CagePotato Databomb #10: Breaking Down the UFC Heavyweights by Striking Performance


(Click chart for full-size versionFor previous Databombs, click here.)

By Reed Kuhn, @Fightnomics

We’ve saved the biggest fighters for last in the striking assessment series. Heavyweights end 57% of fights by (T)KO, far more than any other weight class. They also have the highest average power head striking accuracy, possibly because defense is harder when you’re that big.

So let’s see how the whole division stacks up against each other, then look at the winners and losers in each category. A full explanation of the chart and variables is included at the end of this post.

THE WINNERS

Sniper Award: Relative newcomer Shawn Jordan has been a highly accurate striker to date, though he has lacked knockdown power. So let’s focus on the trio of Pat Barry, Dave Herman, and Mark Hunt, who each have four or more UFC appearances and have maintained power head striking accuracy of 38% or more. These are big guys who can also hit their target.

Energizer Bunny Award: Monstrous southpaw Todd Duffee has almost quadrupled the striking output of his opponents with three fights to date in the Octagon, none of which have gone the distance. But with far greater Octagon experience, veterans Cheick Kongo and former champion Junior Dos Santos have managed to almost double the volume of opponents, all while maintain accuracy well above the division average.


(Click chart for full-size versionFor previous Databombs, click here.)

By Reed Kuhn, @Fightnomics

We’ve saved the biggest fighters for last in the striking assessment series. Heavyweights end 57% of fights by (T)KO, far more than any other weight class. They also have the highest average power head striking accuracy, possibly because defense is harder when you’re that big.

So let’s see how the whole division stacks up against each other, then look at the winners and losers in each category. A full explanation of the chart and variables is included at the end of this post.

THE WINNERS

Sniper Award: Relative newcomer Shawn Jordan has been a highly accurate striker to date, though he has lacked knockdown power. So let’s focus on the trio of Pat Barry, Dave Herman, and Mark Hunt, who each have four or more UFC appearances and have maintained power head striking accuracy of 38% or more. These are big guys who can also hit their target.

Energizer Bunny Award: Monstrous southpaw Todd Duffee has almost quadrupled the striking output of his opponents with three fights to date in the Octagon, none of which have gone the distance. But with far greater Octagon experience, veterans Cheick Kongo and former champion Junior Dos Santos have managed to almost double the volume of opponents, all while maintain accuracy well above the division average.

Biggest Ball(s) Award: Punch for punch, Shane Carwin has landed the most knockdowns in the fewest strikes. Despite low accuracy and pace, Carwin packed enough power to finish his first four UFC fights all by (T)KO. Like a mortar in high winds, Carwin doesn’t land on target very often. But when he does, he destroys what he hits.

THE LOSERS

Swing and a Miss Award: With just 12% power head striking accuracy, the recently retired Christian Morecraft is the least accurate heavyweight striker on the list. Though Shane Carwin is a close second, he has made the most of the shots he’s landed. Morecraft outworked opponents by more than 30%, but under-landed them in the long run.

Starnes Award for Inaction: Former kickboxer Alistair Overeem may have seemed invincible prior to his knockout loss to Antonio Silva, but he certainly didn’t press the action inside the MMA cage. Opponents outworked the Reem by throwing more than double his standing strike volume.

Smallest Ball(s) Award: Only three heavyweights shown here have failed to score a knockdown in UFC/Strikeforce competition. But Shawn Jordan has failed to do so in 56 minutes of Octagon time to date. But Jordan did manage to finish two opponents by strikes, showing he’s got power on the ground. Morecraft, however, failed to score a knockdown in four UFC appearances, losing three of those fights by KO himself — so maybe his retirement from competition was a good thing after all.

Also Noteworthy…

Heavyweights hit hard, and collectively the group shown in the graph has scored 82 knockdowns in their fights through 2012. We’re just three months into 2013 and already fighters like Bigfoot Silva and Mark Hunt are putting in performances that will boost their striking assessment position the next time around.

The matchmakers have made sure to keep the UFC’s biggest sluggers booked for future shows. First, Matt Mitrione will take on Philip De Fries at this weekend’s UFC on Fuel TV 9: Mousasi vs. Latifi card. The following week Travis Browne will make his comeback against Gabriel Gonzaga on the TUF 17 Finale card. Then on FOX on April 20th, Daniel Cormier will make his UFC debut against former champion Frank Mir. Not to mention Kongo vs. Nelson at UFC 159. And that’s just the matchups in April. In May we’ll get Junior Dos Santos vs. Mark Hunt, and see a title on the line with the Velasquez-Silva rematch. Bottom line: expect some fresh highlight reel knockouts from the UFC this spring.

How the Analysis Works:

In order to understand standup striking performance, which is more multifaceted in MMA than it is in boxing, I need to boil down a few of the most important variables that determine success as a striker. These are fairly uncomplicated variables in isolation, but together they can summarize a fighter’s overall capabilities. Here, I’ve focused on three fundamental, offensive metrics:

Accuracy: I’ve used power head striking accuracy (as opposed to body or leg strikes, or jabs to the head), where the average for UFC Heavyweights is about 28%. Certainly, great strikers can attack the body and legs, but the most likely way to end a fight by strikes is by aiming at the head. And in order to keep this comparison apples-to-apples, we can’t have a guy that throws a lot of high accuracy leg kicks skewing his accuracy stat. The accuracy of the power head strike is a great indicator of a fighter’s striking prowess, and there’s a wide range within a single division as we’ll see. This is the vertical axis, so more accurate fighters are higher in the graph.

Standup Striking Pace: Prior analysis reveals that outpacing your opponent is a key predictor of success, and certainly correlates with winning decisions as it reflects which fighter is dictating the pace of the fight. Here, I’ve used the total number of standup strikes thrown as a ratio to the same output from a fighter’s opponents. All strikes attempted from a standup position are counted, including body shots and leg kicks. This is the horizontal axis in the graph, and the average for the whole division must be 1, so fighters with superior pace appear further to the right.

Knockdown Rate: The objective of every strike thrown is to hurt your opponent, and knockdowns reflect a fighter that has connected with a powerful strike. I’ve used the total number of knockdowns a fighter landed divided by the number of landed power head strikes to see who does the most damage per strike landed. The size of the bubble for a fighter indicates their relative knockdown rate; the bigger the bubble, the higher their knockdown rate. The very small bubbles indicate fighters who have yet to score a knockdown in their Zuffa fights.

The data includes all UFC, WEC, and Strikeforce fights through 2012, including UFC 155.

For more on the science and stats of MMA, follow @Fightnomics on Twitter and on Facebook. See more MMA analytical research at www.fightnomics.com. Raw data was provided by FightMetric.

UFC Heavyweight Christian Morecraft Announces Retirement, Looks for ‘Easier Way to Make a Living’


(Undeniable proof that Stefan Struve is a reptilian shape-shifter. / Photo via Getty Images)

In the world of combat sports, there’s nothing sadder than a fighter who doesn’t know when to quit — who continues to risk his body and brain for diminishing paychecks, long after the fight business has chewed him up and spat him out. So in way, the recent news of Christian Morecraft’s retirement should be considered a happy ending, because at least he won’t end up a penniless vegetable. It’s the little victories, folks.

After kicking off his career with six consecutive first-round victories competing in Massachusetts for Reality Fighting and CFX, Christian Morecraft entered the UFC in 2010, where the 26-year-old heavyweight prospect went 1-3, including a submission victory over Sean McCorkle, and knockout losses against Stefan Struve, Matt Mitrione, and Pat Barry. Morecraft’s slugfest against Barry picked up Fight of the Night honors at UFC on FX 1, but he never returned to the Octagon. In fact the last bit of news we heard about him was when he picked up a drunk driving charge in September.

Yesterday, Morecraft posted the following on his Facebook page:


(Undeniable proof that Stefan Struve is a reptilian shape-shifter. / Photo via Getty Images)

In the world of combat sports, there’s nothing sadder than a fighter who doesn’t know when to quit — who continues to risk his body and brain for diminishing paychecks, long after the fight business has chewed him up and spat him out. So in way, the recent news of Christian Morecraft’s retirement should be considered a happy ending, because at least he won’t end up a penniless vegetable. It’s the little victories, folks.

After kicking off his career with six consecutive first-round victories competing in Massachusetts for Reality Fighting and CFX, Christian Morecraft entered the UFC in 2010, where the 26-year-old heavyweight prospect went 1-3, including a submission victory over Sean McCorkle, and knockout losses against Stefan Struve, Matt Mitrione, and Pat Barry. Morecraft’s slugfest against Barry picked up Fight of the Night honors at UFC on FX 1, but he never returned to the Octagon. In fact the last bit of news we heard about him was when he picked up a drunk driving charge in September.

Yesterday, Morecraft posted the following on his Facebook page:

Competing in the UFC is a tough job on many different levels — getting better, staying focused and all the other s— that life brings to you, and not to mention I still have to work a full-time job to support [myself] in the meantime. There [are] plenty of ‘ex professional athletes’ out there who are lost, broke and jobless when competing is over, so with that being said, [I am] trying to find an easier way to make a living and most importantly be happy … I’m saying GOODBYE TO THE FIGHT BUSINESS for right now. Nothing’s set in stone, because we all know that nothing in life is, but for now I’ve got some other matters to take care of. Thank you all for your support over the years. Thank you, and god bless everyone.”

Morecraft’s retirement reminds me of another husky heavyweight — former Bellator champ Cole Konrad, who stepped away from the sport last year in order to pursue better opportunities. In Konrad’s case, he already had a pretty sweet gig as a financial trader specializing in milk products lined up. We’re not sure if Morecraft’s future will be nearly as glamorous, but if he feels that the spartan life of a cage-fighter isn’t benefitting him anymore, then he might as well walk away now before his career starts to get truly depressing.

Thanks for the memories, Christian, and good luck on your journey…

Vehicular Misadventure Alert: Junior Dos Santos Victim of Hit and Run (He’s Okay), Christian Morecraft Picks Up Drunk Driving Charge


(Step 1: Find a lawyer. Step 2: Explain that your ear didn’t look like that before the accident. Step 3: Collect large settlement. Step 4: Celebrate.)

If one more Brazilian UFC champion becomes involved in a car accident this month, we can officially start calling this a trend. Just a day after we reported that Jose Aldo was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle in Rio de Janeiro, MMA Convert passed along word that heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos was the victim of a hit-and-run while driving in Salvador, Brazil, last week. As JDS explained on his twitter (which was helpfully translated into Broken English by MMAConvert):

The transit of Salvador giving this fear. They just hit my car and did not stop, continued to follow the path as if it were normal. Please let us be more aware and respect others. You win nothing with violence and disrespect. Crossing and follow in peace.”

Dos Santos escaped the incident without injury, and is still scheduled to defend his title against Cain Velasquez at UFC 155 on December 29th.

Speaking of dangerous drivers…


(Step 1: Find a lawyer. Step 2: Explain that your ear didn’t look like that before the accident. Step 3: Collect large settlement. Step 4: Celebrate.)

If one more Brazilian UFC champion becomes involved in a car accident this month, we can officially start calling this a trend. Just a day after we reported that Jose Aldo was hit by a car while riding his motorcycle in Rio de Janeiro, MMA Convert passed along word that heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos was the victim of a hit-and-run while driving in Salvador, Brazil, last week. As JDS explained on his twitter (which was helpfully translated into Broken English by MMAConvert):

The transit of Salvador giving this fear. They just hit my car and did not stop, continued to follow the path as if it were normal. Please let us be more aware and respect others. You win nothing with violence and disrespect. Crossing and follow in peace.”

Dos Santos escaped the incident without injury, and is still scheduled to defend his title against Cain Velasquez at UFC 155 on December 29th.

Speaking of dangerous drivers…

UFC heavyweight gatekeeper Christian Morecraft — who is riding back-to-back knockout losses against Matt Mitrione and Pat Barry — has now joined the UFC’s exclusive club of drunk-drivers, which also includes Chris Leben, Josh Neer, Ross Pearson, and Jon Jones. Over the weekend, Morecraft was charged with operating under the influence, after he refused a breathalyzer test following a traffic stop. As CageJunkies explains:

The word “operating” is actually more encompassing (and more accurate) than “driving” because almost all states make it illegal to “operate or be in actual physical control” of a motor vehicle.  This means that you can be sitting in your car, off the side of the road, with the engine running and the car in park, and asleep, yet still be charged with OUI.  The states that have OUI as their acronym are Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Morecraft trains out of Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Following the arrest, Morecraft posted the following on his Facebook page:

Aa good man is an honest man and i made a mistake, After a long work week and a good week of training I hit a speed bump, I beat myself I had a few beers and grabbed a bite to eat I got pulled over and asked to take a breathalyzer I refused so I was arrested and charged with an OUI ….I apologize to the community the UFC and CAPE COD INSULLATION my family friends.”

Knockout(s) of the Day: Paul Calland’s Spinning Backfist Destruction of Lewis Bailey, Johnson/Beltran & Barry/Morecraft Fights Released Online

(Props to IronForgesIron for the vid.) 

Yesterday, UK based promotion X-treme Combat held its sixth mixed combat event in Cumbria, North West England. Featuring amateur boxing, semi-pro boxing, and kickboxing matches, the evening was highlighted by a K1-style rules bout between FlexMMA product Lewis Bailey and Salfrod MMA’s Paul Calland. Held in an octagon that can only be described as “replica size” with two of the most eager ringside announcers in recent memory calling the action, the scrap featured several back and forth exchanges in its brief duration.

After whiffing a head kick around the 2:40 mark, Calland decides to turn a turd into gold by unleashing a wild spinning backfist as a follow up. A backfist so wild, in fact, that it wasn’t really a spinning backfist at all, but more of a sloppy, unintentional spinning elbow ala Jon Jones. In either case, it catches Bailey completely off guard, rendering him unconscious before he can even fall to the canvas like a rapidly deflating balloon. Now, our Pikey may be a little rusty, but we believe one of the announcers referred to the shot as “a poop,” which references the fact that Bailey likely shit himself after being hit with such a powerful blow.

And while we’re discussing all things KO-related, we’ve got to give some props to FUEL TV, who recently released full, crystal clear videos of the Lavar Johnson/Joey Beltran and Pat Barry/Christian Morecraft scraps from January’s UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller card to hype up Barry and Johnson’s upcoming clash at UFC on FOX 3. Both were exciting brawls to say the least, and both ended by way of violent KO, so check them out after the jump.


(Props to IronForgesIron for the vid.) 

Yesterday, UK based promotion X-treme Combat held its sixth mixed combat event in Cumbria, North West England. Featuring amateur boxing, semi-pro boxing, and kickboxing matches, the evening was highlighted by a K1-style rules bout between FlexMMA product Lewis Bailey and Salfrod MMA’s Paul Calland. Held in an octagon that can only be described as “replica size” with two of the most eager ringside announcers in recent memory calling the action, the scrap featured several back and forth exchanges in its brief duration.

After whiffing a head kick around the 2:40 mark, Calland decides to turn a turd into gold by unleashing a wild spinning backfist as a follow up. A backfist so wild, in fact, that it wasn’t really a spinning backfist at all, but more of a sloppy, unintentional spinning elbow ala Jon Jones. In either case, it catches Bailey completely off guard, rendering him unconscious before he can even fall to the canvas like a rapidly deflating balloon. Now, our Pikey may be a little rusty, but we believe one of the announcers referred to the shot as “a poop,” which references the fact that Bailey likely shit himself after being hit with such a powerful blow.

And while we’re discussing all things KO-related, we’ve got to give some props to FUEL TV, who recently released full, crystal clear videos of the Lavar Johnson/Joey Beltran and Pat Barry/Christian Morecraft scraps from January’s UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller card to hype up Barry and Johnson’s upcoming clash at UFC on FOX 3. Both were exciting brawls to say the least, and both ended by way of violent KO, so check them out below.

Barry vs. Morecraft

You gotta feel for Christian Morecraft. The poor bastard has easily lost five years off his life thanks to the combined powers of Barry, Matt Mitrione, and Stefan Struve, and we can’t even remember who his lone UFC victory came against. Or perhaps we just don’t want to. Let’s hope Morecraft can bounce back in his next octagon appearance, because to our knowledge, he is still employed by Zuffa, right?

Johnson vs. Beltran

After Joey Beltran’s three round war with Barry at UFC: Fight for the Troops 2 in January of 2011, we thought it would be damn near impossible to “The Mexicutioner,” but leave it to a man who calls himself “Big Johnson” to prove us wrong. Turns out, Johnson must have unlodged about 20 pounds of undigested read meat from Beltran’s colon with that series of uppercuts, because Beltran looks like a completely different person nowadays, and has already picked up a UD win over Anton Talamante last weekend in his light-heavyweight debut.

-J. Jones

Pat Barry Says Death Clutch Gym ‘Still Marching Forward’ Without Brock Lesnar

Filed under: UFCUFC heavyweight Pat Barry may have halted his two-fight losing streak with a brutal knockout of Christian Morecraft at the UFC on FX event in Nashville last Friday night, but he isn’t letting the success go to his head just yet. It was,…

Filed under:

Pat BarryUFC heavyweight Pat Barry may have halted his two-fight losing streak with a brutal knockout of Christian Morecraft at the UFC on FX event in Nashville last Friday night, but he isn’t letting the success go to his head just yet. It was, after all, the lone win in his last three trips inside the Octagon, as he reminded Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

“I’ve been seeing the world say, ‘There you go getting back on the winning track,’ and ‘You’re back to your winning ways,'” Barry told Helwani. “I would like to say, let me win two in a row and then I’ll feel like I’m on a winning track. As of right now, I just won a fight. That doesn’t necessarily predict what’s going to happen in the next fight.”

What the victory over Morecraft did accomplish was to save Barry from the dreaded three-fight losing in the UFC, which is often the point when the organization will send a fighter packing. While Barry admitted to being “ridiculously nervous” heading into the fight in Nashville, he insisted it wasn’t due to the losing streak or the potential consequences of adding to it.

“That’s the state that I put myself into, just match-ready, knowing that anything could possibly happen.”

What happened in the fight against Morecraft — and what didn’t happen in many of Barry’s previous fights — was that Barry kept his cool after getting taken down, fought off his opponent’s submission attempts, and got back to his feet to deliver the deciding blow. The win showed significant improvement in Barry’s overall game, but the mere fact that he got to demonstrate his defensive ground skills means he’s still got a ways to go, he said.

“I was happy with what I did once I was already on the ground, like…staying poised, staying controlled, not panicking and being able to avoid submissions and getting back to my feet, but the one thing I wasn’t happy with was the fact that I even hit the ground. I showed submission defense and I showed a better confidence on the ground, being under somebody, but I didn’t execute the takedown defense like we had been planning on doing and the way we trained to do it.”

Much of the credit for his gains on the ground go to his coaches and teammates at the Death Clutch gym in Minnesota, Barry said. While some fans seem to believe that the gym has folded up shop ever since its most famous member — former UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar — announced his retirement, Barry insisted the rest of the team was “still marching forward; we’re just down one man.”

“We still have [Bellator heavyweight champion] Cole Konrad, and when you have a Cole Konrad, you don’t really need much else,” Barry added. “That dude is a monster.”

According to Barry, the Death Clutch gym has turned out to be the perfect place to deal with his weaknesses as an MMA fighter — namely staying on his feet and out of submissions in a division populated with much larger fighters.

“There’s no secret to the flaws in my game. …What I did was I went and found a gym that consists of giant wrestlers who all do [jiu-jitsu], and with [Rodrigo] ‘Comprido’ [Medeiros], a seven-time world champion who is a super-stud on the ground. So I found a room with a bunch of guys who are a lot bigger than I am, they all wrestle and they all do jiu-jitsu. …What better thing [is there] for me to do?”

The work seems to have paid dividends for Barry in the win over Morecraft. One win might not be a streak, but at least it’s a start.

 

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‘UFC on FX: Guillard vs Miller’ GIF Party: The Finishes & Other Highlights

Guillard choking, in every sense of the word. (Photo: UFC.com)

While the ‘UFC on FX’ debut may have lacked the big names of UFC 142, the fights themselves packed just as much fire-power. For the second straight week, six fighters were able to put away their opponent and double their earnings in less than a round. Punches, chokes, and a torrent of brutal hellbows were all used to send grown men into la-la land, and we’ve got the GIF’s to prove it.

(Thanks to Zombie Prophet for the GIFs)

Guillard choking, in every sense of the word. (Photo: UFC.com)

While the ‘UFC on FX’ debut may have lacked the big names of UFC 142, the fights themselves packed just as much fire-power. For the second straight week, six fighters were able to put away their opponent and double their earnings in less than a round. Punches, chokes, and a torrent of brutal hellbows were all used to send grown men into la-la land, and we’ve got the GIF’s to prove it.

(Thanks to Zombie Prophet for the GIFs)

 

Jorge Rivera vs. Eric Schafer


 

Habib Nurmagomedov vs. Kamal Shalorus