Advanced statistical analysis has made a huge impact on baseball, and it's making inroads in football and basketball as well. Soon enough, it's going to come to mixed martial arts.
There will be skeptics -- the MMA versions of the old-school baseball people who were sure that they knew more than Bill James and that Moneyball was a sham -- arguing that the sport is "fought in a cage, not in a spreadsheet."
But Rami Genauer, who runs the innovative FightMetric.com, thinks MMA is ready for advanced stats. (I agree.) His web site is billed as the first-ever comprehensive mixed martial arts evaluation system, and the work he's doing has the potential to change the way we view the sport.
In a wide-ranging Q&A, I posed some questions to Genauer, starting with why MMA needs advanced stats.
