Most team sport organizations focus on seasonal success. If you have a bad year, you can make it up next year. The historical statistics of the teams still exist but each year it’s basically rinse and repeat for a shot at success.
In MMA, your losses stay with you forever despite the year, league, rule set, etc.
What’s crazy to think is MMA records are taken from all sorts of fighting leagues with totally different rule sets. For example, in PRIDE FC you could kick or knee a downed opponent. That rule alone changes the game dramatically. Then take a league like International Vale Tudo Championship, they allowed bare knuckles and headbutts! If modern day UFC allowed headbutts it would be a completely different sport imo.
Then we had a lot of older events that held Tournaments... a fighter would have to fight up to 3 times in 1 night, or have to fight with no time limits. We saw a lot of losses happen strictly due to fatigue.
Wanderlei Silva’s first loss came from an IVC tournament final in which he fought with headbutts 3 times in 1 night.
I know there aren’t many fighters still competing from tournaments and headbutt leagues, but the unified rules of MMA are still rather new. We see in other sports leagues use “modern era” statistics because their game rules have changed over the years.
What do you think about the record system in MMA? Boxing has the same system but they have kept the same rule set for the most part.
Should tournament losses be on the same record as regular bouts?
Would you like to see seasonal and/or organizational records instead of all-time records?
I guess the difficult part would be that sometimes guys get injured and maybe only fight once in a year. Also how would the record display when that fighter is being announced in the cage? Only the record relevant to the ruleset for the organization they are competing in?
Generally I think tournament bouts should be separate from standard fights because the tourney itself is specific to one goal (tournament champ) whereas a regular fight is just a fight.
I appreciate the feedback. I was just brainstorming the idea. I was thinking an “organizational record” could help better market the fighters. Some of these lower level outdoor tent events do not have professional level of refereeing or judging. But a pro win is a pro win. .
While not the best example, Jon Jones wasn’t able to be marketed as “Undefeated champion” because one of that 12-6 elbow, but others such as Hendo, Vitor, Wand, etc were carrying wins accomplished via headbutts, hair pulling, and face stomps! lol
Maybe just the record for their last 10 fights? If you just display UFC record then Jiri’s debut would have been 0-0 against 5-3 Volkan, looks odd as opposed to a more relevant 10-0 vs. 6-4. I do think promotions outside the unified rules should have separate records though, like ONE.
There is still a very shady side to the regional scene. Its very easy to get a padded record in MMA but seems it’s happening less frequently with high level guys.