Selfishness. Old Age. Uncertainty With Two Outcomes. USADA.

Welcome back to MMA Beyond the Numbers. I hope I can bring some excitement into a week that has been dull and lacked anything newsworthy to talk about.

On that note, I’ll kick things off with how to appropriately deal with uncertainty when you’re trying to make actionable predictions, especially in an event with two possible outcomes.

Anderson Silva’s final fight also got me thinking about, steroids, mortality and Johny Hendricks, so I’ll get into those thoughts in the second and third sections.

On the menu for this week:
- Predictions With Uncertainty in Two-Outcome events.
- We’re Selfish About Fighter Retirement
- Victims of the USADA Era

Let’s get right into it, and as always please don’t hesitate to reach out with any feedback, criticism or topic ideas you’d like to read about in the future. Or praise. Especially praise.

Predictions With Uncertainty in Two-Outcome events.

This is a concept I talk about on my podcast, but I wanted to give it a bit more depth  especially because it applies to predicting anything, not just MMA bets.

The less information we have and the more uncertainty there is around an outcome, the closer we should be treating it to a 50-50 proposition, even if we know the real odds aren't 50-50. Because it's how I roll, here's a hypothetical example.

Let's rewind to 2014 and look at Demetrious Johnson vs Chris Cariaso. DJ closed as a -1450 favorite, Cariaso a +1150 underdog.

Now saw we take someone who knows 0 about MMA and has never heard of either fighter. We tell them how disparate the odds are, but we don't tell them who the favorite is. So they know the fight is incredibly lopsided, but they don't know in favor of whom.

Bring in a second person with the same complete lack of knowledge. If these two are making a bet on the fight, even though they know the matchup is absurdly one-sided, a bet at 50-50 odds would make sense for both of them.

This isn't just the case with a lack of knowledge, either, it also applies to high-variance and high-uncertainty events. Take Heavyweight fights for example. Even lower level Heavyweights have the kind of one-punch power to pull off big upsets. That's why we don't often see Heavyweights favored by the kind of huge lines we get in the lower weight classes, or in the women's weight classes where knockout power is much rarer.

Look at Stipe Miocic — arguably the best Heavyweight in UFC history. He closed as a favorite of more than -325 only twice — against Fabio Maldonado and (-650) and Phillip de Fries (-515). Even a mid-level Strawweight doesn't have too much trouble getting odds in that range. Angela Hill, for example, has been at least -325 twice since returning to the UFC in 2017.

Even if Stipe has a bigger edge in pure skill over his opponent than Hill, the increased variance that Heavyweight power brings would push the appropriate betting line closer to even than it would for Hill.

It's an extreme example, but look at Derrick Lewis vs Alex Volkov. That was one of the most one-sided Heavyweight fight's we've seen, and Volkov lost. Is it possible that we could see something similar in a Strawweight fight? Sure, but it's far, far less likely.

The less we know or the more variance and uncertainty there is around a two-outcome event, the closer we should treat it to being a 50-50 proposition for practical purposes.

If you want to watch someone much smarter than me talk about it (while looking like they’re recording a hostage video), check out Nassim Taleb’s video on pricing a volatile prediction market.

We’re Selfish About Fighter Retirement

With few exceptions, you don't become a professional athlete without absolute and total dedication to your sport. Not only just when you're participating, but in almost everything you do in your day-to-day life, and right down to your identity as a person. I've never been a pro athlete, but I was a college football player (yes, we have those in Canada), and even at that level your sport is at the core of your identity.

Even at that level, you see first-hand just how world-shifting (and sometimes shattering) it is for someone to lose that identity with a career-ending injury. Retiring from a sport can have a similar effect, and I suspect that's why we see so many pro athletes hang on longer than people say they "should."

That's also why the "should retire" label is so hard. What do fans mean when they say a fighter like Anderson Silva "should retire"? On the surface, most claims are that it's out of concern for the fighter's health.

But the lingering health effects of a physical sport go long beyond the final fight — and how many fans are really concerned with nagging injuries 10 years after someone retires?

It seems to me it's more that it's about the fan. The fan who wants a fighter to retire doesn't want to see them take more punishment. And I mean, that's totally fair. Watching Anderson Silva get finished by Uriah Hall felt bad. Watching B.J. Penn get finished by Yair Rodriguez felt bad. It's uncomfortable, and it's natural to not feel good about seeing that.

But at that point, I think we also need  to admit that we want the fighter to retire for selfish reasons. We're veiling it behind a concern for the fighter, but it's really about us.

Is it better for their long-term health not to suffer another knockout? Of course. But that's a conversation for the fighter and the people close to them. Every fighter, no matter how young, is risking life-altering injury because they want to compete.

Every fighter needs to draw a line somewhere when the risk is no longer worth the reward, absolutely. But that's an incredibly personal decision.

If Anderson Silva fights again and gets knocked out again, am I going to feel incredibly uncomfortable? Of course. But it would be selfish of me to think that my discomfort should have any bearing on one of the biggest, most difficult decisions of his life.

Victims of the USADA Era

Anderson Silva's prime/post-prime splits are obviously pretty dramatic. Whenever I post about them, the first replies are "It's almost like he stopped taking steroids." and "isn't then when USADA came in?"

The timing of USADA has hurt the reputation of a whole age-class of fighters — fair or not. I know Silva is a shaky example on the surface because he did test positive, but I also don't think that changes much. If anything ,testing positive in the USADA era is as close to proof as we'll get that his splits weren't "with vs. without steroids".

Consider that he was 38 years old the first time he fought Chris Weidman.

A mental game I like to play is thinking about whether the opposite of the explanation I believe is true would also make sense. If I could be 100% wrong and another simple explanation would be reasonable, I'm hesitant to be overly certain about my stance. Anderson Silva's decline started in 2013. If you believe that it was USADA-related, just play with the opposite idea. Would it make sense for him to fall off in 2013 even if USADA had nothing to do with it? At 38 years old? Absolutely that would make sense.

And what about someone who never tested positive. Johny Hendricks went from beloved for almost beating GSP to "obvious steroid cheat who wasn't as good after USADA". Even after GSP he fought 10 close rounds with Robbie Lawler and beat matt brown. Then his losing streak started in February 2016.

At that point, he was 33 years old. Far younger than Silva, and not an age at which everyone is past their prime. But what if we consider the opposite. Would it also be a reasonable explanation that a 33-year-old who had been wrestling (and putting his body through weight cuts) since high school was simply over the hill?

Could these guys' declines be a result of stricter PED testing? We can't rule that out, of course. But to assume it's true when it's just one of at least two reasonable explanations is something that is unfortunately common and working against the legacy of anyone who happened to be coming out of their prime at the same time stricter testing was enacted.

Discount

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read this week’s newsletter. I’d love to hear any and all feedback, suggestions or topic ideas, so if you have any please don’t hesitate to reach out with a DM on Instagram or Twitter (@numbersMMA on both) or with a reply to this email.

Washed up and retired from sports,
Jason