At the gym today, a few of us had an argument as to what was the most common end to a fight...submission, KO/TKO, or decision? I argued that it was KOs, a couple said submissions, and there are a few on the fence. I honestly didn't know what the answer was so when I got home, I decided to find out. What was originally intended to be a simple poll of the last few events turned into an activity of gathering data from the past UFC events since 2005! Anyways, enough yammering, here are my results...

The following is an aggregation of all of the UFC events from 2005 until the time of this post. That starts at UFC 51 which took place in February of 2005 all the way up until UFC 96 that just happened a couple of weeks ago. Also, I only count the big shows, i.e. I don't count the TUF Finale's, or Ultimate Fight Nights either. So, all-in-all, this data spans 46 events, and over 400 fights.

Overall Wins by Type

Summary
This simple graph answers the big question: what is the most common type of win in the UFC? At least since 2005, KOs and TKOs take the cake with over 40% of fights ending with knockout stoppages. Surprisingly though, decision wins came second, beating out submission wins by almost 10%!

Win Type by Weight Class

Summary
How to read this graph: each color is a weight class, and the three groupings separate the different types of wins. So, looking at the chart, we can see that middleweights do the most submissions contributing roughly 27% of all submissions, and light-heavyweights contribute the most to KOs and TKOs at 27% and 24% respectively. And, surprisingly (at least to me), lightweights and welterweights were the biggest contributors to decisions! I didn't expect that...

Win Types over Time by Event

Summary
Finally, I created this last graph in the hopes that I could see some trends in win-types over time. I do see a sharp dip in decision wins, with an equally sharp rise in knockout wins right at the end. Overall, it does seem a little sporadic though. However, I can see a more consistent, gradual decrease in submission wins starting around UFC 85. I'm no statistician so these are all just hunches to me. You can make your own conclusions...

There you have it. If you've ever wondered to yourself these same questions, then hopefully you've found your answers. Some of these results definitely surprised me, but then again, you can't really argue with the numbers. If anyone has any questions or comments, feel free to share!

^*During this whole process, I've gathered some really interesting data, more than necessary for this single post. This was just a cursory glance at win-types in the UFC, but I am planning on writing a more in-depth look at similar trends across the same numbers. Until next time.

Charles

E3 2007 wasn’t too long ago, and there were a LOT of big names that showed up. Aside from the Halo 3’s and the Metal Gear Solid’s making an appearance, one game that really piqued my interest was a new old game from THQ. They were the previous developers of UFC: Tapout and UFC: Tapout 2, the first receiving very admirable reviews, while the second receiving less-than-desirable reviews for not pushing the envelope and keeping gameplay generally the same as its predecessor. They promptly stopped the series and left the niche-crowd (including myself) at a loss. But, low and behold, with the rising success of UFC and mixed-martial-arts in general, they’ve revived the title from the grave, and the trailer looks great!

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21750.html

The big question for me is, can this be the next Fight Night? That may seem like a very optimistic question, seeing as how Fight Night is one of EA’s best-selling games, is one of my favorite games, and not to mention, is developed by *the* largest gaming company in the world. Having said that, the UFC 2009 trailer left me with a Fight-Night’ish taste in my mouth, and that’s a good thing. The character movements were smooth, the fighters looked great, and they even had the face deformations that made Fight Night so realistic! Also, UFC has been dominating the Pay-Per-View grounds where boxing events once reigned. Alright. So the graphics are great, the industry has momentum, but there are two other big factors that will come into play that we won’t yet know about until the game’s release…gameplay and depth.

Gameplay can easily and obviously make or break the game. When I say gameplay, I mean how does the controller *control* the fighter? In previous titles in the series, it was the standard controls for any game…thumbsticks move and look, buttons punch and kick. But what we’ve learned from Fight Night is the thumbsticks can be used in much more realistic and entertaining ways…left-thumbstick left hand, right-thumbstick right hand. Now imagine THQ taking some of EA’s vision and applying it to UFC 2009. Left-thumbstick left-hand, right-thumbstick right hand, trigger-left-thumbstick left foot, trigger-right-thumbstick, right foot! This opens up a whole new can of worms for fight simulation games, but I don’t know if THQ has the experience or a developer-pool deep enough to implement this, at least not for it’s first release back.

The second factor is depth. For any fans out there, mixed-martial-arts is far from simple. I am a big enthusiast and have been following the sport for a long time, and I am STILL learning the moves. Put simply, if they make the game too deep and technical, the average joe-schmoe watches-ufc-for-fun player won’t enjoy the game. Almost a little like popping in Madden for the first time…it’s intimidating and almost not enjoyable for the first little while. But on the flip-side, if they make the game too simple, they will lose interest from the target-audience, i.e. the UFC and fight-fans out there.

In short, when I think if UFC 2009 can be the next Fight Night, I think no…not YET. But, I think that the series CAN be…possibly after a few more title releases :)

^*Update: It looks like Cage Potato has found some info on the release date for the game! According to this post, we can expect to hear an official release announcement at UFC 84 slated for May 24^th, 2008. Yeesh, if this is right, then we probably won't get our hands on the game until at least the end of the year, or beginning of next year :s

Charles