My UFC Fight Night 118 picks

Division				Outcome
Welterweight	Donald Cerrone	vs.	Darren Till	3rd KO Cerrone
Women's Strawweight	Karolina Kowalkiewicz	vs.	Jodie Esquibel	3rd Dec Kowlkiewicz
Light Heavyweight	Jan Błachowicz	vs.	Devin Clark	Clark Dec
Middleweight	Oskar Piechota	vs.	Jonathan Wilson	Piechota 1st KO
Lightweight	Marcin Held	vs.	Nasrat Haqparast	Held 1st Rd Sbu
Heavyweight	Anthony Hamilton	vs.	Adam Wieczorek	Wiezorek 1st KO
Bantamweight	Damian Stasiak	vs.	Brian Kelleher	Brian Kelleher Dec
Middleweight	Sam Alvey	vs.	Ramazan Emeev	Emeev Dec
Featherweight	Artem Lobov	vs.	Andre Fili	Fili Dec
Welterweight	Salim Touahri	vs.	Warlley Alves	Warlley Alves 1st Sub
Women's Bantamweight	Lina Länsberg	vs.	Aspen Ladd	Ladd Dec
Featherweight	Felipe Arantes	vs.	Josh Emmett	Arantes 3rd Sub

UFC 216 My Picks and Draftkings Breakdown

UFC 216: Ferguson vs. Lee

Weight Class	Fighter	Vs.	Fighter	Outcome
Lightweight	Tony Ferguson	vs.	Kevin Lee	Ferguson 4th RD Sub
Flyweight	Demetrious Johnson (c)	vs.	Ray Borg	Johnson 2nd KO
Heavyweight	Fabrício Werdum	vs.	Derrick Lewis	Werdum 2nd Sub
Lightweight	Beneil Dariush	vs.	Evan Dunham	Dariush 1st KO
Featherweight	Tom Duquesnoy	vs.	Cody Stamann	Stanmann Dec
Women’s Straweight	Mara Romero Borella	Vs.	Kalindra Faria	Faria Dec
Lightweight	Will Brooks	vs.	Nik Lentz	Brooks Dec
Lightweight	Bobby Green	vs.	Lando Vannata	Vannata 1st KO
Women's Strawweight	Pearl Gonzalez	vs.	Poliana Botelho	Botelho 3rd TKO
Heavyweight	Walt Harris	vs.	Mark Godbeer	Walt Harris 1st KO
Flyweight	John Moraga	vs.	Magomed Bibulatov	Bibulatov Dec
Middleweight	Thales Leites	vs.	Brad Tavares	Tavares Dec
Flyweight	Matt Schnell	vs.	Marco Beltrán	Beltran KO 1st

(-135) Poliana Botelhovs vs (+115) Pearl Gonzelz

This is one of the better value picks on the DraftKings card.  Pearl Gonzaelez is listed as the DK favorite despite Vegas having Poliana as there odds favorite.  Poliana has finished her last three fights by TKO.  In Pearl's debut against Cynthia Cavillio its hard to see her strengths due to Cavilio's dominance on the ground. Not much was gained other than she started to fade in the third. The reason I'm picking Poliana is because she keeps coming forward and throws heat, she reminds me of Jessica Andrade.  I think her pressure game will overwhelm Pearl and Poliana will get the stoppage.  

(+145) Cody Stamann vs (-165) Tom Duquesony

Both of these guys won their Octagon debuts. Tom Duquesony looked dominant in his debut, he is a dangerous striker, he is even more dangerous in the clinch when his opponent is against the cage.  I'm picking Cody because he is a good value pick as an underdog based on the Vegas Odds. He being priced as 2.5 to 1 favorite on Draftkings but Vegas has him as 1.5 to 1.  You gotta have an upset pick and this is my upset pick.  He's got a great double leg and that's what I'm counting on.  If Cody can stay off the cage he can win this fight. In his debut he landed every takedown he attempted.  He took that fight on a week's notice, so I'm expecting a lot more output this time around since has a full camp.  With Tom Duquesony wild style and a need to put on a show.  I think Cody can grind out a win with some lay n pray.

(-170) Brad Tavares vs (+150) Thales Leites

Brad Tavares has great takedown defense. His current FightMetric Stats have him with  75% takedown defense which is pretty good. He was in the 90 percentile but that was taken away from Olympic Silver Medalist and Title Contender Yoel Romero.  I'm pretty sure he can stifle the BJJ expert Thales Leites's ground game.  I’m positive that Brad will come away with the win since based on his takedown defense.  The downside of Brad Tavares is that he goes to decisions.  He has one finish off of 15-18 journeyman Phil Baroni.  I don’t see Brad racking up the points but he is a safe pick and priced accordingly.

(-310) Walt Harris vs Mark Godbeer (+255)

Walt Harris by KO first round.  Walt Harris is the stronger, faster Heavyweight.  We’ve also seen improvement in Walt which isn’t common in the heavyweight division where most fighters rely on just their KO power rather than developing their game. Mark Godbeer's only win in the Octagon is against short notice fighter Daniel Spitz who was obviously gassed by a lack of conditioning for the fight.  So I’m going with Harris, he is improving and you gotta pick heavyweights because they have a higher percentage of finishes.

(-255) Fabricio Werdum vs (+215) Derrick Lewis

Despite the KO’s on Lewis resume, The Black Beast hasn’t really fought a fighter the caliber of Fabricio Werdum.  I think technically Werdum’s striking is better and on the ground its no question.  If this fight goes to the ground the fight is over.  Fabricio is really undervalued as Heavyweight on this Draftkings card.  I think its Lewis knockouts in the UFC that have Derrick Lewis with such a close line in the DK card. However, Lewis has shown trouble with fighters at a higher level. Derrick Lewis is going to have to show something more than haymakers to win this fight but I haven’t seen it.  I also think Fabricio is pissed off on his loss to Allister Overeem.  He had that fight finished but he decided to lay in Overeem’s guard and allow Overeem to ride out a decision win rather than stepping back, letting the dazed Overeem up and finishing the fight.  He’s got something to prove, he wants that next title shot. 

(-220) Tony Ferguson vs (+180) Kevin Lee

This is just going to be a really good fight.  Kevin Lee is really good wrestler-boxer who has been really improving on both sides of his game.  Kevin has got a strong top game and I was really impressed with his ability to take Michael Chiesa back in his last fight.  On the other hadnd we have Tony Ferguson who has also been improving. His fight against Edson Barboza really showed how that unorthodox style can really stifle someone’s game.  Let’s just go to the stats for this one

	Tony Ferguson	Kevin Lee
Strikes Landed Per Min	5.23	3.60
Strikes Absorbed Per Min	3.43	2.99
Defense	65%	53%
Takedowns Average	.71	3.48
Takedown Defense	81%	73%
Submission Average	1.5	1.5

So Tony is a little bit busier in the striking department which always wins over the judges.  But than Kevin shots for more takedowns but Tony’s takedown defense is at 81%.  It’s a close fight but Tony has been in a 5 round fight before and I haven’t seen him get tired.  Tony is also an excellent submission specialist, he is going to be dangerous off his back.  So I have to give Tony the nod on this one.  I’m predicting a submission from Tony in the 4^th. 

Sleepers

Bobby Green -  He is on three fight losing streak but I think Lando Vannata is still riding off his KO of the Year over John Makdessi.  Going over their stats the fight is closer than you think it's more of a pick'em  Bobby Green is worth the upset pick.   

A moment of Silence and then nothing

A record breaking mass shooting occurred on late Sunday evening in the Fight Capital of the World, Las Vegas.  It marks a record breaking toll of 58 innocent lives and hundreds injured.  Our social media feeds are filled with sorrow, debate, shock, disbelief and acquiescence(I used a thesaurus for this one).   Acquiescence best describes my feelings as I wasn’t really shocked, as nothing has changed from the last mass shooting about the gun laws in this country.  It seems as a community we can do a great job about rallying around the victims.  Dana White donated $1 million, Joe Rogan is donating the proceed of his show to the victims, and even the fighters at Syndicate MMA are hosting a benefit teaching MMA to the public for donations. You can see the carnage from cell phone videos of people running for their lives. You can hear the stories of Uber drivers cleaning blood out of cars because they felt a need to act to get people to safety.  Yet the debate that America is having is the same.  There has been no change and we can see the result.  Nothing has changed after Virginia Tech,  Nothing has changed after Sandy Hook, Nothing has changed after Orlando. 

My fear coming into this weekend is that still nothing will change.  As reported, the atmosphere in Vegas is a somber one. UFC 216 is occurring in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena which is only a mile away from the shooting.  Most likely the UFC will open up the broadcast of the PPV with a moment of silence.  Numerous fighters will mention the victims of the shootings.  Some will even break out in tears over this tragedy as many fighters including the main event Headliner, Kevin Lee, now call Las Vegas home. But at the end event, Monday will come and everyone will forget that nothing has changed.  Anybody can get these weapons and walk into a school, movie theater, or public space and start mowing people down.  We can’t do nothing this time, something has to change.  I’m not a gun person and I don’t want everyone’s gun taken away but the laws we have aren’t working.  Something must be done this time or we will be waiting for the next record breaking shooting.    

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.