Title Writing: Numbers For Nerds 6 'Jackson's MMA: Myth or Legend?'

Numbers for Nerds is a weekly series that uses statistics to test various parts of the mixed martial arts gospel. Last weeks installment can be found here.

Yesterday on Head Kick chris81203 wrote a very good article challenging the reputation of Greg Jackson as a master strategist. This reputation was built on the shoulders of Georges St. Pierre, who has become synonymous with fighting safe and smart. Chris used Leonard Garcia, who fights neither safe nor smart, and the lack of on-the-fly adjustments in Donald Cerrone's recent fight with Nate Diaz as examples to show that Jackson may not be all he is cracked up to be as a game planner.

Chris' article led me to look at Jackson's win/loss record. As of September 2007, according to Sherdog's database of team records, Jackson's fighters were winning 81% of the time. Today, his fight team has a lifetime winning percentage of 71%. The 10% drop was all I needed to convince me that this subject merited some in-depth research.

After the jump I take a closer look at the results of Jackson fighters in the past two years.

In order to evaluate Jackson's abilities as a game planner, I think there are a few important statistics to take into account. As mentioned, I started with his win/loss record. The Sherdog numbers are lifetime and also include smaller shows that I don't see as fully relevant, so I narrowed it down to just his UFC and WEC wins and losses.

Second, I looked at the camp's finishing rates as compared to the rest of the UFC. If Jackson advocates doing the bare minimum to get the decision, you would expect to see his fighter's go to decision more often than everyone else in the UFC. You might also expect that they would lose more often by decision than by finish, since fighting safe promotes going to a decision.

Finally, I looked at the record of his fighters in the fights that went to decision. All things being equal having the superior strategy should get you the nod, should the fight go to the judges. I didn't compare this to the rest of the camps out there but I did think it would be interesting to see what was happening to his fighters when the fight went the distance.

I chose to limit my research to 2010 and 2011 in an attempt to keep it focused on his current roster of fighters and also because his reputation has only come under scrutiny in the past few years. Here are the results:

1. Win/Loss %

Jackson's camp is finding it harder and harder to maintain their sublime winning percentage from back in the day. In the past two years Jackson's gym has won 62% of the time out, with a record of 52-30-2. If you took away Jon Jones and Georges St. Pierre they would be a very pedestrian 51%.

2. Finish % vs the rest of the UFC

Of all the fights involving a Jackson's fighter, 58% of the time the fight was finished inside the distance. During the same stretch, 52% of all UFC fights were finished inside the distance. Of those fights that were stopped, Jackson's was on the winning side 67% of the time (33-16). This leads us to the final statistic:

3. Win/Loss % in Decisions

The camp had a 57% victory percentage in fights that went to decision over the past two years, (19-14).

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So what to make of these numbers? First of all it should be stated right away that the rest of the MMA world has caught up to Greg Jackson and his team. The days when a Jackson's fighter entered the cage almost assured of a win are long gone. The idea that he favors a safe fighting style? The evidence does not support this, at least not over the past two years. Jackson's fighters not only finish fights more often than the average UFC fighter, they lose more often by finish than they do by decision. As for the notion that Jackson is a master game planner? There isn't much there to support that either. His fighters are winning decisions more often than they are losing them, but certainly not by much.

Is it possible that Jackson has changed his ways in the past few years in an effort to produce more finishes and those changes are responsible for the drop in overall winning percentage? It could very well be the case. What about the notion that he is the Phil Jackson (a good coach made great by the talent that he has to work with) of the MMA world? When I look at the 9-0 record that Jon Jones and GSP have compiled over the past two years, I tend to think that might be the case.

Whatever the explanation may be, what Chris suggested through anecdotal evidence seems to be borne out by the scientific evidence I gathered. Greg Jackson is not the master of all things MMA that he is made out to be. He might once have been, but he certainly is not anymore.

Thanks for reading. Comments are welcomed below!