis and Chris Lytle make a big deal out of gentleman’s standup. It’s Noteworthy when Strikebox “outlaws” submissions. Standgate was quite noteworthy.
If you include UFC FN 17 the numbers do change since 6/10 were subs. 9/60 for 15% during the this time period. I don’t think UFC/Zuffa/Dana have anything to do with this, numbers anomaly, but I do think most fighters realize that Jiu Jitsu doesn’t sell or score as well as brawling/boxing. Frank Shamrock, BJ Penn, Marcus Davis, etc. have all recently made statements enforcing these points.
Can it be coincidence as many here think here? Maybe but some of us found it noteworthy enough to crunch the numbers ourselves.
by natyong on Mar 10, 2009 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Actually...
The more important stat is Submission Attempts.
Seeing how many fights had atleast a submission attempt would be more telling to me than how many fights were finished by a submission. If there are more fights were fighters don’t even attempt for submissions anymore, would be more telling for me.
Also, this would be telling about the the style in which fighters fight now. I think Gross point was that the fighters style and reasons on their style is now more skewed then it was before (due to bonuses, more exciting, etc).
Good point about submission attempts. I’d be really interested in that stat as well.
"I see him beating Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart. Him at a 131 years old...(trails off)." - Tito on Belfort at Affliction:DOR
by Rundownloser on Mar 10, 2009 3:29 PM EDT up reply actions
an idea
Perhaps the reason why submissions have gone down over the last few years is because MMA has evolved to a sport where you have to be good at everything. No longer are fighters going into fights without jiu-jitsu training. If you can’t defend a submission you won’t be able to make it in MMA. So maybe the reason why submissions are down is because fighters are getting better at defending it.
To Mike's point earlier...
to only use the last flurry of UFC cards is what is known as “small sample size.” Just like if the next three UFC’s featured higher than expected (say 60% submissions) it wouldn’t mean that submissions are now MORE common in the sport.
There will be peaks and valleys but in the end there is almost always a regression to the mean.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 4:56 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
I hope people take note of this post
Sample size is extremely important here. SDD had a fanpost with the breakdown of finished fights in the UFC over the last year or so.
What you can see is that if you look at the last five UFCs, there have been 29 (T)KO wins and only 3 submission wins. But that’s only a sample of five. If you take the five before that, there were 10 (T)KO wins and 16 submission wins. That’s way higher than normal for submissions. You can’t see the trends unless you look over a large sample size, like Mike did in this post.
Cool...
I’ve been sick for the past couple days hence my reduced presence around the site. But I’m glad he wrote that because it gets to the heart of what I was saying. Thanks!
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 5:12 PM EDT up reply actions
It does seem like there’s a trend for some fighters to abandon their submission and ground games though. Seems like Shogun used to actively look for submissions where he lately just goes in with stand-up. Same with Wandy. Rampage used to go to the ground a lot more often. Rashad doesn’t seem to go to the ground much anymore, even Coleman went into his last fight claiming he wants to stand. Koscheck doesn’t seem to want to take it to the mat very often anymore either. Not sure if he tried against Alves, I don’t remember but maybe he was stuffed. Even BJ seems to not want to BJJ as much as box.
It’s early to call it a trend, or even worry about it. But from one armchair internet cowboy to others, it does seem to me like less ground game as a trend amongst fighters.
Maybe BJJ is neutralizing itself, or is only coming into play after a fighter succeeds in battering his opponent with kicks and jabs or something.
perhaps not as many guys are trying to take it to the mat simply for how much effort it takes to go to the mat. there’s been a recent boom of wrestlers coming into the UFC that have ridiculous take down defense. so it takes a lot of time and energy to even attempt to take them down, let alone succeed. thus it maybe seen as a more efficient game plan to keep it standing and box it out.
Shogun has 14 TKOs and 1 submission in his career. Not really sure he can ignore the submission game he never had. Same goes for Wandy and ’Page and Evans.
http://www.sackmikegoldberg.com
huh?
what happened? where did this come from?
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 5:12 PM EDT up reply actions
"I see him beating Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart. Him at a 131 years old...(trails off)." - Tito on Belfort at Affliction:DOR
by Rundownloser on Mar 10, 2009 5:19 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
he said judges...not refs...
so I’m confused
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I think he’s making the BJ Penn arguement (extremely poor manor) that judges don’t respect the ground game and submissions of BJJ.
Pretty much the perception that if your on the bottom and if you don’t have a tight submission attempt you are controlling or scoring.
Ah...
well yeah, I’m writing an article on that right now. You don’t win fights from the bottom unless you land a sub. Right or wrong…that’s just fact.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 5:43 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I'm VERY interested to read that article, Brent.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
by misterjonez on Mar 10, 2009 10:08 PM EDT up reply actions
Statistics
I agree with Fagan’s analysis but I feel like his argument is assuming that Gross was just as analytically minded as he is when he was making his point. I feel like the argument that he was making (the “blanket statement” that you talk about) was in reference to other factors that could be contributing to the lack of submissions than simply a change in fighting style. I believe in the long term that all these statistics will even out but this is enough of a variance to be worth considering. Imagine if behind closed doors the new UFC policy was for Joe Silva to put together only matches where he knew there would be a low chance of submission attempts or that some kind of locker room bonus was instituted that we didn’t know about that would encourage fighters to keep it on their feet. I feel like your analysis ignores these factors which I feel are very worthy of consideration.
by ScotyB on Mar 10, 2009 5:45 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Looking at numbers...
is a lot more reasonable than playing the pretend “imaginif” game.
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 5:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Not to sound like a dick..
which I realize I might have. But you’re calling things that you are imagining “factors” when in no way shape or form is something that has no proof of reality a “factor” in this debate
Contributing Editor - BloodyElbow.com - SBNation's mixed martial arts headquarters.
by Brent Brookhouse on Mar 10, 2009 5:58 PM EDT up reply actions
Statistics is a way to look at things when you don’t know about all these whatif things. When all you have is results, you look at those results.
A man should never waste an opportunity to keep his mouth shut.
Statistics are also used to analyze raw data (i.e. results) to elucidate trends and differences within said data set.
It appears that a meaningful proportion of the BE populace could probably use a refresher course in statistics (and this isn’t meant to be derogatory, even though it likely sounds that way).
by Estrada on Mar 10, 2009 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I agree 100% with the analysis of the data. My disagreement comes with the complete dismissal of the obvious variance. I feel like that is what Gross is pointing out, in the excerpt at least. Sure in the long run the data will smooth out but we have all heard that “the devil is in the details”. It’s not that I think there is some kind of conspiracy but a variance is a variance.
Smaller but perhaps interesting sample
MAIN CARDS ONLY (done very quickly, so feel free to correct if I’ve miscounted)
UFC 96: 3 KOs, 2 decisions
UFC 95: 3 KOs, 1 decision, 1 sub (Maia triangle)
UFC 94: 2 KOs, 3 decisions
UFC 93: 1 KO, 3 decisions, 1 sub (Belcher guillotine)
UFC 92: 5 KOs
UFC 91: 2 TKO, 3 subs (Maia RNC, Hazelett armbar, Florian RNC)
UFC 90: 2 KOs, 3 decisions
UFC 89: 1 KO, 3 decisions, 1 sub (Davis guillotine)
UFC 88: 3 KO, 2 decisions
UFC 87: 1 KO, 3 decisions, 1 sub (Maia RNC)
—
UFC 86: 4 decisions, 1 sub (Stevenson guillotine)
UFC 85: 3 KOs, 2 decisions
UFC 84: 4 KOs, 1 decision (technically, 1 KO was a sub by strikes)
UFC 83: 3 KOs, 1 running man decision, 1 sub (Danzig RNC)
UFC 82: 2 KOs, 2 decisions, 1 sub (Silva RNC)
UFC 81: 1 decision, 4 subs (including Mir’s kneebar)
UFC 80: 4 KOs, 1 bloody sub (Penn RNC)
UFC 79: 1 KO, 1 decision, 3 subs (Clementi RNC, Machida triangle, GSP armbar)
UFC 78: 2 KOs, 3 decisions
UFC 77: 3 KOs, 2 decisions
100 fights: 18 subs (18)
In last 50: 7 subs (14), 3 by Maia, 6 chokes
I’ve been thinking what Josh was thinking, though I think it raises two questions:
1. Submission defense, as someone raised here, has surely improved over the years
2. By the same token, is it possible that UFC is pushing the striking for the main cards, thinking those fighters are more exciting?
It’s almost a chicken-or-egg argument. Do we see more submissions on the lesser cards than on the main cards because UFC keeps the submission guys down or because the fighters aren’t as good and can’t defend?
by Beau Dure on Mar 10, 2009 7:57 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
Nice figures. They are more in line with the figures I found too. Since the beginning of 2008, at UFC 80 UFC ppv fights finished by way of grappling submission 19% of the time from what I checked on wiki. I refuse to accept that submission by strikes should be recorded as a submission win.
Another interesting comparison between the UFC and Dream for 2008:
UFC (T)KO: 76/169 – 45%
Dream (T)KO: 19/63 – 30%
UFC Decision: 61/169 – 36%
Dream Decision: 23/63 – 37%
UFC Grappling Submission: 32/169 – 19%
Dream Grappling Submission: 21/63 – 33%
People often cite the improved submission defense as the reason for fewer submissions, but I completely disagree. The focus on ground fighting in the UFC is gone. Huge ‘stand up’ bonuses are paid to fight of the night and we are seeing solid submission fighters like Lytle stand and bang in an attempt to please the crowd and get the bonus. The UFC has access to a wealth of great wrestlers so if the UFC can create a fighting style that complements those wrestlers they are sure to have a steady stream of fighters who can come in and do well. Unless you are a bjj freak like demian maia, jacare, palhares or aoki, there is no incentive for you to attempt submissions in the UFC. You are paid based on appeal and stand up wars are what the fans want.
The biggest anomoly to me is the non-existence of leg locks in the UFC!! Some HW nobody just scored the first heel hook about 200 fights yet over in Japan we see aoki and kitaoka winning via leg submissions against quality opposition. As long as we have access to more MMA than just the UFC its all good, coz we get to see it all, but I just hope the UFC doesnt dictate too much the direction the entire sport takes.
by GeeDub on Mar 11, 2009 6:12 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Royce Gracie submitted 10 of his first 11 opponents and only 1 of his last 4. those stats tell me Royce must have given up on submissions. or maybe everyone knows BJJ now and submissions will continue to be harder and harder to come by.
Which is why I said Submission Attempts mean more than Submission finishes to determine this trend we are talking about.
by MMASuPreMaCy on Mar 10, 2009 8:16 PM EDT up reply actions
I am working on doing a TKO, Sub breakdown for the last 3 years. I am hoping to post it on Thursday.
But here are some numbers:
2009 so far:
50 fights
9 subs= 18%
24 KO/TKOs= 48.
If McCrory’s 96 win is counted as sub
Subs go to 20 and KOs down to 46%.
Here is a look at the second half of 2008:
109 fights
30 subs= 27.5%
39 KO/TKOs= 35.8%
Here are the numbers for ALL of 2008:
201 fights
53 subs=26.3
84 KO/TKOs= 41.7%
The data you provide actually shows significantly less submissions in the last 12 months when compared to the 12 month period before that. You’re right that it can not yet be called a trend, when looking at it on a year long scale, but it certainly is significant. I think you’ve done more to support Josh’s argument, then to refute it. Especially since he was talking about recent UFC events.
last 12 months = 23%
12 months to 24 months ago = 30%
I'm just a dude who's trying to put it together.
by mma_dude on Mar 10, 2009 10:55 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I don't think its a myth
It’s definitely true that MMA was started on the back of BJJ but slowly MMA has evolved. Submissions have got harder to get because of growing awareness. It’s much harder to score a ‘lucky submission’ than a ‘lucky punch’.
Having said that – BJJ needs to keep improving and the sport of BJJ itself keeps no evolving. There are many aspects which have yet been utilised properly in MMA such as a the rubber guard (used very limitedly) and the X-guard (hardly ever used – because of strikes).
A big improvement that is also needed is takedowns. Takedowns are extremely imoprtant to achieving submissions and so a world class BJJ player who wants to go into MMA should definitely incorporate some judo and Greco-Roman wrestling into their training (it seems that due to the improvement of sprawls – traditional ‘shots’ are much less effective than before).
Hopefully somebody will come along and innovate BJJ to an extent where we will see an increase in submissions.
MMA will continue to evolve with the addition of new markets. Hopefully we’ll continue to see things that we haven’t seen in the past.
I have this sneaking suspicion that Machida is going to be a landmark style of mixed martial arts, and will come to define a new wave of fighters. Those flying knees to the body are unbelievably impressive, where he lands with amazing power and then gets out of range immediately. Now that would be a great judo chop.
Machida, though skilled at submitting, only uses it when called for, and never goes looking to use it for it’s own sake (like Maia and others).
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