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Don't Forget About Sherk

It’s been all BJ all the time the last couple of weeks here, as we ramped up to UFC 84 with a few detailed reports of his fights. Today marks the release of the career TPR Report for BJ Penn and we have an article up at Yahoo Sports with some really interesting information about BJ’s jiu-jitsu and the way he passes guard.

But don’t think we forgot about Sherk. While the majority of his fights have been in smaller organizations, and thus, do not have readily accessible video, we are doing the best we can to learn what we can about Sherk’s time in the UFC. The first product of that study is released today, a detailed report on his fight with Nick Diaz. This is one of those odd fights where all three judges agree precisely on the scoring, but the fan community is up in arms. As the stats show, the fight was extremely close, nearly a draw. What are the chances that Penn-Sherk is that close?

Source:Don't Forget About Sherk

UFC Inks Italian Light Heavyweight Prospect Ivan Serati

Thomas Gerbasi, UFC – The UFC’s richest division just got richer with the signing of Italian light heavyweight standout Ivan Serati, an aggressive banger whose ten professional wins include nine victories by submission or knockout.”It has always been my dream to fight for the best promotion in the world and now it has become a reality,” said Serati. “I feel very excited to bring my skills to the UFC. This means everything to me and everything to my country.”

Source:UFC Inks Italian Light Heavyweight Prospect Ivan Serati

'Page Fought "The Law" and "The Law" Won

Or at least that’s the conclusion one could draw from the report released today with stats from the fight between Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Matt Lindland. The FightMetric system gives the fight to Lindland 29-28 for winning rounds one and three.

But that’s only half the story. The overall scores for the fight are 159-163, which falls within FightMetric’s four-point margin for error. That means the fight overall is a draw, which sounds more than reasonable. While Rampage landed more effective strikes, Lindland stayed busy on the ground and attempted five submissions.

What we’re learning over the course of the FightMetric project is that there probably should be many more draws in MMA than are actually called. In many cases, a controversial decision is controversial because the fight really was too close to call. But the ten-point must system makes fools of us all when judges refuse to call 10-10 rounds. Calling a round even carries the stigma of indecision, as if a better judge should have been able to spot the victor, even when there fairly shouldn’t be one.

Will this change anytime soon? Probably not. The reason seems clear: A close decision disappoints only the fans that thought the losing fighter won; a draw disappoints almost everyone.

Source:'Page Fought "The Law" and "The Law" Won