Vindication
One of the interesting things about applying the FightMetric algorithm to extremely close fights is the unknown quantity. With bouts as close as the ones we've analyzed so far, it's been impossible to tell who FightMetric will call the winner based on fight tracking alone. It's only once we've plugged all the numbers into the equation that we get to see how things turn out. Part of the fun is in not knowing what the outcome might be.
But sometimes it's fun to try using the algorithm for a fight where you know what the result will be, just to see how right you are. Such is the case with the report released today on the fight between Stephan Bonnar and Keith Jardine. This is one of those fights where everyone seems to agree that the decision was a bad one. What makes matters worse was that Bonnar got a unanimous decision. Most of the recent controversial decisions people like to talk about have been split decisions. In that case, there's a judge supporting you no matter who you thought won those fights. This fight just goes to show that three judges can be unanimously wrong.
Two other notable things from this fight: The first relates to damage. Though people clamor for damage to be a deciding factor in judging fights, vicious leg kicks did not seem to count for much in the eyes of the judges. It's important to remember that damage doesn't always have to appear on the face.
The other notable factor was that Jardine takes the third round despite suffering a knockdown. Some have suggested that MMA judging can be improved with mandatory point deductions for events like knockdowns or tight submission attempts. The third round of this fight is a perfect argument against that idea. A five-minute MMA round is too dynamic for the winner to be decided based on a single occurrence. The winner of the round should be the fighter who fought better for five minutes, not for five seconds.
posted by FightMetric @ 12:00 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
I find this very fascinating, but I must say that I disagree on the issue of five minutes vs. five seconds. I only disagree because a fight can be going wrong for four minutes and fifty-five seconds, and then a jaw gets touched ...
Otherwise I'm loving this scoring system.
PS - your site's individual post pages (the ones that your permalinke point to) have URI problems. Every URL in the code includes the permalink subdirectories and therefore all of your styling and pics is gone. Additionally, this makes none of the links within your site work on that page. Probably something you need to change in your template.
"I only disagree because a fight can be going wrong for four minutes and fifty-five seconds, and then a jaw gets touched ..."
I think that's absolutely true when it results in a knockout. In that case, the entire fight has been turned on its head. The point here is about a knockdown. While significant, it still did not cause the desired effect. If forced to judge a whole bunch of things in a round that did not result in a knockout or submission, I'd say a knockdown is still just one thing.
The permalink thing has been annoying to deal with, but should hopefully be fixed by tomorrow. Thanks for the post!
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