Gambling on MMA 104: Striking

Promoted to the Front Page by Zak Woods

What's up peoples, Chad here, finally becoming a big boy and doing this for myself now. We've done away with the middle man.

You can read the first three articles in the series here 101, 102, and 103.

Striking in MMA and how to (or not too) gamble on it.  

4 ounces is all that separates an MMA fighter fastest and most accurate weapon from their opponent. The fighter has more powerful weapons such as knees, elbows, and kicks. However, the advantage these strikes have in power, they lack in speed and accuracy.

 4 ounces is also all that an MMA fighter has to protect them self from oncoming punches, kicks, knees, and elbows.  

What does this mean to striking in MMA?  And more importantly gambling on MMA?

Join me after this jump thing with me for that and more!

The less skilled striker will win more often in MMA (ground game and wrestling aside) than in boxing or kickboxing. This is because 4oz gloves provide a fighter with less margin of error than with the larger gloves in kickboxing or boxing.   In boxing, fighters wear larger gloves. common wisdom is that all else equal you'd rather receive a flush punch from a boxing glove than an MMA glove. Right? Bigger glove = softer punch? Wrong.

Sports Science and many of the other fighting shows have shown that the difference in force is negligible between the two types of gloves. Throw away your notions about how big the gloves are for a moment and think about the A to B distance from the knuckle of your hand to the part of the glove landing on the opponent. It's virtually the same amount of padding in each glove. However, we see more upsets due to strikes in MMA than we do in boxing? Why is striking skill less of an indicator of who will win in MMA than boxing/kickboxing?

The size of the glove.   I'll say that again, the size of the glove in MMA provides a fighter with a smaller margin of error when striking, NOT the amount of padding over the knuckle.  

Now to dissect a boxing glove, it's like wearing a giant pillow on your hand. Seriously, from my amateur assessment, a boxing glove has about twice as much (at least) surface area of your fist, back of your hand, wrist, and even the extra padding that curls over the your fingertips (probably the most important for my point). This being used defensively provides pure boxers and kick boxers with the padding and ability to deflect force that MMA gloves don't have.

Worst case scenario, if properly blocked with only a boxing glove (provided no force is deflected), The amount of padding the blow of the force has to be penetrate is much greater when compared to an MMA glove. In boxing it has to penetrate the padding on the back of the hand and the padding coming over the finger tips. In MMA the force of a strike only has to penetrate the back of the glove. The larger surface area of boxing gloves provides larger blocking coverage of the head and a greater chance of deflecting a blow (reducing the amount of force applied to the weaker spots of your face/head that you are covering). MMA glove's surface area being smaller provide a lesser chance of the blow being deflected. Also, a deflected punch with a boxing glove is more likely to slide almost completely away from the intended point of contact. With an MMA glove there is a greater chance that a deflected blow will land somewhere because of the smaller surface area of the glove.

A few examples.

Jens Pulver Vs. Joe Lauzon

Kevin Randleman Vs. Mirko Cro Cop

Gabriel Gonzaga Vs. Cro Cop

Randy Couture Vs. Tim Sylvia

Sokoudjou Vs. Little Nog

Sokoudjou Vs. Ricardo Arona

Matt Serra Vs. GSP

Houston Alexander Vs. Keith Jardine

Brett Rogers Vs. Andrei Arlovski

Go to any list of the greatest upsets in MMA history. You will find every one of those fights on the list. The outcome of each of these fights was changed with 1 strike. It pretty much ended the fight shortly after (with the exception of couture Sylvia, but Coutre still put Sylvia on the moon with that 1 punch, that left him on queer street for 24 minutes). The ones bolded are upsets from fighters perceived (or who actually do) to have worse technical striking than their opponent.

Rule 5A. Striking 'skill' is less reliable indicator of a winner in MMA than in any other striking sport.

Because there is less room for error with the smaller gloves of MMA, less technically proficient strikers will win more often. This might seem like an oxymoron, but a skilled striker will be less able to rely on his defense in MMA. With the greater chance of a strike slipping through, or being caught, striking proficiency has less to do with it.

Rule 5B. There is less margin for error (as a whole) in striking the heavier the weight class.

This one is a little bit more obvious, because the higher the weight class, the more power in the strikes.

Rule 5C. The more margin of error a fighter has, the more likely what *should* happen, will.

This means, a fighter who has more room for mistakes, has a smaller chance of losing to a less skilled striker. If Andrei Arlovski had an iron chin, he would of been able to fight through his mistake against Fedor and potentially win the fight (one he was dominating striking wise the entire time except for 1 strike). If GSP had a stronger head, he would of been able to take the strike that slipped by his guard and clipped him behind the ear, and possibly changed the outcome of the fight. The amount of force a fighter can take on the head or the chin accounts for a great deal of the margin of error so to speak of. So does the amount of force the other fighter can generate. A fighter can punch all day with perfect technique but if they are not able to knockout their opponent(for lack of force in their punches, or strength of my jaw) and the opponent only have to land 1 or 2 punches to end the fight. Well the opponent has a much greater margin of error than fighter with better technique.

So lamens terms? What does all of this mean?

5A. All else equal (wrestling, size, reach, every other factor in MMA) a better perceived striker will typically be overvalued. Im trying to say betting on a fighter because of better perceived striking will bring you less gains than it *should* or that you might think.

5B. Rule 5A, is more applicable to the heavier weight classes because of the smaller margin of error for those fighters. It is less applicable to the lighter weight classes.

5C. Rule 5A is more applicable to fighters with stronger heads/jaws. It is also more applicable to the opponents of fighters with little force in their strikes.

Well that does it for this edition of me ranting to the internet. Join me next time after I figure out what the hell I'm going to rant about way past anybody's attention span.