Merab, Jeff Molina's Max Holloway Impression, Takedowns are Good & PFL
Super busy week of work for me this week, so a bit of an abbreviated newsletter.
Jeff Molina …
… had an all-time striking volume performance on the UFC 261 prelims.
His 189 significant strikes landed were the most ever landed in a single UFC Flyweight fight (including 5-rounders). That was also the 11th most ever landed in any UFC fight (again, including 5-rounders). It was the 4th most ever landed in a 3-round fight.
An absurd 127 of those significant strikes came in just Round 3. That’s the third-most ever landed in a single UFC round. Only Max Holloway (134 in Round 4 vs Ortega, 141 in Round 4 vs Kattar) has ever landed more in a single round.
Merab Dvalishvili …
… has 54 takedowns landed through his 7 UFC fights. The next most takedowns landed through anyone’s first 7 fights in UFC history are Karo Parisyan’s 38.
The second-fewest fights ever required to reach 54 takedowns are 11, from Colby Covington.
Merab and Covington are the only two fighters in UFC history to land at least 54 takedowns in fewer than 13 fights.
At his current pace of 7.7 per fight, Dvalishvili is on pace to break Georges St-Pierre’s UFC takedown record of 90 in his 12th fight.
Landing Takedowns is a Good Thing
Inevitably, one reaction when I start talking about takedown volume is “that’s not a good thing, it just means he can’t hold his opponents down.”
People define “good” differently (eg. to some people winning only decisions is less good than winning 60% of your fights but only winning by knockout). But to me “good” means “good for winning fights.” And landing takedowns is absolutely good for winning fights.
Excluding no-contests, there have been 620 instances of a fighter landing 5+ takedowns in a single bout in the UFC unified rules era.
Those fighters have a combined record of 510-104 with 6 draws (82% win percentage) in that sample.
The win percentage climbs as we look at higher cut-offs.
6+ takedowns: 84.8%
7+ takedowns: 88.1%
8+ takedowns: 91.7%
9+ takedowns: 91.3%
10+ takedowns: 95.2%
11+ takedowns: 92.0%
12+ takedowns: 100%
If fighters who land more takedowns win more fights when they land those takedowns, it’s hard to argue that it’s not good to land lots of takedowns.
Main Events With UFC Newcomers
Jiri Prochazka is awesome, and I’m super excited about watching him fight. But I can’t help but be bummed out when we get a main event that I can’t analyze statistically, since Prochazka only has a one fight sample to draw from. Really hope other promotions keeping stats isn’t something that’s too far away in the future.
Speaking of other promotions with stats, though…
PFL 1
The PFL has my fix.
In the main event, Clay Collard out-landed Anthony Pettis 113-51 in total strikes. That -62 differential for Pettis would be the third-worst of his UFC career. Only Tony Ferguson (66) and Nate Diaz (119) out-landed him by more total strikes.
Natan Schulte is the PFL’s all-time takedowns leader, it was a surprising to see him attempt only 1 takedown in a decision loss.
Yours in a rush on a busy night,
Jason