Neither Georges St. Pierre nor B.J. Penn is the Best Fighter at UFC 94: Lyoto Machida Is

According to those statistical whizzes at Fight Metric:

One of the best ways to measure effective defense and dominance is to look at the number of strikes a fighter absorbs. Because of variable fight lengths, the easiest way to consistently calculate this is to figure the number of strikes absorbed divided by the number of minutes fought. That gives you the number of strikes absorbed per minute of fighting, which we abbreviate as SApM. Here are some SApM figures for the five current UFC champions:

Anderson Silva: 0.71 SApM
Georges St. Pierre: 1.01 SApM
BJ Penn: 1.23 SApM
Rashad Evans: 1.39 SApM
Frank Mir: 2.7 SApM

Let's wrap things up with two more fighters' numbers:

Fedor Emelianenko: 0.59 SApM
Lyoto Machida: 0.64 SApM

link

All that says is that he is the hardest person to hit at UFC 94,which im pretty sure we all knew already.
Good stats though

Interesting...good find

coolio

interesting but definitely not enough information to claim that he's the best fighter on the card.

Also somewhat surprising to see that Fedor gets hit even less than Machida. I would've expected it to be very low for sure, but lower than Lyoto? Surprising.

---

Posted by Aether

interesting but definitely not enough information to claim that he's the best fighter on the card.

Also somewhat surprising to see that Fedor gets hit even less than Machida. I would've expected it to be very low for sure, but lower than Lyoto? Surprising.

---

thats exactly what i thought, thats really mind boggling, but it speaks to how good fedor is, no one calls him a boring fighter or says he runs during a fight like they do machida.

Very interesting facts. I think its a bold statment but one i can get behind. Lyoto is one of my favorites and i think he will have a long reign as LHW champion very soon.

Very interesting statistic. Props to Fedor. He's fought some tough strikers.

Those statistics don't prove anything really, like said before all it means is he's hard to hit.Still I agree with the statement. I think with in the next few years he will be considered p4p.

Ah, don't forget, one can make stats to say whatever they want.


I think this show who is "A" better technical or "gym" fighter, not who is "THE" better fighter. It doesn't take into account heart, stamina, CHIN, etc...

Would one use this to say AA is a better fighter than Fedor, at least in their fight? Fedor had a higher SApM than AA, but boy o'boy, that 1 Shot was a doozy

I would like to see who has the best strikes avoided per minute / strikes landed per minute ratio

The stat is pretty interesting but it does not prove Machida to be the best fighter on the card at UFC 94. It proves he is very elusive and hard to put leather on. probably because he spends the bulk of his time avoiding engagement rather then initiating it.

GSP is top 3 in the world p4p....Machida would struggle to be in the top10-15.

While interesting, I do not agree that your numbers lead to a conclusion about who is the best. On the same site there is a different stat that lends itself to that kind of judgement. Total Performance Rating or TPR. Here is a quote from the site about what TPR is...
"The Total Performance Rating (T.P.R.) is a statistic used to measure the quality of a fighter’s performance. Scored on a scale between 0-100, T.P.R. provides an easy way to measure and compare performance in any single fight, whether 30 seconds or 30 minutes long. Consider T.P.R. to be for MMA fighters what the NFL’s Passer Rating is for quarterbacks.

T.P.R. takes advantage of FightMetric’s proprietary effectiveness algorithm and is made up of six components: Volume, Accuracy, Dominance, Win/Loss, Method, and Time.

Volume (40 possible points): How much effective offensive volume did the fighter produce compared to the average fighter?

Accuracy (20* possible points): How accurate was the fighter in all of his techniques compared to the average fighter?

Dominance (15* possible points): How does the fighter’s offensive volume compare to his opponent’s?

Win/Loss (5 possible points): Did the fighter win or lose?

Method (10 possible points): By what method did the fighter win or lose?

Time (10* possible points): How long did it take for the fighter to win or lose?

*Meaningful accuracy stats cannot be measured for a fighter who attempts less than 20 offensive techniques. In those cases, Accuracy does not factor into of the formula. Instead, Dominance has 25 possible points and Time has 20 possible points.

Weights for the components were informed by FightMetric analysis and results from a survey of over 200 MMA fans. Calculations are normalized using FightMetric’s database so that the average winner’s score should be 55 and the average loser’s score is 45.

A note on scores: T.P.R. only utilizes scores for HiPer techniques, that is, techniques that have historically resulted in a high percentage of fight endings. Scores for low percentage strikes and positional advances in bottom position are not included in T.P.R.’s Offensive Volume scores.

Total Performance Rating = D+V+A+W+M+T"

Here are the top four fighters and Machida as well as their average TPR:

Anderson Silva=76.6 avg. TPR (25 fights scored)
Fedor=86.0 avg. TPR (19 fights scored)
GSP=78.8 avg. TPR (19 fights scored)
BJ Penn=74.2 avg. TPR (18 fights scored)
Lyoto Machida= 72.8 avg. TPR (12 fights scored)


This system does not factor in quality of opposition, and does not curve the importance of more recent fights.

To say that Lyoto is the best fighter on the card crap. Lyoto and BJ fought each other and out of any one he is fought BJ fought him the best and I think he won the fight. This was a guy who moved up not one not two but four weight class to fight him. Lyoto is good but not the best fighter on the card.