Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
CageMatch|PopularScience
Greg Jackson, the single most successful trainer in the multi-billiondollar sport of professional mixed martial arts ghting, works out of
a musty old gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico, not far from the base
of the Sandia Mountains. On a recent morning, the 38-year-old
Jackson, who has the cauli owered ears and bulbous nose of a
career ghter, watched two of his students square off inside the
chain-link walls of a blood-splattered ring called the Octagon.
One of them was Jon Jones, the light heavyweight champion of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the premier MMA league.
In four weeks, Jones would be defending his title against Rashad
Evans, an expert ghter and his former training partner. To prepare
him, Jackson had set up a sparring session with Shawn "The Savage"
Jordan, a heavyset ghter from Baton Rouge.
Jones and Jordan met in the middle of the ring. Jordan threw rst.
Jones backpedaled and protected his face with his forearms.
"Look for that space, Jones!" Jackson hollered. "You. Do. Not let him
close those angles on you." Jordan threw a urry of blows. To me,
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/201207/cagematch
1/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
2/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
3/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
Ticket prices kept increasing. So did the size of the sport's fan base.
Among the many die-hard UFC fans was Rami Genauer, a journalist
based in Washington, D.C. Genauer had read
, Michael
4/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
type of strike (power leg versus leg jab, for instance) and the
nishing move (rear naked choke versus guillotine, and so on). The
process took hours, but the end result was something completely
new to the sport: a comprehensive data set.
Genauer titled his data-collection project FightMetric and created a
website to house the information. Some UFC fans registered their
disapproval on Web forums. "'We don't need math with our
ghting,' people would say. I disagreed," Genauer says.
In 2008 he managed to persuade the UFC to use FightMetric data
from past matches to support a televised event in Minneapolis. "The
idea was that this would be good for the producers, who could use
the numbers to illustrate the story," he says. "It'd also be good for
the broadcasterthey'd have ammunition, something to rely on just
like they do in other sports."
Of cials liked having Genauer's ght data, and when the UFC began
spif ng up its broadcasts with more graphics and statisticspart of
an effort to make MMA seem like a real sport instead of a series of
cage brawlsit hired FightMetric as its statistics provider. Genauer
quit his job and opened an of ce in D.C.
Today FightMetric has ve full-time staffers and a rotating cast of
15 specialists who collect a large data set for each ght using a
video feed, proprietary software and a video-game controller with
which they can record every type of strike. Among the statistics
they track: each ghter's number and type of strikes, number of
signi cant strikes (de ned as all strikes landed from a distance, as
well as power strikes landed from close range) and the accuracy and
location of kicks and punches.
The FightMetric team collects the strike and location statistics in
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/201207/cagematch
5/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
real time. The UFC uses some of the data for graphics during
broadcasts and on its website. FightMetric goes into even greater
detail on its own website, presenting statistics over outlines of a
human body. Colored lines indicate the accuracy of each type of
strike, and boxes show which ground move, whether arm bar,
kimura lock or triangle choke, each ghter used to try to induce a
submission. The analysis is strangely disconnected from the
violence of the Octagona savage ght broken down into simple,
neat gures.
As the available body of data from FightMetric (and its main
competitor, CompuStrike) grows, Genauer and others are
attempting to analyze it in new ways. Already Genauer and his
colleagues have identi ed some clear trends in MMA matches. For
instance, the number of ghts that end in decisions, especially at the
lower weight classes, has risen from a third in 2007 to half today.
That's a signi cant change from the wilder early days of the UFC,
when ghters swung crazily and the vast majority of bouts ended in
knockouts. It points to increasing skill levels among UFC ghters
(knockouts usually happen when one ghter is obviously superior to
the other), a factor that could affect ghters' styles and training
methods. A lighter-weight ghter, expecting now to go the distance
in his next ght, might accordingly develop his aerobic threshold (so
he can wear out bigger opponents) rather than his ability to throw
rst-round knockout blows.
Earlier this year, John Ruggiero and Trevor Collier, economists at
the University of Dayton, and Andrew L. Johnson, an engineering
professor at Texas A&M, released a study called "Aggression in
Mixed Martial Arts: An Analysis of the Likelihood of Winning a
Decision." With data from FightMetric, the researchers estimated
the probability of winning based on ghter characteristics like
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/201207/cagematch
6/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
rst
7/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
8/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
9/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
In early April Jon Jones defended the light heavyweight belt against
Rashad Evans. The ghters were once friends who trained together
under Jackson, but they'd had a falling out. In the weeks before the
bout, they spent plenty of time trash-talking each other in the
media. The ght was a true grudge match, as the UFC billed it, and
by the time Jones and Evans climbed into the Octagon at Philips
Arena in Atlanta, anticipation (and the noise level) was at a peak.
The ght opened slow. The ghters danced around each other
warily. Evans, shorter and stockier than Jones, snapped away with
his jab. Jones slipped around him, throwing a mix of "superman"
punches (a punch executed while leaping forward) and ying knees.
Near the end of the rst round, Evans caught Jones with his foot,
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/201207/cagematch
10/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
sending him off balance. The bell rang. Jackson was waiting for
Jones in the corner, a red cap pulled over his shaved head. His gaze
was intent. He knew Evans had a superb defense and fast hands,
limiting Jones's options. He began constructing a game tree in his
mind. In the rst node, the two men were squared off against each
other. Jones could punch away, but Evans would block most of the
blows. He needed to move to another node, one with more edges.
One node appeared optimal: If Jones could manage to get in
position to effectively neutralize both of Evans's hands, he might be
able to land at least one big shot. Jackson shouted in Jones's ear. His
student nodded.
Toward the end of the next round, Jones, heeding Jackson's advice,
squared up against Evans and extended both hands, open-gloved.
Evans matched him, and for a moment it looked as if the two men
were about to play patty-cake. This was the node that Jackson was
looking for. Evans was momentarily exposed. In dazzlingly quick
succession, Jones threw a right elbow, then a left, then another
right. Evans wobbled, and Jones surged forward with a knee and a
left hook.
By the third round, Jones had his opponent on the defensive. Evans
turned one way, and Jones was there. Turned another, and there he
was again. In the fourth, Jones buried his knee in Evans's stomach,
and the crowd, more than 15,000 strong, roared its approval.
At the end of the night, Jones was awarded a unanimous decision.
He would keep his belt. But it was the work of the FightMetric data
collectors, not the judges' decision, that revealed how truly
dominant Jones had been. Their report showed that he'd landed
116 strikes, 105 of which were deemed signi cant. Evans, by
comparison, landed only 49 strikes, 45 of them signi cant. Jones not
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/201207/cagematch
11/12
12/26/2015
CageMatch|PopularScience
only ran Evans ragged around the ring, but he also doubled his
output, continually nding the node where he could throw the most
blows.
A few days after the ght, I spoke to Jackson by phone. Already he
was dissecting what had happened, picking out the things that
Jones had done right to further hone his ght strategies. But he
realizes that a time will come when other trainers, eager to gain any
advantage they can, will begin to emulate his methods. Eventually
more and more mixed martial artists will base their training and
match plans on statistical probabilities instead of instinct and
tradition, raising the quality of competition.
That means Jackson will have to work harder than ever to stay on
top of the sport. But when I asked him how important winning is to
him, he got quiet. "Never put a node for victory," he said nally.
"That doesn't mean we don't want to win. I want my guys to be
thinking about trying to get to the strongest position they can, with
the most edges, over and over. Like any science, it's more about the
process than it is the outcome."
Among Righteous Men.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/201207/cagematch
12/12