The Numbers Don't Lie: My Journey in Understanding Statistics

I've been at this blog for sometime and I have been really trying figure out why I' am so bad at my picks.  I've been recognizing my bias  I think jiu-jitsu specialist will always pull off an amazing submission and my other problem is my fandom also gets in the way. I've started to go back on my picks to see why I thought X was going to beat Y.  What were my preconceptions. Where did I get those preconceptions and were those thoughts valid.  One fight in particular that I went back to analyze was the Clay Guida vs Erik Koch.  I thought based on Clay Guida's last fight with Brian Ortega that Guida's chin was gone and he was aging out of the sport.  I was wrong in this assumption but the odds makers made the same assumption. But I went back and looked at that Ortega/Guida fight.  Guida looked great in the first round.  He dropped Ortega in the 1st. The second was up for grabs but I gave Guida the nod for the 2nd round.  Ortega did his thing and pulled out another late round finish after pressuring Guida landing a devastating knee to put Guida away.  Understanding how dangerous Ortega was off his back, Guida really didn't commit to takedowns out of fear of being submitted.  Take that into account Guida not having one of his tools at hand and winning the striking for 2 out of 3 rounds.  Guida had a better shot than expected and proved that during the Koch fight. I learned that I really need to take stock of the fighter's ability based on their performance rather than inserting my own narrative with any analysis.

After recognizing that another problem with my picks is my lack of total recall of every round in a fight.  There are a lot of fights.  The UFC puts on fights every week and a lot of time I've got a decent buzz on so its hard to remember every round of every fight.  I do re-watch parts to jog my memory but that's also time consuming as well.  So I decided to go on to FightMetric and look up the actual stats for each fight.  I noticed that they gave access to the fight data for academic purposes.  They had an article titled "Predictive Modeling of Mixed Martial Arts Fights Using Novel Fight Variables" I started reading the article and quickly found that I had no idea what those formulas meant.

After that I was a man on a mission. Understanding that building my own model combined with my actual fight knowledge. I would eliminate my bias and increase the accuracy of my fight picks.  I found an online course through the UT Austin called Fundamentals of Data Analysis.  Its great course I'm learning the basics right now but it uses a data modeling program called "R".  So by the end of the course I should be well on my way to building my own model.   I'm quite excited about learning this material. This has probably been the first time I've enjoyed learning in a long time.  I went through college begrudgingly especially graduate school.  The only thing that kept me motivated in Grad School was understanding the government was paying for my degree and if I did not pass I would have to pay for it on my own.  The self pacing of the course is a gift and a curse.  It gives me flexibility but had a bit of a break as of late.  Work has been busy but its going to slow down again and I can start teleworking again which will allow me to work on me to wrap up these stat classes. 

Fuck Jon Jones

The B sample came back positive.  Hearing the news, my thoughts were poor D.C.  He went through so much pain and sorrow after that loss.  He looked so good in that fight. He didn’t let Jon hold him against the cage, like the first fight. He was connecting with his strikes, even knocked out Jon’s mouthpiece at one point.  He looked great in the fight up until that head kick.  Now to find out that Jones had taken a performance enhancing drug. All I can say is Fuck Jon Jones.  I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I try to put myself in their shoes and hope that people would forgive me if I would have made similar mistakes and hope that people don’t pre-judge me before all of the facts come out.  In aftermath of UFC 200 I had given Jon Jones the benefit of the doubt that he had changed, learned from his mistakes and had humbled himself.  So, Fuck Jon Jones for making me give him the benefit of the doubt.  I can’t imagine what it was like for DC to pour his heart and soul into the fight, to be on TV just concussed and trying to keep it together in front of Joe Rogan. So Fuck Jon Jones for making the true champ look like a loser on PPV.  I’ve had Jon Jones as the P4P best fighter on the roster over Demetrius Johnson because Jones had brought stability to LHW division, after Chuck Liddell’s reign ended the title went through a revolving door of champions. Jones beat multiple former world champions to hold that title.  I put DJ as #2 because I felt that DJ’s dominance was due to a lack of competition based on his opponent’s pedigrees.  Fuck Jon Jones for making me list DJ as the #2 P4P fighter.  DJ is now #1 in my book.  Also, Fuck Jon Jones for ruining the news cycle before the Mayweather McGregor fight.  Instead of talking about the biggest fight in combat sports history, now we have to hear about how this fuck up, fucked up again.  For me Jon, that’s your third strike.  I wish you well in life, I hope you find peace in this world but I never want to see you compete in MMA again.  Fuck Jon Jones.