Whittaker/Gastelum, Penne/Cabbage, Skewed Samples and Bellator's Type
Whittaker/Gastelum, Penne/Cabbage, Skewed Samples and Bellator's Type
Whittaker and Gastelum Distance Striking
With Robert Whittaker boasting one of the highest takedown defense rates (84%) in UFC history, Gastelum averaging a middling 1.2 takedowns landed per 15 minutes and Whittaker averaging only 0.43 takedowns landed per 15, we’re likely to largely see a kickboxing match in this week’s main event.
With that being the case, we really want to be analyzing distance striking numbers this week instead of just significant strike numbers.
Gastelum is the slightly more efficient distance striker, with 40% accuracy and 63% defense rates, compared to Whittaker’s 38% accuracy and 64% defense.
Whittaker both attempts more distance strikes per minute (12.01 to 10.70) and faces fewer (9.40 to 9.46), however. (This is specifically per minute spent at distance, not per total fight minute, so it excludes grappling time). So even though he’s not quite as efficient, Whittaker out-lands his opponents by an average 1.17 distance strikes per minute, while Gastelum out-lands his by 0.81 per minute.
If we just look at Gastelum’s numbers since moving to Middleweight, his accuracy actually climbs to 42%, but his defense rate drops to 57%. His pace for attempts (9.16) and distance strikes faced (8.85) per minute both drop, and he out-lands his opponents by a very slight margin of +0.07 per minute.
It’s worth noting the way this sample is distributed (more on that concept later in the newsletter re: Bartosz Fabinski), however. Gastelum has spent 4,354 seconds fighting at distance at Middleweight, and 31.6% of that time (1,377 seconds) was against Israel Adesanya — one of the most efficient strikers in the history of the division.
But even if we remove that fight from his record entirely (not good practice, considering we’re not removing Whittaker’s toughest fight to compare), Gastelum’s numbers still don’t match Whittaker’s, out-landing his opponents by 0.28 distance strikes per minute (with 42% accuracy and 59% defense).
The edges in these numbers aren’t huge, but Whittaker certainly has the clear statistical edge in this matchup.
Analytics Package
The UFC doesn’t list specific distance striking numbers anywhere, only giving fighters’ overall significant strike numbers. That’s why I’ve created an advanced analytics subscription that gives you access to distance strike stats, my own advanced analytics (like Striking Efficiency vs Expectation) and the typical significant strike numbers. Basically, every number I use when analyzing fights, and then some more.
You can click this link to subscribe, which provides a significant discount (monthly subscription is the price of just two single events, and the yearly subscription is the price of 11 months). If you just want to try out a single week, you can find that by clicking this link.
Kevin Holland …
… now ranks 215th in UFC history in total fight time. The amount of control time he has allowed ranks 21st in UFC history.
Not All Samples Are Created Equally
For most UFC stats, the cut-off to qualify for the official leaderboard is five fights. Having reached that in his last UFC outing, Bartosz Fabinski now holds the record for highest control rate in UFC history, at 81.9%.
But looking at the distribution of Fabinski’s control time across his five fights, it highlights a possible landmine with sample size.
Fabinski’s three wins (his first three UFC fights) have accounted for 92.3% of his total fight time — 45 minutes, compared to 3 minutes and 44 seconds in his two losses.
The way control rate works rewards him for losing quickly (and/or not winning quickly).
Let’s flip the script to see how much the results of those fights impact the rate. If he had submitted Garreth McLellan, Hector Urbina and Emil Meek all in the first round, his control rate would suddenly drop drastically. And if his losses had gone longer, the opponents he couldn’t defeat would have had a chance to hurt his control rate.
This isn’t to say he’s not going to keep up an elite control rate over a larger sample — there are four fighters in UFC history that have a rate above 60% on at least 10 career fights, and another 10 over 50% in 10+ fights. But one of the most important things to when analyzing any stat is acknowledging the ways in which it may be skewed or even misleading.
Jessica Penne and Cabbage Correia
There have been 25 fights in UFC history with a significant strike differential of at least 100.
10 of those 25 were full 5-round decisions. 2 (Holloway vs Aldo, Holloway vs Ortega) ended in the championship rounds. 11 went 15 minutes.
That leaves only two fights with a differential of at least 100 in under 3 rounds.
The first was Tim Sylvia out-landing Cabbage Correia and absurd 138 to 26 in under 7 minutes in Sylvia’s UFC debut.
The second was Jessica Penne getting out-landed 126 to 25 by Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Bellator Has a Type
With Corey Anderson and Phil Davis in action this week, I figured I’d highlight some interesting common threads in the former UFC Light Heavyweights they’ve signed.
If we exclude retired fighters (Rashad Evans, Patrick Cummins, Tito Ortiz and Matt Hamill), that leaves us with four Light Heavyweights in UFC history with 30-plus takedowns. One is Jon Jones (42), the other three are in Bellator: Corey Anderson (53), Ryan Bader (46) and Phil Davis (31).
The Bellator LHWs are also all over the UFC LHW leaderboard for takedown accuracy: 1st is Lyoto Machida (65.0%), 3rd is Corey Anderson (50.0%), 6th is Ryan Bader (44.2%). Two of the other three fighters in that top six are retired. (The other is Jan Blachowicz).
Davis (72.3%) and Bader (71.8%) also have the two highest significant strike defense rates in the history of the division. Machida (65.0%) is 10th.
Davis, Bader and Machida also all rank in the top five for fewest significant strikes absorbed per minute.
Obviously Anderson, Bader, Davis and (to a lesser extent) Machida all had reputations as relatively unexciting fighters. Dominant wrestling and effective defense don’t make for the most exciting fights in the world if you’re not a wrestling fan, but those are impressive stats none the less.
Until next week, and still confused that Corey Anderson fought Melvin Manhoef in 2021,
Jason