Force vs Finesse: An Analysis of What Makes the Ideal MMA Fighter

When I was younger I occasionally watched boxing, but did not really enjoy it due to the slow pace and one-dimensionality of the sport. I watched my first UFC fight in seventh grade out of pure curiosity and was immediately hooked. Mixed Martial Arts(MMA) is everything that boxing is not: exciting, multi-dimensional, and the true embodiment of a real-life fight. There is a huge misconception amongst a lot of the public that people only watch MMA for blood and violence, but this is completely baseless: personally, I enjoy the sport due to the array of skills and techniques that the athletes put on display. The sport has so much to offer other than people punching each other in the face: precision beats power and timing beats speed. Physical strength is not a necessity, a contest can just as easily be won with finesse, in the form of a submission. Due to my passion and fascination surrounding MMA, this is the actionable question which I decided to pursue: Which physical attributes and specific combination of fighting disciplines make someone an elite UFC fighter? At first I wanted to research this question across the entirety of MMA, but I realized that this would be too difficult so I narrowed down my question to focus on the largest MMA promotion, the UFC. Also, I further narrowed my research by only focusing on 4 weight classes: flyweight(FW), lightweight(LW), welterweight(WW), and heavy weight(HW). I chose these four weight classes because they best represent the range of weight classes in the UFC by taking care of the most extreme(FW, HW) and the middle fighting weights(LW, WW).

Although the UFC is extremely popular, MMA was only created in 1993 and is still in its infancy relative to sports like Basketball and Football. As a result, there are not many resources that directly answered the question I was researching. Luckily, I found sources that explored the martial arts which make up MMA on ABC-CLIO. However, I needed resources which provided detailed statistics for individual fighters in the UFC to answer my question and these were quite hard to find. At last I found a resource that had all of the detailed statistics that I needed on the UFC’s very own site. The only issue was that the information was not aggregated in one place: rather, all the statistics were spread across hundreds of individual fighter’s pages on website. To solve this issue, I decided to put to use some of the skills I learned this year and write a Python script that scraped the UFC website for the statistics I needed. The program not only made it so that I would not have to manually collect data from hundreds of fighters but also made it so that the data was a lot easier to analyze and draw conclusions from. In addition to this I found some more general fighter statistics on foxsports.com after googling “UFC Fighter Statistics”. Also, after searching “MMA Analysis” on YouTube, I watched many analysis videos by MMA expert and Commentator, Joe Rogan, which provided me with a greater understanding of MMA fighters’ mindsets and strategy.

Fighting in the UFC can be broken down into two main categories which each have several disciplines falling under them: they are called “the stand-up” and “ground game”. The stand-up encompasses Boxing, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, Karate, and the clinch. On the other hand, the “ground-game” comprises of wrestling, brazilian jiu-jitsu, and judo. Most fighters start off being especially proficient in one of these disciplines and then gradually add other aspects to their game. The four most commonly used martial arts in the UFC are Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and in most cases for a fighter to be elite they must be at least partially proficient in each one of these disciplines. While it is not as important to have mastered a specific stand-up martial art as long the fighter knows various striking and defending techniques, the same cannot be said for the ground-game. Wrestling and brazilian jiu-jitsu both involve a lot of skill and if the fighter is not proficient with either they will get completely picked apart.

Boxing is a sport that involves throwing punches above the waist at an opponent, and it has been around almost as long as human civilization, with evidence that the ancient Sumerians boxed circa 3000 BC. Naturally, boxing makes up a large part of an MMA fighter's stand-up game because punches and are the most rudimentary form of striking and are the easiest way to knock an opponent out out. There are two main differences between pure boxing and boxing used in MMA: first, boxers use large gloves ranging from 8 ounces to 12 ounces which greatly reduce damage dealt while the UFC uses small, 4 ounce gloves. Second, boxing in the UFC is a lot more reserved than in actual boxing because fighters have to be aware of takedown attempts and other types of strikes, thus limiting the range and effectiveness of boxing. However, if a fighter wants to have a legitimate knockout ability, it is imperative that they are proficient in boxing.

The second area that makes up the majority of the stand-up game is Muay Thai. This martial art originated in Thailand around the 18th century and focuses on the use of punches, kicks, knees, and elbows.Muay Thai is more fully utilized in the lower weight classes where movement, speed, and striking precision can play a larger role in victory than power, but it still has an influence on the kicks thrown in higher weight classes. Muay Thai is an extremely dangerous tool when used correctly because striking so many unexpected, creative strikes can be thrown such as the spinning backfist and the flying knee, which catch opponents off guard. Muay Thai is important for UFC fighters to know because it introduces a whole myriad of dangerous strikes that fully use the human body and open up opponents to takedown attempts and knockouts while also making them weary of charging into their opponent.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu’s rise came at the same time as the UFC’s debut: in fact, the UFC was created by the Gracie family in order to showcase that Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) could be used to beat any type of fighter, even ones who are much larger. BJJ is a martial art that's focal point is on ground fighting with techniques including submission holds, joint locks, chokes, and throws. The driving idea behind BJJ is to maximize force applied using mechanical advantage instead of raw physical strength.BJJ’s value comes in the fact that if a specialist can get their opponent to the ground, then they will almost certainly win, even if they are physically disadvantaged. BJJ is widely used in the UFC, and fighters who do not know how to defend against it are always thoroughly exposed. A countless number of fearsome power punchers, including Conor McGregor, have been pacified due to their inability to defend against BJJ.

Wrestling is an ancient sport that has been around since before the Romans: the focus of this sport it to gain a superior position through grappling, throws, pins, and holds. Wrestling is often considered the most important aspect of mixed martial arts because it can neutralize any skill set by giving the fighter complete control of the stand-up, clinch, and ground-game, if utilized correctly. The massive number of successful fighters who have come into the UFC as wrestling specialists is a testament to how effective it is.

Another major aspect of fighting is stance: the fighter stance determines which techniques they can utilize and how vulnerable they are to their opponents attacks. The three main stances are orthodox(lead with left hand), southpaw(lead with right hand), and switch (southpaw and orthodox) which each have many variations within them. According to UFC data, southpaws beat orthodox fighters 54% of the time, switch stance fighters beat orthodox fighters 54% of the time and southpaws 59% of the time. In theory it makes sense that switch stance fighters are marginally more successful than fighters of other stances because they have greater versatility in their striking and defence.

After doing a thorough breakdown of every aspect of Mixed Martial Arts, it is evident that there is a clear template for prototypical MMA star, but this template varies slightly between weight classes. However, across all the weight classes, the following remains constant: starting with age, fighters under 30 win 55% of the time against opponents over the age of 30. Next, having a 3.5+ reach advantage over the opponent gives a fighter roughly a 70% chance of winning, historically. Also, even though both fighters have to weigh in at a certain amount the day before the fight, nothing is stopping them from gaining mass after the weigh in. Therefore, the fighter that puts on more weight before the fight will have a massive advantage when it comes to controlling the clinch and the ground-game. Height on the other hand does not correlate with having a better record: the perfect example of this is Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier. Surprisingly, there was no major correlation between being having a better fighting record and having a higher striking accuracy, except when it comes to head strikes. This may be due to the fact that the power of the strike is far more important than if it lands. Additionally, this could be due to the fact that in higher weight classes, fighters typically have poor cardio, causing them to miss more punches. Another interesting fact is that ¾ of the champions in the weight classes I looked at started their careers as wrestlers and added striking to their repertoire later. A major commonality between fighters with better record is that they have better takedown defence percentages, so even if a fighter is not good at taking down an opponent it is extremely important to be able to prevent it. Putting all of this information together, this is what the ideal UFC fighter would look like: young(under the age of 30), have a massive reach, have a weight advantage, a speciality in wrestling, a switch stance, striking power(discipline type is not important), striking accuracy to the head, striking variety, and very good takedown defence(90%+).