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Why The UFC Needs A New Weight Class

November 11, 2009, at 1:58 pm

There’s a new type of heavyweight in MMA. This heavyweight doesn’t see a 265 pound weight limit as a rule, he sees it as a guideline. This type of heavyweight will come to be the gold standard in MMA and guys like Fedor Emelianeko will begin to look like relics.

Weight cutting is common place in MMA. Maybe the casual observer doesn’t realize that the welterweight limit is “170 pounds” but, the guys standing in the ring on the day of the fight are often upwards of 185 plus pounds. Take rising star Anthony “Rumble” Johnson who has admitted that he’ll start his training camp (about six weeks before the fight) at 220 pounds. That’s 50 pounds over the weight limit! He probably gets down to about 200 pounds and then cuts water weight the rest of the way. If you weighed him on fight day it wouldn’t shock me if the scale tipped at about 195 pounds. That my friends is insane. In the ring he’s bigger then the allotted limit for Middleweights (185) and damn close to the limit for Light Heavyweight.

The problem doesn’t begin or end with Anthony Johnson. Every fighter cuts weight, you have to in order to maintain a competitive advantage. Weight cutting, however, never had really found it’s way to the heavyweight division. While Lightweights, welterweights, middleweights and light heavyweights always provide drama on weigh in day we never saw it with the heavyweights. Smaller weight classes get on the scales in the nude to shed that final pound, the big boys weigh in with jeans and sunglasses on.

Think of the elite heavyweights of the past few years; Randy Couture (220 pounds) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (230) Mirko Cro-Cop (230) Fedor Emilianeko (230) Andrei Arlovski (235)

Now look at the weight of the modern day heavyweight; Brock Lesnar (265) Brett Rogers (265) Shane Carwin (265) Antonio Silva (265) Ben Rothwell (265) Gabriel Gonzaga (260) Todd Duffee (250) Frank Mir (245) Stevan Struve (245) Cain Velasquez (240) Junior Dos Santos (240) Frabicio Werdum (240)

It’s not a coincidence that the first five guys on this list hit 265 on the nose. Call it the Brock Effect. Lesnar’s move to MMA brought weight cutting into vogue for heavyweights. Let’s look at Lesnars weight log (This info comes from Lesnar himself.)

Previous Weight Logs:

August 8 ‘08: 265lbs (Weigh In)
August 9 ‘08: 289lbs (Fight)

November 14 ‘08: 265lbs (Weigh In)
November 15 ‘08: 276lbs (Fight)

Recent Weight Logs:

July 10: 265lbs (Weigh In)
July 11: 287lbs (Fight)

August 18: 304lbs (Pre-Training Camp) (After Workout)
August 24: 298lbs (Pre-Training Camp) (After Workout)
September 1: 306lbs (Pre-Training Camp) (After Workout)

Much like Anthony Johnson, Lesnar is a gigantic heavyweight and it’s a big advantage. He walks around at 300 pounds, cuts to about 285 and then sheds the last 20 pounds in water weight. The result? A hulking 290 pound monster in the ring on fight day.

At UFC 91 Lesnar fought Randy Couture. Couture weighed 220, Lesnar weighed 276, that’s a 56 pound advantage. At UFC 100 Lesnar fought Frank Mir. Lesnar weighed 287 pounds, Mir weighed 245, that’s a 42 pound advantage.

The scary thing is not only is Lesnar improving in terms of skill but also in terms of figuring out how to cut weight. He jumped from 276 to 287 pounds between his fourth and fifth fight, is it out of the realm of possibility for him to be 295+ pounds in the ring during his next fight?

And so we have the “Brock Effect” it’s keeping up with the Joneses, bigger is better and if your not as big as Lesnar you don’t have a shot. If Lesnar fought ‘Nog or Fedor he would outweigh them by 60 pounds. Stop and think about that for a second. 60 pounds encompasses every weight division in the UFC. Would you honestly expect B.J Penn to have a chance against Lyoto Machida? Actually that happened and Penn got his head stepped on (and Machida only outweighed Penn by 50 pounds.)

Is Brock as skilled as Fedor or ‘Nog? Hell no. The problem is that Lesnar resides in his own weight class.

It makes no sense that weight classes go up by 15 pound increments yet heavyweight is left with a 60 pound range (and that doesn’t take weight cutting into consideration.) What if MMA moved the light heavyweight limit down 5 pounds to 200 (which would make sense considering it’s the only weight class that doesn’t go up the standard 15 pound increment) and added a cruiser weight division that caps at 225. Fighters like ‘Nog, Fedor, AA, Cro-Cop, Couture would have a home fighting against people their own size. While the monster heavyweights (Lesnar, Carwin, Rogers) would be fighting other 250+ monsters.

Who loses with this move? The fan would get more balanced fights, fighters who never had to cut weight would be inspired to get into better shape to meet the new weight limit and the UFC would have a shinny new title belt to headline cards.

Are we really ready to let weight determine fights instead of skill? If MMA continues on the path it’s on that will end up happening.

MLB

In Defense Of The Genre

By Jason Comack

July 28, 2009, at 3:00 pm

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It seems to have become popular to rip A’s GM Billy Beane. I can see why he’s an easy target. He’s more recognizable than 99% of GM’s, he’s had a book written about him (Moneyball) and soon it will be a motion picture. Stats in baseball, more so than other sports, seem to be polarizing. There seems to be very little in between either you are a SABERmatrcian or you are a fan of outdated illogical baseball (less than subtle jab.) But the argument against Beane and Moneyball (as highlighted by Howard Bryant on the front page of ESPN) seems to be missing a few key things.

Moneyballs subtitle was “the art of winning at unfair game.” What Billy Beane set out to do was exploit baseball by finding players that were undervalued by using statistics like on base percentage and slugging percentage. Remember 10 years ago talking about a pitchers BABIP would have made no sense. It’s why Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford were such valuable pieces of the A’s machine. They were effective, cheap and no one else wanted them. However part of Beanes problem was how influential he was. Moneyball, and Bill James work in general, launched a statistical revolution in baseball. Teams like the Padres, Red Sox, Indians, Yankees, Blue Jays, Rays, Giants all rely heavily on statistical analysis now. Beane let the secrets out of the cookie jar and it hurt him in the long run. Now Beane can’t exploit the draft like he use to because everyone is doing the same thing. Hell, even the big boys like the Yankees and Red Sox understand the value of draft picks. When teams all started to value these diamond in the rough players they in a sense became overalued. Smart teams, like the Rays, turned their attention to pitching, defense and base-running. The upstart 2008 Rays may have been the most athletic baseball team ever and it wasn’t by accident.

Now recently I wrote about Bronson Arroyo when the Yankees were apparently targeting him (although that turned out to be false.) I used two statsical mesasures, xFIP and Outside Contact% to show that Arroyo might not be as bad as most think. Mike Tramamasomethingorother of WCWP Sports took me to task in my evaluation of Arroyo.

Now I don’t like Arroyo at all, and his bloated ERA will atest to him not being very good. However, if you want to say his playing in Cincinnati is hurtful thanks to their homer friendly ballpark is a viable argument…to a point. Yet Jason begins using a stat called xFIP- or fielding independent pitching with a normalized home run rate. Hold on….WHAT?!?!

Ah, look it’s the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. “Now I don’t like Arroyo at all, and his bloated ERA will attest to him not being very good.” Wait…was that a statistic you used there Mike? Why should ERA be the measure by which you evaluate players.

ERA is a silly stat for a few reasons. 1) it doesn’t take park or league factor into effect. Pitching at Yankee Stadium is different than pitching at PETCO Park. 2) it doesn’t factor in defense. Is it a pitchers fault if Jason Giambi is playing first base as opposed to Mark Texieria? Why should the pitcher be penalized for things he can’t control? You are judging Arroyo by statistics just like I am except you’re only getting part of the picture.

Another perfect example is Ben Zobrist. Last time I checked 28 year old role players don’t become Albert Pujols overnight but if you judge Zobrist on, what I’ll call Mike T Surface Stats, his .301 average, 18 homers, 12 steals look really good. But, looking closer his .335 BABIP (or batting average on balls in play) is .35 points above league average. And an astonishing 22% of Zobrist’s fly balls are home runs (leauge average is about 12%) I’m sure these stats will back up any scouting report on Zobrist. He’s having a fluke season. And I can only hope that last paragraph made Mike’s head explode like the dude in Scanners.

It’s people like Mike Tramawhatever that perpetuate the myth that stats like Wins and RBI’s matter at all. While you can say “that xFIP is useless” I’ll say don’t be afraid of things you don’t understand. And while Beane has won “less than 1 world title” since 2000 so have the Yankees and Mets but they’ve spent a whole lot more money failing.

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