SB Nation User Blog: Mike Fagan

Fighting by Numbers: Bloody Elbow Exclusive Interview With Rami Genauer of FightMetric

Mike Fagan — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:49:45 -0000

In 1977, Bill James published the first of his Baseball Abstracts. The newsletter sparked the beginning of an objective revolution in baseball that continues to this day thirty years later.

MMA, up until now, has lacked any resemblance of statistics outside of win/loss, method, and round. That all changed when FightMetric announced that they have scored every fight of the "modern UFC era." Rami Genauer of FightMetric was kind enough to talk to Bloody Elbow about the project, quantitative analysis in MMA, and what it all means going forward.

Bloody Elbow: I guess we should start with an introduction to FightMetric for the uninitiated. What is it? What is it's purpose? How does it work?

Rami Genauer: FightMetric is really just the name of the company. We're the world's first purveyor of comprehensive MMA statistics and analysis. The basis for those stats and analysis is a carefully-crafted statistical system based on thorough research into the way MMA fights really happen.

Bloody Elbow: One of the things that's been a mystery to me is how you originally came up with your system. Can you describe how you got the idea and the process behind it's origins?

Rami Genauer: The origin was really born of the lack of anything previously. I'm kind of a stat head for other sports, specifically baseball. When I got into MMA it struck me as odd that the sport had absolutely no method of quantifying performance other than win/loss, method, and time. So given that absence, I took it as a thought exercise to see if I could think up a statistical system from scratch. It's a daunting challenge, because you have nothing to base your ideas on, but on the other hand, it's a huge opportunity, because you can literally do anything.

The process for the system involved a favorite technique of mine - root cause analysis. The purpose of a root cause analysis is to try and plumb the depths of the thing you're investigating and see if you can understand it in its very essence. That's kind of what we did for MMA, try to boil it down to it's most basic parts and see which ones were likely to be statistically significant. Then we did the research to test those hypotheses and made some changes. After that, we had a pretty robust system that has really only undergone two changes in the 18 months or so that it's been in use.

Bloody Elbow: I'm sure a lot of that data entry is a result of the project you've been working on scoring every UFC fight. What can you tell us about that?

Rami Genauer: We've just recently completed our project to compile complete statistics for every fight in the modern era of the UFC. We call that UFC 28 and onward, because UFC 28 was the first event to use the current Unified Rules. So basically, all fights from UFC 28 until today have been fought on a level playing field. That means that the stats for all those fights are comparable and we can easily make apples-to-apples comparisons.

Now, we specifically designed the system so that it is completely adaptable to all different rule sets, but it's a little more difficult to make exact comparisons when two fights were fought with different rules.

More from Rami in the full entry.

Bloody Elbow: So, what does this mean for fans and sabermetric types? Will we have access to career stats a la baseball-reference.com?

Rami Genauer: That's the goal. The particulars of how that information might be delivered are still being considered, but yes, the goal is to open the entire statistical database to all MMA fans.

The balance on our part is that FightMetric is still a business with a responsibility to those invested in it. So we're going about this in a way where we can make this a viable business while still recognizing the value that this information has to the MMA fanbase as a whole.

Bloody Elbow: If and when the data is opened to the public, what kind of information can we expect to see in terms of raw stats?

Rami Genauer: I guess that depends on the format in which the data is presented. The possibilities are vast.

We track 67 statistical categories for every fight, in addition to a bunch of supplemental information, like judges' scoring, fighter demographics (reach being the hardest to get a definitive answer on), and betting odds. Those 67 statistical categories are raw stats, so they can be combined, cut, summed, divided, or averaged in literally thousands of ways. Of course, not every combination of stats will be terribly meaningful, but there really are enough cuts at the data to keep someone busy for a very long time.

Bloody Elbow: Do you see quantitative analysis becoming more readily accepted by MMA fans than say more established sports like baseball and basketball which have had to contend with not only building superior metrics, but tearing down the more traditional and flawed predecessors?

Rami Genauer: I think that there is a small advantage to not having to break down existing stats, but you also have to contend with the mindset that MMA doesn't have, doesn't need, and shouldn't have stats. I think that can be countered with explanation, exposure, and time, but there really is a bigger challenge.

MMA is very hard to analyze in a simple way because fights have different lengths. If you're thinking about things in terms of volume, of course a guy in a 15-minute fight will land more strikes than someone who finishes his opponent in a minute. So from a statistical volume standpoint, why should you penalize the second guy for doing his job faster?

This problem forces you to do some more creative things to make good comparisons, and the truth is, the more "stuff" you have to do to the data to make it meaningful, the greater the barrier to understanding for people who aren't that into it.

Bloody Elbow: Which I think you've seen in baseball with park and era normalization and the like.

Rami Genauer: Exactly. But speaking of baseball, I like to give the example of imagining that baseball changed its rules so that every park had a sign in the outfield that said, "Hit this sign and win the game." No matter when someone hit the sign or what the score was at the time, that team won the game. If no one hit the sign, then whoever had more runs after nine innings would win.

If that was the case, all the counting stats that we rely on (HR, RBI, SB, etc.) would be meaningless, because you'd need to know how long the games were too. That's exactly the situation that MMA is in. A guy could be losing for 14 minutes and then land the knockout strike - just as Shonie Carter (did to Matt Serra).

Bloody Elbow: In a similar vein, I think another problem you run into is that in stick-and-ball sports, while the ultimate goal of course is to win, you have a very obvious objective - to score points. In MMA, there is no such parallel. You're just trying to end the fight or look more effective in the eyes of three observers.

Rami Genauer: That's true, which is why the very first thing we tried to do was make a hard definition of the goal of MMA and then make a hard definition of "effectiveness." It's very hard to collect metrics without knowing what they're supposed to be measuring toward.

Bloody Elbow: So, what kind of feedback have you gotten from fans and industry types?

Rami Genauer: Very good feedback. I encountered some more skepticism when this thing first started, but that's kind of died down. The nice thing about not being terribly well-known is that I still get good emails from people who are only discovering FightMetric now. I think the industry has been receptive because it feels like a natural progression in the maturation of the sport. Every other major sport has stats, so why shouldn't MMA?

Bloody Elbow: OK, wrapping up. You're finished scoring modern UFC fights. Are you going to move on to another organization, focus on analyzing the new data, or something entirely different?

Rami Genauer: We're always going to keep on scoring more stuff because there's always value in having more data, especially different kinds of data, like from Japan. (It) might be interesting to do some comparisons between UFC data and Pride/Dream/Sengoku data. At the same time, there are a bunch of other projects in mind using the data we've already compiled. That alone would be enough for some, but what can I say? More data is better data.

Bloody Elbow: Last question. Where do you see sabermetric analysis of MMA in 1 year and 5 years in the future? It took the sabermetric revolution over 25 years to get close to fully understanding the game, defensive metrics exluded. Are we still decades away from that type of understanding in MMA?

Rami Genauer: That really depends on what the data shows. There are many different layers of meaning in having data like this. I think we're already seeing people latch-on to the most basic layer, things like takedown success rate, things like that.

But if you're searching for greater meaning, I'll be perfectly honest here, you have to consider the possibility that the data will end up being a bunch of noise. Baseball sabermetricians have (eventually) had success because they were able to make compelling conclusions based on the data. We haven't even started down that path yet in MMA

The game is really still a mystery. That's what makes this so much fun.

More Details on the UFC Sponsorship Racket

Mike Fagan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:21:36 -0000

From the Wrestling Observer Newsletter via MMA Payout:

The UFC is now charging prospective sponsors a $100,000 fee for the right to sponsor fighters that appear on UFC broadcasts for a six month period. This eliminates all the small-time sponsors because they may be able to pay $1,000 to a fighter but they aren’t paying $100,000 to UFC for the right to pay $1,000 to a fighter. The ones hurt the worst are the low-end guys who are struggling to make it on prelim money contracts. It also lessens the amount of money going to the fighters, because the $200,000 per year going to UFC as a licensing fee means perhaps $200,000, but certainly significantly less, going directly to the fighters.

As stated, this really hurts the mid- and lower-tier guys who rely on sponsorship dollars like waitresses rely on tips. Where will these guys replace sponsors who are unable or unwilling to spend $100,000 for the "privilege" to plaster their logo on fighters' shorts?

I'm also curious as to the motivations behind this move. Is it a Zuffa money grab? Are they using their leverage to eliminate competition for Zuffa friends (Tapout, etc.)? Is it another step in attempt to control fighters economically?

Zuffa loves to toot their own horn about how well they take care of their fighters. Maybe they do a lot more behind the scenes that we don't know about. However, we can only look at the facts available to us. For instance, at UFC 98, ten of the twenty four fighters worked for purses of $10k/$10k or worse. When you factor in training fees, corner fees, taxes, and then your normal monthly expenses, these guys don't end up with much money in the bank at the end of the day.

I've said all along that Zuffa's well within their rights to pull something like this. However, that doesn't make it a positive ethical decision. It's directly taking money out of fighter's pockets and putting it into Zuffa's coffers.

The Week in Quotes: June 28th - July 4th

Mike Fagan — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:19:02 -0000

PROJECTING MORE THAN A 20 SCREEN MULTIPLEX

"I would just come after me - take a chance, 'cause to sit there and play the cat and mouse game with me, and jab and slip and move around, I think that's a slow death for him that he can't possibly win." - UFC interim heavyweight champ Frank Mir, on UFC 100 opponent Brock Lesnar. Be careful what you wish for, sir. (Cage Potato)

"If I'm cocky and put my hands down, obviously it will be a short night for me and I can go home and cry about it later." - Mir, cocky? No. (Las Vegas Sun)

"The fighter I was then compared to the fighter I am now is leaps and bounds." - Mir

"I think Brock knows enough about me to be worried, if I say anymore, I might not be able to get him in the cage. So we might as well try to boost up his confidence so he shows up on the 11th and I can get paid." - Mir. Even B.J. Penn wasn't this transparent leading up to UFC 94. (Smug Mug)

MO' MONEY, MO' PROBLEMS

"They say that WEC is a different company than UFC." - Former WEC featherweight champ Urijah Faber, relaying the excuse given for the contrast in pay scales between Zuffa's two MMA companies. (Cage Writer)

"Well then can you talk to the owners and see if you can pull some strings?" - Faber, responding to Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White when told the UFC and WEC are separate entities.

"Things will be fine as long as they're looking at me as an investment and not an expense. I've done my part, countless interviews and gone above and beyond with the PR." - Faber, getting into Roger Huerta territory.

FEDOR'S GONNA FIGHT CANS AGAIN

"Hopefully by October I’ll be competing. We’re finishing the contract I’d say with CBS, Showtime, and Strikeforce and making a deal that UFC can’t match." - Former UFC light heavyweight champ Tito Ortiz. Contracts are hard. (MMA Weekly)

"I feel sorry for the person they have me fight, but I do need one warm-up fight." - Ortiz

"I’m hoping by my fourth fight, possibly fight Fedor Emelianenko at a catchweight." - Ortiz. A catchweight? The guy's no more than ten pounds heavier than you. Man up, Tito.

I HOPE THE UFC HAS A CAGE THAT CAN CONTAIN ALL THIS SEXY

"They've made a cage here in Japan, and that's where I'm practicing to transition from the ring to the cage." - Yoshihiro Akiyama. Please, please, please, lock me in that cage. (USA Today)

SEVENTEEN PERCENT?!

"Right now, I’m trying to be a true champion, and I want to do the things that Bruce Lee wasn’t figuring out. I want to be like a Muhammed Ali that can actually wrestle and do jiu-jitsu." - Jon Jones. Ali could have used that groundwork in the Antonio Inoki "classic." (MMA Weekly)

"Jake O’Brien has been shooting that same double leg takedown for the three or four years he’s been in the UFC, and I’ve prepared myself to stop his takedowns." - Jones.

"With the Stephan Bonnar fight I felt like I was Jonny Jones at 15 percent, and right now I feel like I’ve kicked it up to maybe 17 percent." - Jones. Unfortunately, Mike Goldberg's commentating at maximum capacity. (UFC.com)

TOM ATENCIO DESCRIBES COMPETING AGAINST THE UFC

"Dude, I don’t remember shit." - Affliction VP Tom Atencio (MMA Weekly)

"All I remember was being on my back and him above me and me kicking away, and just scrambling to get my wits, just get back in the game." - Atencio

"I feel like a Mack Truck hit me. My whole body hurts." - Atencio, that's what she said.

HOPEFULLY SHE LEAVES THE TITANIUM SIX POUND BIKINIS AT HOME

"I can’t have problems this time." - Cris "Cyborg" Santos, on needing to make weight this time. (Bloody Elbow)

"I promised it would never happen again, and I’ll keep my word." - Santos. Maybe you should have kept your word last time. You know, when you agreed to make weight?

IT'S A GOOD THING THEY DIDN'T HAVE A QUALITY DOUBLE

"I said, 'What? Are you crazy? I'm not giving you my wallet." - Antoni Hardonk, explaining how he handled being mugged. (Cage Writer)

"Obviously, I had much better skills, but is it worth the risk? They could have had a gun, other knives, who knows?" - Hardonk, leading credence to the theory that the best self-defense martial art is "track and field."

WHITE NOISE

"When this thing is a sport, all over the entire world, and you can take the UFC to any city in any country, just like soccer, then I did it." - UFC President Dana White, outlining his endgame for MMA. (Yahoo)

"That’s why I was put on this planet. That’s my job, my destiny, whatever the hell you want to call it." - White. What if you were born 100 years ago?

"I can’t retire him, but he gave me his word that he was going to retire so..." - White, back tracking more and more on the Liddell issue. (Cage Writer)

PARTING SHOTS

"This is a very good moment, but I’m not impressed." - UFC light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida. Even GSP must have been impressed with that one, man. (Tatame)

"I know there was a lot of debate when Dana told Chuck to stop competing, but I think at this point Pedro is even in worse shape." - Joe Rogan, on Pedro Rizzo. He might want to sit the next couple out. (The UG)

'Kenny Florian is a great training partner, and is going to be a great champion, and he's also a greater person and human being." - UFC welterweight champ and maple syrup stockholder Georges St. Pierre, taking an opportunity to needle B.J. Penn. (MMA Weekly)

Live in Vegas? Need Stuff? (TV, Couch)

Mike Fagan — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:12:10 -0000

I'm moving to Chicago and have some stuff I need to sell. 42" Plasma TV w/stand and sound system. Full size black, microfiber couch. $500 and $150 respectively.

To make this somewhat MMA related, here are gratuitous pictures of ring girls:

The Week in Quotes: June 21st - 27th

Mike Fagan — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:07:45 -0000

MMA MATH BY DIEGO? YUS!

"Now, going in and beating two of the top contenders at 155, I think I'm the number one guy." - Diego Sanchez, reflecting on his victory over Clay Guida last Saturday. (MMA Weekly)

"The only other person is Gray Maynard and Gray Maynard has a win over Frankie Edgar, who has a win over Sean Sherk, but also, people don't forget, Nate Diaz has a win over Gray Maynard on The Ultimate Fighter and Guida has a win over Nate Diaz." - Sanchez. Who needs a FightLines graph when you have Diego "YUS!" Sanchez to regurgitate it for you?

"So, if you really do the math, it puts me as number one contender." - Sanchez. That and a genius.

WHICH HURTS MORE: BAS' LEEEEEEVER KICK OR THE "YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE" TALK?

"I misjudged him, he turned into a whole different person." - Former King of Pancrase Bas Rutten, explaining his split with MMA engima Kimbo Slice. (Fighter's Only)

"I told him that he was an asshole and that I have zero respect (for him) and I cant train people that I have no respect for. Can’t ever." - Rutten. Right up there with the "I'm disappointed" chat you get from your parents.

"And what I didn’t like about the Thompson fight as well was he said, afterwards, ‘Yeah, we planned on fighting three rounds,’ and I told him ‘Don’t say that, you were lucky the referee didn’t stop the fight in the second round.'" - Rutten

"I am there for the best interests of the fighters, I want them to win. If they don’t accept that, bye bye." - Rutten

SO HE NEITHER WALKS ON NOR FLOWS LIKE WATER?

"I don’t think he’s Christ; I think he’s very beatable. They’re looking at him and his karate like he’s Bruce Lee. He’s not Bruce Lee." - Jon Jones. You might have to nail him to a cross to catch him, though. (USA Today)

"He’s very beatable." - Jones, 15-0 says otherwise.

"I don’t think Rashad Evans came with any type of game plan, but to look really cool or look really fancy, dancing around in pretty footwork stances." - Jones. Getting your face crushed in isn't a viable strategy?

SPEAKING OF GUYS WHO PERFORM SELF-SACRIFICE IN THE NAME OF BOOK SALES...

"I’m probably going to get hurt, if not die. This guy knows how to fight." - Former UFC light heavyweight champ Forrest Griffin, on his upcoming fight with pound-for-pound king Anderson Silva. (Fresno Bee)

"The good news is, if I die, this book will sell a lot more copies and be worth more." - Griffin. If you had caddied for the Dalai Lama, on your death bed, you would regain total consciousness.

"I would like to make some wild claims about the book...I guarantee – a money back guarantee – that this book will not help your fighting, will in no way better your life or improve your life in any way. Not only that, but I also guarantee that this book will not help your love life in any regard." - Griffin, completing the analogy to the Bible.

ULTIMATE CHAOS

"I got to 146.6 and when I asked the athletic commission if I was okay, they said ‘yes.’" - Din Thomas, detailing his weight cutting fiasco at Ultimate Chaos. (MMA Mania)

"So I left the stage and started drinking right away to get rehydrated. Javier’s camp then apparently told the commission that they wanted me to cut the extra half-pound." - Thomas, getting owned by the Vazquez camp.

"So I tried and damn near killed myself in the sauna. It didn’t make sense — if Javier wanted me to cut the weight why wasn’t I told on the stage? I would have dropped my drawers and made it." - Thomas. Shit, get me a miscalibrated scale. I wanna see this man drop his drawers.

PROFITS? YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PROFITS? YOU KIDDING ME?

"He's got to keep fighting - he's too young to quit." - Career killer Monte Cox, on client Tim Sylvia. Not sure Tim's age should be a big factor in the process. (MMA Weekly)

"I'm not trying to do anything with Adrenaline, other than try to find a place that I can run a show that's profitable." - Cox. So, he's not trying to do anything with Adrenaline.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

"Lee was indeed rearrested right away, because the British Authorities did put [in] a formal request to the Moroccan Authorities to have him tried in Morocco for the alleged robbery." - Lee Murray's attorney Abdellah Benlamhidi. I expect this from America's prison-industrial complex, not the fine and cultured folks of Europe! (MMA Fanhouse)

WHITE NOISE

"The powers that be wanted to steer him off that date. But he wanted that date, so it's on! The boxing guys are so stupid and small minded." - UFC President Dana White, commenting on Floyd Mayweather Jr. rescheduling his fight with Juan Manuel Marquez to conflict with UFC 103. (Cage Writer)

"'It's a good thing he hurt his rib. I heard they sold about 12 tickets for that fight." - White. Hell, I'd buy a ticket just to watch Floyd break a rib sneezing.

PARTING SHOTS

"Maybe a card that has a breakdown of, I don't know if you want to do breaking a five-minute round up in to different quarters or by minute or whatever, but some way to easily categorize those things that they're looking at: cage generalship, grappling, takedowns, strikes." - Marcus Davis, still crying over his loss to Dan Hardy. If he wants to highlight a way to quantify the ambiguous criteria of "Octagon control," I'm all ears. (Bloody Elbow)

"If you put Thiago Alves and BJ Penn in a fight, I would bet all my money on Thiago Alves." - UFC welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre. I'll give him Alves at -1000. (MMA Fanhouse)

"I gave that kneebar to him, he knows that." - UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar, on his first fight with Frank Mir.

"What’s going to be interesting is to see if I still have some of that power." - Bob Sapp, on dropping nearly 50 pounds for a fight with Bobby Lashley. Needless to say, it's been proven you can't maintain steroid-enhanced strength off the juice. (Pro MMA Radio)

Judge Rami Genaur Scores the Bout 30-26 Diego Sanchez

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:19:44 -0000

You might have something wrong with you if you're not constantly refreshing FightMetric's website after close and controversial decisions on UFC cards. Rami weighs in on the Sanchez/Guida fight here:

What Good is Top Position...

...when you're getting beaten by the guy on the bottom? Round two of last night's fight between Diego Sanchez and Clay Guida was an object lesson in why top position is not always better. While Guida did maintain top control, he got outstruck 16-3 in power shots to the head, thanks to a bevy of elbows coming from Sanchez on the bottom. Joe Rogan made the comment that those might have been the most effective elbows from bottom that we'd ever seen, but we've seen those elbows used to pretty good effect before. Anderson Silva vs. Travis Lutter and Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon are some other good examples of the devastating effect of this under-utilized weapon. They very well might be the most effective strike that most fighters will never use.

...

The scores from the fight show a victory for Sanchez 30-26, though that could very easily be 29-27, as Glenn Trowbridge scored it. Round 1 was a 10-8 round, using our objective criteria (score over 100 and more than 6x opponents' score) and Round 2 goes to Sanchez thanks to his offensive guard. Round 3 is basically a toss-up, which the system gives to Sanchez on damage, but could easily go Guida's way instead.

I gave Guida round two live based on top control and begrudgingly gave him a close round three. After hearing Jordan Breen explain his thought process and reading Bloody Elbow's own Luke Thomas scribe out his thoughts (in addition to the stances of many of our commenters), I warmed up to the idea of 30-26 or 29-27 Sanchez, though I felt he deserved the fight based on his performance in round one anyway.

Hopefully, this fight is part of a growing trend of judges getting over the fallacy that simply being on top or taking someone down is tantamount to winning or controlling a fight. Taking someone down is just that and nothing more. Putting yourself into dominating positions should weigh on a judge's mind. If you can't improve your position, you better be able to land significant strikes from inside your opponent's guard.

Take nothing away from Clay Guida, who showed a ton of heart last night. Unfortunately, holding a guy down without doing much damage for eight minutes of a fight shouldn't overshadow an absolute mugging in round one. Kudos to the judges (the two of 'em anyway) that got this one right.

*UPDATE* Rami e-mailed me and wanted this to get seen:

Saw the post on BE and wanted to see if you'd make a point in the post for me. I'm uncomfortable being called a judge and it's not quite fair to call the scores the FightMetric system puts out a "judgment." We're not claiming to call accurate winners or losers because the system doesn't adhere to the Unified Rules. The scores that come out are ones that measure effectiveness. That means that we're only basing things on what landed. We can't see things like aggression or "Octagon Control" explicitly in the numbers (though they do show up to some degree), so the scores we use to call rounds are not exactly what the judges use to call their rounds. There are definitely examples where we'd be right to call a winner based on our criteria and the judges would be 100% correct to call a winner based on their criteria. The FightMetric effectiveness score is a powerful statistic, rooted in demonstrated MMA effectiveness over 14,000 fights, but it's no replacement for expert human judges.

I mentioned it in the comments, but Rami's not an actual judge. Just a bit of fun with the headline.

YUS!

Mike Fagan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:04 -0000

YUS!

The Week in Quotes: June 14th - 20th

Mike Fagan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:38:35 -0000

DOES CLAY GUIDA LOOK LIKE THE GEICO CAVEMAN? YUS!

"I hit him with some knees, some kicks and some uppercuts that were right on the button and he just kept on coming." - Ultimate Fighter 1 winner Diego Sanchez, the biggest Jim "the Berzerker" Nord fan in MMA, reflects on his fight of the year candidate with Clay Guida. (MMA Mania)

"No one's had a gas tank yet to last. Let's see if he's got it." - Guida, prior to the fight. While Sanchez didn't gas, Guida slowed him down in the later rounds. (Cage Writer)

"He’s got a couple of hearts because he kept coming in the striking too even though I was landing the more effective strikes and picking my shots." - Sanchez, who absolutely battered Guida in round one. Sanchez dropped Guida with a high kick only to see "the Carpenter" pop right back up.

"He brought a little bit of everything, kicks, punches, takedown, takedown defense." - Guida (MMA Mania)

"He’s a little Tasmanian Devil to take on." - Sanchez

"I still feel I’m the best out here in the lightweights." - Guida. Self-delusion: so easy, even a caveman can do it. Eh? Eh?

SPEAKING OF DELUSIONAL...

"If Brock Lesnar was never in the WWE he would never have gotten a title shot. And he knows that." - Current UFC interim heavyweight champ Frank Mir, who should know that if he hadn't beaten that same pro wrestler, he wouldn't have received his title shot against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. (Maxim)

"All I remember from last time is him whimpering and wincing as I was tapping him." - Mir. What about the other ninety seconds of him whooping your ass before Steve Mazzagatti saved you?

BROCK BEING BROCK

"You’re on the road 300 days a year, and that’s why guys get so messed up. This life becomes a part of them. It’s not real, but some guys who are still in the business think it is." - Current UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar, discussing the life of a pro wrestler. From talking to someone in the business, there's plenty of fans in the backwoods that still think it's real too. (Maxim)

"I bet you I’ve taken over 60 steroid tests. In college I had 15 random drug tests in two years. I’ve taken drug tests for the NFL, the WWE, the UFC. I must be pretty good at masking steroids." - Lesnar. Yes, you must be very good at it.

"God gave me this body: Are you jealous of it or what?" - Lesnar. If the sacrifice for a million dollar body is a five cent head, no, I'm not jealous whatsoever.

"Give me a break. I got the genetics of—not to get into racism or anything—but I’m built like a black man." - Lesnar. Not to get into racism, but white people are stupid.

"I wouldn’t say we’re all created equal. That’s just to make the other guys feel good who don’t have what you’ve got." Lesnar. Holy shit, he reads Nietzsche?

SINKING FASTER THAN THE TITANIC

"I was bullied all through high school, where I was never a big guy." - Former UFC heavyweight champ Tim Sylvia, still bullied as a six-foot-eight adult. (Fighters Only)

"If everything goes right, I will be on the second season of Bully Beatdown." - Sylvia, such lofty career aspirations.

"What I want to pitch to them is, bring in one or two bullies that bullied me, and what I want to do is take the money — the ten or twenty thousand dollars you win — and donate it to charity, I don’t need it." - Sylvia, who may not need the money, but desperately needs a couple wins.

"That is a place I have always wanted to fight." - Sylvia, on fighting in Japan. I mean, he might be a slight betting favorite over Ikuhisa Minowa. Hell, they might want to bring Genki Sudo out of retirement. (Sherdog)

HOW TO MAKE ENEMIES WITH ESTROGEN

"It's a piss-poor excuse that's, like, trained in guys that when that issue is brought up, it's like, 'Ok. Cool. That excuses everything.'" - Shayna Baszler, taking Cris "Cyborg" Santos to task for hiding behind the "female issues" escuse." (MMA Fanhouse)

"It gives us a reason to throw tantrums for no reason, gain weight and not make it, and they don't question it." - Baszler. Well, I wouldn't say we don't question it. I've never seen anything push otherwise reasonable-minded females into temporary bouts of insanity than then having men blame their behavior on their period. Young men out there, don't make this mistake.

"It's like a 'get out of jail free' card." - Baszler, and it regenrates every month. Jealous!

GREED, FOR LACK OF A BETTER WORD, IS GOOD

"I know the truth and Dana knows the truth –- I had a one fight deal with UFC and I fulfilled my contractual obligation." - Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, addressing the UFC/Dream contract debacle. Scumbag or not, the only thing I think we can all agree on is that this statement is true. (Index.hr)

"The problem is I’m 35 and I’m finally healthy. UFC is offering me a fight six months from now. Even before UFC 99 I said that won’t work for me, but they said something like they’re gonna change it." - Filipovic. Because what run down 35 year old kickboxers need to do is fight three more times in six months.

"I still stand behind my words and I know the best fighters are in the UFC, but if they’re offering me the next fight in six months I don’t see how I could take it." - Filipovic, acutely aware of a certain Russian outside the Zuffa grasp.

AT LEAST HE'S HONEST

"People keep telling me that I'm a big guy and they think I'll do pretty well. I don't believe 'em, I think they're out of their minds. I'm planning on getting beat up by Anderson Silva." - Former UFC light heavyweight champ Forrest Griffin, brimming with confidence for his upcoming fight at UFC 101. (Cage Potato)

"I've got my camp putting Visine in his water." - Griffin, showing off that expert Xtreme Couture gameplanning.

"I want nothin' to do with that guy. Keep him away from me." - Griffin, on Lyoto Machida. I'm sure Machida will be happy to oblige.

"I would drink Machida's urine." - Griffin

LET ME FILL YOU IN ON A LITTLE SECRET

"There’s this Cyborg fight that everybody’s stoked on, and I just felt that if God really wants me to be a part of something, then I feel like being part of something as a group with all of the other female fighters and building something up, rather than being this one-person show is going to be better for the females that come after me. I feel a part of something (in Strikeforce) and I think that’s more important than just looking out for me." - Gina Carano. Read: Strikeforce was willing to pay me more. (Sherdog)

PARTING SHOTS

"I didn't go on that show to become a rock star. I was just going out there and being myself." - Damarques Johnson. Do you always go around and pray *just* loud enough for a microphone to hear you? Because that's really weird and creepy. (Cage Writer)

"I promised everyone to use my jiu-jitsu but Conor was actually the perfect opponent for me." - Jorge Gurgel. I promise my girlfriend I'll clean the dishes, doesn't mean it's going to happen. (Cage Writer)

"Somebody’s gotta have that rough road, and I guess that’s me." - Jens Pulver. Exercises in fatalism. (The Fukerton)

"Calling him a douche bag doesn’t mean I hate him or anything approaching that." - Former Pride middleweight and welterweight champ Dan Henderson, on UFC 100 opponent Michael Bisping. (MMA Mania)

"I would've saved EliteXC, saved everybody a lot time and hassle watching this bum make a fool of himself." - Joe Riggs wanted to fight Kimbo Slice real bad. (Cage Writer)

"I was told that I had to rest my ribs for a while so I couldn’t work out on the stability ball which is crucial to getting a good workout, most guys like to train BJJ, boxing or whatever but the stability ball encompasses all of those aspects into one." - Former EliteXC middleweight champion Frank Shamrock, exposing his flawed training techniques. (Gracie Fighter)

"You ain’t shit, Tim!" - Ray Mercer, with the iconic quote for this MMA generation. (CBS)

Was Clay Guida Robbed Against Diego Sanchez?

Mike Fagan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:12:55 -0000

Let me quote Brickhaus from his excellent piece on this topic over at Bad Left Hook:

What is a robbery in boxing? Here's a hint - it's not a decision that you merely disagree with. It's a decision that is impossible; that there's no reasonable way the judges could have scored the fight in favor of the fighter who actually won.

Without having reviewed the fights, we can safely say Sanchez dominated round one and Guida takes round two based on positional control. Round three is the most contentious with, in my opinion, Diego getting the better of the striking and Guida getting top control late (after escaping a Sanchez back mount attempt) but not doing much damage or any positional advances.

So, you have two things to decide. Did Sanchez dominate the first period enough to warrant a 10-8 score? And who does round three go to?

With that in mind, there's no way you can cry "ROBBERY!" about this decision. The third round was close enough that you can't give it to Guida conclusively. Even if you do, Sanchez can still steal a draw with a 10-8 first.

In addition, this fight doesn't expose any flaws in the ten point must system. If anything, it exposes the flaws of 3 round main events between two guys who have the capability of going 10 more minutes. With title (read: money) implication on the line, it's extremely unfair for fighters and fans to have fights like this be left to such a high variance format as the three round fight. Add two rounds, reduce the importance of each individual round, and give us more opportunity to see a decisive finish.

The Ultimate Fighter 9 Finale coverage

The Ultimate Fighter 9, Episode 12 Live Thread

Mike Fagan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:25:38 -0000

Last week, we saw the UK team lock up the lightweight tournament as Andre Winner and Ross Pearson advanced to the finals. Can Frank Lester provide a similar feat for the Americans at welterweight? Or will James Wilks knock Lester's lower teeth out and keep the possibility of a UK sweep remain alive?

At the risk of Team United States concocting a biological tartar sauce recipe for Team United Kingdom's fish and chips tonight, props to everyone not named Browning for representing the sport so well this season.