MMA Statistics: Submissions Remain Steady Despite False Claims

The numbers were also high in the beginning because of fighters’ lack of knowledge regarding submission defense.

Is it a percentage of finished fights, or fights in general? Please clarify.

Thanks again for all the quantitative analysis and the work you put in putting it together.

Rec’d

I have a problem with the idea that promoters have doomed submission efforts, and that they are solely responsible. There are a large number of strategic elements at play, which I’m sure I don’t even grasp fully. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

Submission fighters generally do not have strong wrestling backgrounds, this means they are not often able to achieve top/dominant positions without either a sweep or by downing an opponent with strikes. This is a problem.

. When I think of submissions, or those with the skillset, you have a class of guys like BJ, the Diazes, Torres, Silva, Condit, Aoki. These fighters typically rely on getting taken down themselves to bring the fight into their guard.

- As we saw at WEC 40, Mizugaki simply stood up every time Torres attempted to pull guard. I think this will become a trend – Demian Maia is an outlier in all of this (“top of the food chain”) and who is to say that he can even hold an unwilling Marquardt in his guard?

- Wrestlers have learned to use sprawl and brawl to avoid the ground game altogether- see Bader vs. Magalhaes.
- If they do shoot in for the takedown, as MMAEruption says – submission knowledge and defense is quickly improving.

- Taking bottom position puts you at a disadvantage positionally, points-wise, and puts you at risk to take major damage from GnP. One well-placed blow can stun you and leave you unable to defend a series of fight-ending shots. The bottom, even while working for submissions, is just not a smart place to be for the vast majority of fighters.

- Submission fighters can neutralize each other/opt for a standup fight, just like wrestlers do.

- Radach vs. Smith showed the downside of attempting a submission instead of inflicting further damage against a damaged fighter.

- Rich Franklin has mentioned in the past that he will not trade the mount’s positional advantage for an armbar attempt.

- In the higher weight classes, KOs are more likely to occur – the need or usefulness of a developed submission game is lessened as training time could be spent better elsewhere.

The idea that promoters are trying to diminish submissions from MMA has some validity, but I feel it’s very slight. The knee-jerk articles written in the past couple of months about a specific UFC event or two have many flaws. Their conclusions are based on a small sample, the “problem” of declining submissions may not be a problem but an evolution, and the issue is oversimplified and twisted so the writers can rush to the aid of MMA from supposedly unscrupulous promoters.

In regards to what is beautiful, I have often found that the striking sports including kicking are much less beautiful than boxing or even MMA standup. The reason being the inclusion of kicks often causes the fighters to neglect their punching skills. Fighters are also able to throw attacks that leave them off-balance and looking foolish (in some leagues) with little penalty.

In many sports, the “big plays” often happen because of a breakdown in defense, not because of a spectacular play by the offense. As the sports evolve, certain things that once happened with regularity (which could be perceived as beautiful) tend to happen less often.

In baseball, an increase in home runs has led to a decrease in stolen bases. Better strategy has led to the decrease of stolen base attempts but a higher percentage. I think there is a valid comparison here with KO/HR and Sub/SB.

In football, big plays often happen when defenders do not control their gaps or when coverage is a step slow to where the ball is being thrown.

In hockey, a great deal of the puckhandling and many of the highlight reel goals are gone because of tighter defense (especially in the playoffs). Tighter defense forced dump and chase, the butterfly style and larger pads have cut down on scoring opportunities. Bobby Orr would be shocked to play in an era where end-to-end rushes by defensemen are exceedingly rare, and where goalies attempt to play solid positionally instead of sprawling for the puck.

In basketball, defense has again improved dramatically – double-teams can force the ball out of a hot scorer’s hand often and zone defenses can force even great ballhandlers to pass or reset. The game evolves, and so screen-roll play now becomes an emphasis. If you were a fan of isolation play, some of the beauty may be gone but it still has its place in the game. Just a less prevalent one. But 10 years ago, isolation was the name of the game but hard fouls and rotations have brought that to an end.

So… Do people find sloppy submission defense beautiful? Do they prefer a sport with incomplete participants and more subs or well-rounded competitors and less subs?

Those are some serious numbers!!!! Great work collating all that. It helps gives some perspective to the situation.

41% is for all fights in 2009, but I bet the UFC’s submission % is much lower (in the 30s). It’s alot easier to sub a can who just flails his arms than a fighter who knows submission defense. Plus, out of all the submissions I bet RNCs account for the majority. From just watching UFCs it seems like joint locks are on the decline (armbar, kneebar, kimuras,etc.) Even Maia the submission wizard has only used RNCs and Triangles.