Is Lyoto Machida the Best Fighter in the UFC?
The answer to the above question is highly subjective, however, there are a few things that we can look at statistically to make some personal conclusions. We've now posted Lyoto's performance stats from last night (along with Hughes vs. Serra), but here were the facts going into the fight last night:
Machida has the lowest SApM (strikes absorbed per minute) of any fighter in UFC history by a very large margin. Coming into the fight last night, Machida's SApM was 0.58. After the fight, that dropped to 0.55. The next lowest SApM belongs to Anderson Silva, but it's not even close. Silva's SApM is 0.73, even after 25 minutes of not getting hit by Thales Leites. Just as a reminder, Fedor's SApM is 0.53.
Machida is the second-most accurate striker in the UFC (for fighters with at least 300 strike attempts), with a hit rate of 65%. The only fighter better is Silva.
Coming into the fight, Machida had the second-highest takedown success rate (for fighters with at least 10 attempts) at 82%. The only fighter better is Gray Maynard.
Machida's takedown defense rate is 84%, second best (among fighters with 25 takedowns attempted against them), trailing only Georges St. Pierre.
Machida has scored a knockdown on all but one of his UFC opponents (can you name the one he didn't?). After last night's thrashing, he's scored nine knockdowns in seven fights, a rate that matches Chuck Liddell at his peak.
He is now only the third undefeated fighter to hold a belt in the modern UFC era (can you name the other two?).
Again, there's no objectively correct answer to the question in the title. But these are some fun numbers to play with while making your own decision.
posted by FightMetric @ 7:05 PM
12 Comments
12 Comments:
I'd have to say he didn't knock Nakamura down?, and the other modern undefeated champ was rashad obviously.
When is the "modern" era? 2000-present? Zuffa purchase-present?
I'd agree with anonymous, it was Nakamura. I thought it was Sokodjou, but I think he had one in the 2nd round before the arm triangle. That's amazing, I didn't realize he'd knocked down every opponent but one since his UFC debut. Boring indeed!
We call the modern era UFC 28 and onward. That's when they started using the Unified Rules.
Nakamura is the correct answer to question one. I made a mistake on question two, forgetting about Evans. There was one undefeated champ before him.
Wasn't the other you were thinking of Tim Sylvia?
Sylvia was the other one. And are these stats on SApM and takedowns only for Lyoto's UFC career, or for his entire career?
Yes, Sylvia is the correct answer.
These are UFC only stats for Lyoto. However, they are only slightly different from his total career numbers.
what's Anderson's hit rate accuracy?
In his UFC fights, it's about 78%.
he knocked BJ Penn down? I swear he didn't...
I didn't think he knocked BJ Penn down - it looked more like he placed his foot behind BJ's and tripped him.
Greg and Danielle, they're only talking about his UFC fights.
Either way that fight was still his best test, even fightmetric says that lol
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