Author: Luke Thomas

UFC lightweight Clay Guida was in Atlanta for UFC 145 and MMA Fighting had the chance to speak to him. Guida discusses his upcoming bout with Gray Maynard at UFC on FX 4 and tries to assess whether Maynard leaving Xtreme Couture is either a positive or negative for his opponent’s career. The Greg Jackson-trained lightweight also contrasts wrestling styles with Maynard and argues that a fight against him is tough to win, yet places him much further ahead in the division.

As we all know, UFC welterweight Nick Diaz filed suit against the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC), making him the first fighter to have that distinction (dubious or otherwise). I’ve noticed, though, there’s a fair amount of confusion about what he’s claiming in court and what the state of Nevada’s response is actually saying. It’s admittedly complicated, but also worth understanding.

So, join me today at 1 p.m. ET for this week’s live chat. I’ll answer any and all questions about the lawsuit as well as what the state’s response is really all about.

But we don’t have to just talk about Diaz. Anything you care about is open: Hector Lombard vs. Brian Stann, UFC on FOX 3 discussion, Mayweather vs. Cotto, or whatever else is on your mind. Don’t be shy. It’s your chat as much as it is mine.

Remember: you can login to the ScribblieLive service with your Facebook or Twitter accounts. If you’d rather not do that, simply use their native service. I don’t care how you get involved just as long as you do.

Alright, be back here at 1 p.m. ET today. Talk with you then.

I could’ve sworn the UFC Spring Break was over, but here we were again with a weekend where no UFC or Strikeforce event was being held. That doesn’t mean there was no MMA action. There was. In fact, there was pretty good MMA action courtesy the all-women’s card for Invicta FC’s inaugural event. Some of the fights early on the card were fairly lackluster, but towards the main event things heated up nicely. Jessica Penne stood out with a strong performance, Young vs. Smith was tons o’ fun, Randi Miller proved she’s pretty green but pretty mean and Marloes Coenen put Ronda Rousey on notice.

There’s also a UFC event this coming weekend. More specifically, a free UFC event, which are in many ways the best kind. I’ve long felt this event was booked as something more than a FX card, but less than one for pay-per-view. I’m not sure that’s the optimal balance, but it’s the one we got and there are strong, important fights to be enjoyed.

For now, though, let’s catch up on the results you may have missed, the odd interview of UFC welterweight Georges St. Pierre on CNN, Tim Kennedy being Tim Kennedy and much more.

5 MUST-READ STORIES

Coenen Victorious at Invicta FC, Calls Out Ronda Rousey. The biggest fights of the weekend took place on an all-women’s fight card. Catch up on what happened and what could be next.

Dana White Says UFC Will Not Put On Shows in California If CSAC Bill Passes. The UFC’s head honcho says if a controversial law is passed, that could be the end of the UFC in the Golden State.

Daniel Cormier’s gold medal loss is MMA’s gain. The Strikeforce grand prix finalist tells MMA Fighting if he had won the Olympic gold medal, he probably would never have entered professional MMA.

Fedor Emelianenko talks Pedro Rizzo. What does the greatest heavyweight of all time think about Pedro Rizzo and M-1? Click to find out.

Luke Rockhold Readies for Tim Kennedy, Wants to Fight Anderson Silva. The Strikeforce middleweight champion speaks to our own Mike Chiappetta about what’s next in his career.

MEDIA STEW

Tim Kennedy + Masterpiece Theater = What?

Georges St. Pierre talks about being bullied on CNN. Oh, and also answers the worst questions ever:

The Nick Diaz story is well known. Ahead of UFC on Fox 3, it’s time for Nate’s story to be told (HT: MMA Mania):

Current TUF Live coach and former WEC champion Urijah Faber has a new book coming out (HT: Bloody Elbow):

UFC Octagon girl Arianny Celeste poses for FHM in the Philippines. You can tell it’s Filipino with words like “Bhoy” and “Tayo” on the left side of the cover (HT: ABS-CBN News).

RONDA ROUSEY’S DELICIOUS BREAKFAST

Ugh, every morning I have to eat a handful of fresh parsley… And every morning green projectile vomit is a distinct possibility…

— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) April 29, 2012

INVICTA GETS DAPS

Congratulations to InvictaFC for a really great first show, unbelievable fights!

— Bas Rutten (@BasRuttenMMA) April 29, 2012

Thank you loved the first edition @InvictaFights@shanknapp I felt at home. I was very happy indeed now the wmma is being valued.

— Cris Cyborg (@criscyborg) April 29, 2012

BRIAN STANN AT A LOSS FOR WORDS

Haha, How do I even respond to this? RT @TimKennedyMMA: #IfTwitterHadAPromIdTake @BrianStann

— Brian Stann (@BrianStann) April 30, 2012

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

– Brian Stann vs. Hector Lombard, TBA

– Thiago Silva vs. Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, TBA

– UFC 150: Luiz Cane vs. Yushin Okami

– UFC 150: Thiago Tavares vs. Dennis Hallman

– Invicta FC 2: Shayna Baszler vs. Sara McMann

FANPOST OF THE DAY

Today’s Fanpost of the Day comes courtesy Luke Nelson who forecasts how UFC welterweight Rory MacDonald would fare in fights against the division’s top eleven contenders. Here’s his sense of MacDonald vs. Nick Diaz:

3. Nick Diaz

Strengths: Boxing, Offensive Guard, Cardio, Aggression, Toughness. Some people don’t really consider Nick to be a boxer, as he tends to just crowd his opponent against the cage and unleash flurry after flurry, something that looks like boxing but doesn’t incorporate the nuanced movement that a true practitioner of the sweet science would have. Either way, he’s beaten a bunch of noted strikers with that strategy, so whatever you call it, he’s good at it. He has one of the most dangerous guards in the division, although he hasn’t used it too much recently, preferring to keep fights standing. He never gets tired, can take a helluva shot and his gameness is pretty much unquestioned.

Weaknesses: Strength, Wrestling, Fight IQ. In his first stint with the UFC, Diaz had a tough time keeping his fights standing, although he has said on multiple occasions that he would not have taken the bottom and played from his guard so readily if he had known the judges would treat the top guy as having the advantage, despite it being something he probably should have been aware of. In his fights since, no one has succeeded in taking him down and keeping him there but he also hasn’t fought a vaunted take down and top control fighter of the calibre found in the upper echelon of the UFC`s welterweight division. He admits to not being as strong as his peers, but he also doesn’t want to be, preferring to rely on his superior cardio and a volume striking approach to win his fights.

How a fight with Macdonald would look: Rory rag-dolled Nick`s younger brother Nathan en route to a three round decision in his biggest UFC victory to date. He landed three suplexes in the final round against Nathan, showcasing a decided strength advantage that he would also hold on Nick. Rory also out-struck Nathan for a good portion of their fight, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to try to stand up with Nick, so this fight would likely come down to how much damage Rory could do from inside Nick’s guard. It seems likely that this fight would go into the third round and if Rory ran out of gas in the same way he did against Condit that would spell trouble against Nick.

Found something perfect for the Morning Report? Just hit me on Twitter @SBNLukeThomas and we’ll include it in Monday’s post.

We often hear in MMA that a fighter could just be getting started or ready to make another title run even as they approach their mid-thirties. Relative to fans and media in other sports, the MMA community seems to believe aging is deleterious for a fighter’s career and that a fighter at 35 is as dangerous if not more so than one at 25. Hey, they’ve got all that wisdom and experience, right?

In fairness, it’s not like they haven’t had reason to think that. Randy Couture was defending titles in his forties. Current UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva is 37 and still holds significant speed and reflex advantages over his much younger peers. These fighters, however, are clear outliers. Impressive, obviously, but hardly representative of the norm.

I bring up age because we are approaching an interesting case at UFC on FOX 3 next weekend. Specifically, UFC welterweight Josh Koscheck, who will be 35 years old in November, is facing Johny Hendricks, a 28 year-old rising contender. What does that tell us about his chances against Hendricks this Saturday? Does it really not matter how young a fighter is in terms of his chances for success in the Octagon as some in the MMA community would have you believe?

If the data on age and performance tells us anything, it’s that getting older matters significantly and not in a good way.

Before we get to the numbers, we should be very hesitant to make any predictions about Koscheck vs. Hendricks if we’re viewing it through a prism of age. Oddsmakers have the fight as basically a dead heat and I tend to think the longer the fight goes, the more it favors Koscheck. And statistically, that makes sense for an older fighter.

What do we know about age and how it affects performance in MMA? There are two key takeaways every MMA fan should know: younger fighters on average never win less than 50% of the time and older fighters are much more likely to lose by TKO/KO than by decision.

Some of the best research to date was actually done by two readers of the site Bloody Elbow in a FightMetric contest roughly one year ago. Using data compiled by FightMetric, they both discovered roughly the same thing, but arrived by taking two very different approaches.

First, let’s answer the basic question: do younger fighters win more often? Statistically speaking, the answer is yes. Consider the following:

	Winner is Younger	Winner is Older		All Fights
Total Fights	1489 (57%)	1111 (43%)		2600*
(T)KO Wins	559 (61%)	359 (39%)		918
Sub Wins	422 (57%)	322 (43%)		744
Dec Wins	505 (54%)	430 (46%)		935
Mean Winner’s Age	27.0	31.0		28.7
Mean Loser’s Age	31.8	27.1		29.8
Mean Age Difference	4.8	4.0		4.4
Mean Fight Length	08:57	09:50		09:20

There aren’t a ton of surprises here, although it’s worth reading the entire analyses done by the researcher to get a full grasp over what this all means. For our purposes today, though, we can confirm our earlier statement: younger fighters win more often (57% in this particular sample) and also hold statistical advantages in finishes albeit less so for decisions. More on that in a minute.

It’s not enough, though, to just measure winning percentages in aggregate. What happens when we measure age differences between opponents? Do we see any trends? Yes, and the results are noteworthy:

Younger Fighters’ Win% Across Age Differences

The bottom numbers represent age difference in years. There’s a number of ways to parse this data and, again, I implore you to read the original posts from where this data arrived to truly a get a sense for implications. Still, it’s safe to say a couple of things. For starters, younger opposition have at least a 50% chance of winning at all times. The upward trend in the graph overall (with one lone exception) tells as age discrepancy matters. It’s also intriguing that even in cases where both fighters are considered ‘young’ – say 22 and 23 years old – the younger of the two still holds a statistical advantage.

In the case I started this article off with – Josh Koscheck vs. Johny Hendricks – the age disparity is 6 years. Historically, the younger fighter in those circumstances has won 60% of the time.

Younger fighters tend to win more and sometimes by big margins, but it’s when researchers factored in the method of victory things got really interesting. “Variation by type of victory depends on the age of the older fighter, not on the age of the younger fighter,” the researchers said. “More precisely, we can say that as the older fighter’s age increases, his chance of getting knocked out increases substantially, his chance of getting submitted increases but somewhat less, but his chance of losing a decision stays relatively flat”:

What does this graph mean beyond what’s aforementioned? In some respects, it’s hard to say and we should be careful about speculation in terms of what the data are specifically telling us. It’s not as clear whether the effect above is from the advantage of youth or the liabilities of age. It’s probably not the worst idea, though, to think the inability of older fighters to take punishment as well as they once did accounts for some of the uptick in KO/TKO finishes as they get older.

As for why older fighters are less likely to lose by decision, I’d personally suggest experience has to count for something. If the big shot doesn’t put them out, they’ve got enough know-how to drag the fight late and give themselves a chance for victory.

All of this brings us back to Koscheck and his main event bout with Hendricks this coming Saturday at UFC on FOX 3. If it sounds like I’m discounting Koscheck’s chances, I apologize in advance. I am not and have largely been a fan of his fighting style. He’s fallen short against Georges St. Pierre, but has also had one hell of a successful athletic career. He is no one to overlook or take lightly.

But I also can’t escape the numbers. I don’t want to dwell on them too much, but I want to leave you with one final reminder about what the relationship of age and performance in MMA this time courtesy of Fight Matrix (who assembled their own data). What we have below is the winning percentage of fighters by age:

As a fighter gets older, it’s true they accumulate helpful experience and knowledge. Unfortunately, however, the data also suggests it often becomes harder and harder to make effective use of it as they experience the fragility that come with aging.

The next time a MMA commentator, analyst or fan talks about a fighter’s ability without regard to their age (or the age difference in an impending bout), temper their conclusions with this healthy dose of reality. These numbers do not tell us to discount the accomplishments and talent of older fighters, but they do give us license to ask how much longer fighters like Anderson Silva at 37 can really keep winning. That’s especially true as they face younger and younger fighters.

The fact is this: mixed martial arts, like all other sports, is very much a young man’s game. Age is not just a number.

All quantitative data provided by FightMetric except where otherwise noted.

Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finalist and two-time Olympian Daniel Cormier spoke to MMA Fighting in Atlanta before UFC 145 about his impending bout with former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett. Cormier contrasted his style and ability in wrestling with Barnett’s, but also spoke candidly about falling short in his quest for a Olympic gold medal in wrestling. Cormier states had he won the medal he coveted so greatly, he likely would never have competed in professional MMA. Cormier also spoke about the state of the American Kickboxing Academy gym in the wake of trainer Dave Camarillo and UFC welterweight Josh Koscheck departing and many other topics.

The judging was controversial, but it doesn’t matter. Chris Saunders, picked dead last among all contestants on this season, defeated Team Cruz’s overall second pick Sam Sacilia by split decision tonight on TUF: Live. Adelaide Byrd and Tony Weeks scored the bout 20-18 for Chris Saunders. Patricia Morse Jarman had it 20-18 for Sam Sicilia.

The first round and the second didn’t look dramatically different. Sicilia opened with intense cage pressure and overhands. Sicilia threw wild strikes constantly and was briefly taken down. Throughout the course of the round, Saunders worked knees to the body.

Things changed, however, in the second half of the first round. A low kick got Sicilia thinking and that’s when Saunders landed a head kick that nearly puts Sicilia’s lights out. The Team Cruz standout hung on, but continued to eat shots throughout the course of the round.

In round two, Sicilia managed to compose himself enough to not get caught with anything dramatic. He again pressured early and swung wildly for the fences, mostly with right hands. This round eventually featured more grappling scrambles as each fighter would take the other to the ground, but could not hold position. Saunders took Sicilia’s back several times, but Sicilia was able to reverse and attempts guillotines. Generally speaking, though, the heavy hitting was done with Sicilia even if he was unable to put Saunders out.

While many observes of the fight – including UFC President Dana White – felt the bout should have gone to a third round, but it wasn’t to be. Saunders was announced the winner by split decision.

“It wasn’t exactly as I thought. I thought it would go just like this,” Saunders told the UFC’s Jon Anik. “I got a great team behind me. I have confidence. That’s all you need.”

Team Faber has now recaptured control of the fight selection. As for next week, Team Faber’s Andy Ogle will square off again Team Cruz’s Mike Rio.