When the new YAMMA promotion was first announced, promoter Bob Meyrowitz claimed that the new fighting surface would not only "revolutionize the traditional MMA approach" but also increase action and prevent clinches.

When I saw the Yamma pit (basically a cage with inclined edges), I immediately thought that Meyrowitz was mistaken. I believed that the incline would only make takedowns easier to obtain and would give wrestlers an advantage. Travis Wiuff, the tournament’s winner, had the same idea; he was quoted in post-fight interviews saying that he knew takedowns would be easier to get in this environment. But what do the numbers tell us about the impact of the Yamma pit?

Before breaking down the numbers, a quick note on methodology. In an attempt to prevent confirmation bias, I watched the fights with a friend who has a wrestling background. A takedown attempt was noted based on FightMetric guidelines and my friend’s discretion. I did not tell my friend the nature of the study or which way my hypothesis was leaning.

It's also important to note that the sample size of this study is extremely small and that no statistically significant results can be drawn from them. However, in addition to the anecdotal evidence provided by fighters like Wiuff, the numbers do provide a more complete picture of the Yamma pit’s effects on the fights.

In MMA as a whole, both in fights taking place in a ring or cage, the average takedown success rate is about 48%. In the Yamma fighting surface, the takedown success rate was 69% (24 out of 35 attempts). This difference is sizeable, but the effect of the Yamma pit is even more pronounced when looking at the success rate of takedown attempts that came into contact with the inclined “warning track” area. In these instances there was an almost perfect 95% success rate on takedowns (19 out of 20). Essentially, every time a fighter shot or bullrushed his opponent onto the "warning track" he was successful in obtaining a takedown.

Takedown attempts not coming into contact with this area showed a lower success rate than even that of a ring or cage with a 33% success rate (5 out of 15). This would seem to be a combination of small sample size and the fact that these attempts tended to be of a lower quality than the powerful driving attempts that came into contact with the warning track.

Meyrowitz said that his disdain for clinches was the main reason behind the creation of the inclined perimeter, and in this way the surface operated as intended. On average, clinch takedown attempts account for 52% of all takedown attempts in a ring or cage, with the remaining 48% consisting of takedown shots, an almost 1:1 ratio. The ratio in the Yamma, however, was 1.7:1 in favor of shot attempts (22:13).

The presence of the inclined areas automatically turned bullrushes to the perimeter into shot attempts, where in a normal environment they would have resulted in clinches. However, since the warning track made takedowns so easy to finish instead of clinching against the cage, the action instead turned into successful takedowns and fighting in the guard. This pattern repeated itself so often that by the end of the event the crowd was chanting for stand ups.

The clinches that did occur showed a takedown success rate of 46% (6 out of 13), similar to the ring/cage average of 48%.  The ramps resulted in an inflated total shot success rate of 82% (18 out of 22).

One could make the claim that the ramps made things more exciting if they increase the incidence of slams compared to regular takedowns. This will require a much larger sample size, but with the data available, the observed number of slams due to the warning track (11%, or 2 out of 24), is very close to that observed in a ring or cage, in which slams make up 15% of successful takedowns.

While the sample size is small, other possibilities for these differences include the presence of one round fights and the style and caliber of fighters.

In conclusion, while Meyrowitz's new fighting surface does indeed appear to have changed the way the fights occurred, it was not in the way he planned. The inclined ramp made takedowns much easier to secure at a 69% success rate and led to fights fought mainly on the ground. In essence, it traded clinch work on the fence for more guard work on the ground. It will be interesting to see if the pit is changed for subsequent events or if it's brought back, and with it, more chances to analyze its effect on fights.

Glossary:
TD: Successful takedown
TDA: Takedown attempt
YTD: Successful takedown utilizing warning track area
YTDA: Takedown attempt on warning track area
CLN: Successful clinch takedown
CLNA: Clinch takedown attempt
Slam: Successful slam takedown
YSlam: Slam takedown resulting from warning track area

(Note: Chris Tuscherer was the only fighter with a success rate below 66%. Following his first fight against Tony Sylvester where he went 5/6 on takedowns, he went 2/8 in his next two fights. The possibilities for this decrease include fatigue, and poor matchups, among other reasons. He accounts for 40% of all TD attempts in the event. Without his last two fights, the total takedown success rate would be an even-higher 81.5%)