A look at MMA's Metagame

It’s pretty common to fantasize about era vs. era dream-matches for the sake of MMA debate, but it’s worth mentioning how much more work the average bout contains now than in days past. If we were to look at 2008 and compare it to now we would see a roughly 30% increase in strike attempts over the duration of the match. Striking also takes up more of the output when compared to takedown attempts as a ratio (28.56 strikes per TD attempt in 2008, compared to 40.6 in 2018).

There are things outside of the match that bolster those numbers (e.g. lower weight classes, Women’s MMA, etc.) but I’d posit we’re dealing with a very different metagame where striking leans more toward volume, and takedown attempts are less likely to happen because solid TD defense is the norm. I could be wrong, and I’m looking forward to digging further

Special thanks to Khadri and Talal Mufti for showing me the ropes <3