You thought Shane Carwin’s first round performance against Brock Lesnar was dominating? Just wait until you check out the numbers.
FightMetric released their report for last night’s UFC main event between champion Brock Lesnar and interim champion Shane Carwin. The data is simply staggering.
In the first round, Carwin outlanded Lesnar 61-16 in total strikes and 39-3 in “significant strikes”, including the knockdown. Lesnar attempted three takedowns, all of which proved unsuccessful. This led to Carwin dominating the Effectiveness Score 276-15.
A cursory glance around the internet saw most outlets (Sherdog, MMA Weekly, MMA Fighting) giving Shane Carwin a 10-8. The MMA Junkie scorer handed out a questionable 10-9 card. Our own Luke Thomas scored the round 10-7 for Carwin in the Bloody Elbow live blog. I asked FightMetric’s Rami Genauer how the FightMetric system would have spit out. He replied:
10-7 rounds are almost impossible to get using the Effectiveness Scores. It requires a 36-to-1 advantage. Carwin “only” managed about and 18-to-1 advantage. But how some people called that round 10-9 is beyond me.
I think most rational people recognized round one as a 10-8. Subjectively, while Carwin certainly dominated the round, Lesnar looked to do a good job defending himself, given the situation. He had his hands in front of his face, kept his hips between himself and Carwin, and stayed active enough to keep the referee out of play. Carwin landed some very heavy shots – I noted a particularly damaging elbow after the action had slowed down, but outside of the initial flurry, I don’t think he had Brock really hurt.
Unfortunately for Carwin, his first round performance provided the stage for Lesnar’s dramatic resurgence in round two.