Title Writing: Numbers for Nerds 3 "Submissions 2006/2007"

This post was edited and promoted from the Fanshots by Cory Braiterman.

Hello,

This is the third article in a weekly series meant to test the validity of various parts of the MMA gospel using statistics. The first article looked at when a submission was most likely to be successful and the second article took that a step further, exploring what type of submission was the most successful. In the comments section of the second post, Rainer Lee wondered what the numbers from five years ago would look like and I agreed to take a look at them. Compared to today the UFC was putting on far fewer events per year, Strikeforce had just started promoting shows and Pride was still active. As such I decided to combine 2006 and 2007 together and I looked at all the fights put on by Strikeforce, Pride, UFC and EliteXC during those years.

Here are the numbers:

197 fights ended in submission.
135, or 68%, ended in the first round.
48, or 24%, ended in the second round.
14, or 7%, ended in the third round.
No fights ended in the fourth or fifth rounds.

When you compare those numbers to the 2011 numbers, they are almost identical. The biggest difference in terms of percentages was in first round submissions. Of fights that ended in submission, 5% more ended in the first round in 2006/07. As for the second and third rounds, the differences were negligible.

In 06/07, the average length of a fight that ended in submission was 4:40 seconds.
In 2011, the average length of a fight that ended in submission was 5:15 seconds.

Again, not much of a difference here either. One thing I didn't do in the first two articles was figure out what percentage of all bouts ended in submission, so I thought I'd figure that out this time around.

In 06/07 there were 597 fights. 197, or 32%, ended in submission.
In 2011 there were 625 fights. 166, or 26%, ended in submission.

So we can see right away that less fights are ending in submission nowadays. Taking it a step further and just looking at first round submissions:

22% of all fights in 06/07 ended via first round submission.
16% of all fights in 2011 ended via first round submission.

This seems to suggest that submission defense is improving. To make sure that this is the case, I looked at the type of submissions being landed. Remember that 50% of successful subs in 2011 were either by Guillotine or RNC. I theorized that this was because with both the Guillotine and RNC your opponent has likely suffered damage from strikes immediately preceding the submission attempt. What kind of submissions were being landed in 06/07?

Rear Naked Choke - 65
Armbar - 38
Guillotine - 19
Triangle - 15
Strikes - 12
Kimura - 11
Arm Triangle - 8
Ankle Lock - 4
Heel Hook - 4
Injury - 4
Anaconda - 3
Americana - 2
Triangle/Armbar - 2
Von Flue Choke- 1
Toe Hold - 1
North South - 1
Neck Crank - 1
Kneebar - 1
Keylock - 1
D'arce - 1
Achillies lock - 1

In the comments section last week, Mr. Lee stated:

My impression lately has been that there used to be a lot more arm-centric submissions than there are today.

He is exactly correct. Rear Naked Chokes were still the most successful submission. Strangely enough they comprised 32% of all submissions in both 2006/07 and 2011. Things get muddled after that though. In 06/07, Armbars were next, at 19% of all submissions, while Guillotines made up 9%. This year those numbers basically flip flopped. 17% of all subs landed were Guillotines, while 10% were Armbars. Something seems to be happening but I'm not satisfied that it is simply a case of submission defense improving. If that were the case I would expect the distribution of the various submissions to be roughly the same.

Many questions come to my mind:

• Were there less takedowns (and less opportunities for guillotines?) in 06/07?
• Are fighters being stood up more (more opportunities for takedowns/guillotines) nowadays?
• There are certainly more wrestlers in the sport today, where as in 06/07 there would have been more jiu jitsu players. Are wrestlers less aware of the guillotine than jiu jitsu guys? Is it a matter of wrestlers shooting double and single legs more often?
  
• At the same time, due to their powerful base are wrestlers better at defending armbars?
• Are fighters today better at defending armbars?
• Are fighters today worse at applying armbars?
  
  

As always I seem to end up with more questions than answers. In order to get a more complete picture I feel like I need to look at what was happening in between 2007 and 2011 as well as what was happening in the years prior to. Next week I'm going to cover 2008-2010 and the week after that I'm going to do the entire history of submissions in Pride Fighting Championships.

In the meantime, what do you guys make of this?

Thanks for reading. All comments and criticisms are welcomed.