Bad Statistical Measures in MMA

One that really stands out to me is TD Accuracy. It’s a pretty meaningless statistic. There is a reason that it has never been used in wrestling: TD artists aren’t measured by accuracy, as many TD artists succeed based on their follow up shots.

It doesn’t matter whether it takes one, two, or three attempts on the TD. It matters whether you get it eventually. Maia had a 100% TD rate v. Condit when they fought. But if it took him 3 attempts, the result would have been the same: Maia finishes Condit on the mat.

TD percentage is often about style. GSP’s perfectly timed doubles lend themselves to a higher TD percentage than Khabib’s shot-reshot-clinch-throw style. But if the fighter isn’t taking huge damage while making those attempts, what matters is what happens once they reach the ground.

Statistics like ground control time end up being much more meaningful. In the Khabib v. Edson fight, for instance, TD percentage isn’t valuable compared to “time on top” measures.

What other measures have little worth?

Do we have any idea what those stats were for that fight, especially round by round?

The closest thing we have to a ground control stat is number of passes per round, which did decrease as the rounds went on.

This is a different twist but I always think it’s funny when they say something like someone is 5-O in their last 5 fights, because it also obviously means they’re 5-1 in their last six fights, or worse.

Gartlin - This is a different twist but I always think it's funny when they say something like someone is 5-O in their last 5 fights, because it also obviously means they're 5-1 in their last six fights, or worse.

No doubt.