Fightmetric: GSP by the numbers

For most fighters, a down period or slump would be measured as a bad couple of fights or maybe even a bad year. Not so for Georges St. Pierre. His dominance has been so total that, over the course of his career, Georges St. Pierre has only had a bad few minutes: It was a first to see him bruised and bloodied in his first round by BJ Penn. It was unusual to see him get taken down and pinned by Josh Koscheck. But no minute was as surprising as the final 60 seconds of his UFC 69 match against Matt Serra, in which he absorbed strike after strike on the way to his first knockout loss.

To that point, and in the two fights since, St. Pierre has performed at a level all his own. Some advanced statistics developed by FightMetric demonstrate just how good St. Pierre has been.

FightMetric uses a stat called TPR (Total Performance Rating) to measure the quality of a fighter’s performance based on six statistical components (it’s like the NFL’s Passer Rating for QB’s). Scored on a scale between 0-100, the average score for a fight winner is 55. A score over 75 would be considered good. Over his 17 career fights, St. Pierre’s median TPR is 90, which is an astounding number considering the competition he’s faced.

More impressive than just the raw quality of St. Pierre’s performances is his sheer dominance, which we measure by looking at the differential between his TPR and his opponent’s. A TPR differential of 20 or less is indicative of a close fight. By that measure, St. Pierre has only been in one close fight, his controversial split decision victory over Penn, in which the TPR differential was 12. That fight was out of the ordinary: In all, the median TPR of St. Pierre’s opponents is 13, which means a normal TPR differential of 77.

This is something we’re used to seeing for a fighter who finishes very quickly; the fight is over before his opponent has the chance to do anything offensively. But St. Pierre manages to control fights, exerting his will – the infamous “riddim” he speaks of – so that opponents can do very little at all. It’s unusual to see TPR scores under 20 in fights that go past the first and second rounds.

But TPR only tells part of the story. What follows is an in-depth examination of St. Pierre based on his career statistics.

Striking

Stand-up striking is an area where St. Pierre may actually be a bit overrated. He certainly throws impressive looking strikes – Superman punches, spinning back kicks, etc. – but his numbers don’t rank him near the elite strikers in the game. St. Pierre lands 43% of his stand-up strikes, which is above the fighter average of 35%, but nowhere near the accuracy of Anderson Silva, who connects at a rate of 70%. He’s only knocked down two of his opponents (Matt Hughes and Jay Hieron), and as Serra proved, he can be knocked out.

One exceptional thing about St. Pierre’s stand-up, though, is the way he mixes up his targets. Most fighters overwhelmingly focus on the head, throwing about five head strikes for every strike thrown to the body and legs. A serial headhunter like Wanderlei Silva will throw nearly 10 head strikes per body shot. The consequence is that this makes their striking patterns more predictable and easier to avoid. St. Pierre’s striking is less predictable, as he throws only 2.3 strikes to the head per attempt to the body and legs.

However, it is on the ground where St. Pierre’s striking is strongest. Utilizing a relentless ground-and-pound attack, St. Pierre connects on 60% of his heavy strikes and lands them at a rate that is twice that of the average fighter.

Jiu-Jitsu

One of the reasons why St. Pierre’s ground-and-pound is so effective is because of his propensity to pass guard. St. Pierre’s athleticism and agility produces one of his best techniques, the speed by which he passes to half guard following a takedown. After taking his opponent to the ground, you will see St. Pierre immediately press down on his opponent’s left knee and swing his right leg over. From this position, St. Pierre utilizes his most effective strike, a hard right forearm/elbow.

It’s not just half-guard. St. Pierre averages 1.66 passes per instance in top position. So after an average takedown, St. Pierre passes to half-guard and then passes again to a more dominant position more than half the time. The average fighter achieves less than one pass per instance in top position.

But one of the by-products of his excellent takedown defense is that we’ve never seen St. Pierre react to being in a dominated position. No opponent has ever mounted him or taken his back. In addition, St. Pierre has never had to handle a serious submission attempt aside from Hughes’ armbar that gave him his first loss. Only two other fighters (Penn and Karo Parisyan) have even managed to attempt a submission. Although Penn’s gogoplata attempt was not particularly close, it was the first time that the fighter underneath St. Pierre looked anything close to in control. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on as he faces another jiu-jitsu black belt Saturday in Serra.

Wrestling

If fans overrate St. Pierre’s stand-up, then wrestling may be an area where St. Pierre is actually underrated, if you can believe it. It’s not that people don’t think he’s good, it’s a problem of comparison. The UFC welterweight division is stacked with fighters who come from wrestling backgrounds and boast elite credentials. In his UFC career, St. Pierre has faced a who’s-who of vaunted takedown artists: Hughes, Koscheck, Frank Trigg, Sean Sherk, and Parisyan, to name a few. These fighters are known for their takedowns; it’s their best weapon. So it’s only natural that St. Pierre’s takedowns would be downplayed when it’s only a facet of his game and the primary part of his opponents’.

Here’s the reality: St. Pierre is possibly the best functional wrestler in MMA. He’s not the best pure wrestler; a Division I national champion like Koscheck could probably beat him in a straight wrestling match. But in an MMA match, the tables turn. St. Pierre uses his strikes to set up his takedowns, catches kicks, and performs lightning-fast level changes against the fence. It’s that dynamism that puts him at a significant advantage over a less well-rounded wrestler whose takedown shots seem telegraphed by comparison.

Over the course of the 17 fights in his career St. Pierre has succeeded on 37 of 46 takedown attempts for a success rate of 80%, well higher than the average takedown success rate of 48%. He managed to take down every one of his opponents except for Serra and Hieron, who he knocked out standing instead.

The other component of St. Pierre’s wrestling dominance is his takedown defense. Again, the average success rate is 48%, but his opponent’s success rate is just 17% on 7 of 42 attempts. And once down, opponents can’t keep St. Pierre on his back for very long. To date, only Koscheck has been able to hold St. Pierre down for more than a minute at a time. In total, St. Pierre has spent less than five of his 120 fighting minutes on his back.

FightMetric is the world’s first comprehensive MMA statistics and analysis system. Visit FightMetric.com to learn more about the system and for analysis of MMA’s closest bouts.