Is fightmetric using only strikes to determine who wins rounds? The four general criteria used to judge fights are effective striking, effective grappling, Octagon control, and effective aggressiveness. A brief search has yielded no uniform explanations of these criteria and I won't use anything that doesn't have a legit source so we'll have to go with some assumption here. Diaz certainly displayed more aggressiveness, to mixed effectiveness. I'd say he won "effective aggressiveness" in the first two rounds as he was backing Condit down and winning most of the exchanges, giving chase and initiating the action. The only reason the striking was even close was gaudy advantages in leg kicks, which are not "aggressive" strikes to me and certainly not in comparison to Diaz' big advantage in head and body strikes. Rounds 3 and beyond you could argue his aggressiveness was not effective. Then does that mean Carlos wins that category though? I suppose it doesn't really matter, most seem to agree Condit won 3 and 4 so there's no point debating those rounds any further. As far as "octagon control", its an ambiguous term and harder to determine precisely in a mostly standing fight. Diaz was backing Condit down the whole fight and Condit was avoiding engaging. Again its a tale of which rounds we're talking about. You could argue Condit ought to win octagon control in rounds 3 and 4 because he was able to avoid getting caught against the cage and kept circling back to the middle of the octagon where he wanted the fight to be. Did he really control that though? Diaz was stupid enough to keep going for it so I guess he screwed himself there. Again though, rounds 1 and 2 I think Diaz displayed superior octagon control. Effective grappling was almost a non-factor in this fight. I honestly have no idea how to weigh takedowns/sub attempts against striking. Seemed like Condit was getting the better of Diaz again in the 5th prior to that takedown. Does that make up for it? I dunno. Fight metric apparently thinks so. In summary, Condit had a slight edge in sig strikes/overall strikes in the first round. I dunno how the percentage landed looked. Diaz certainly wins octagon control and effective aggressiveness. No grappling to speak of. The healthy advantage Diaz displayed in octagon control and effective aggressiveness override the relatively small advantage Condit had in sig strikes/overall strikes. I'm not sure how different strikes are considered but in my personal opinion I would also have given the effective striking to Nick Diaz in this round because he enjoyed strong advantages in head and body strikes and appeared to win most of the exchanges. Condit won the overall striking numbers but only because of a major advantage in leg strikes landed, which I would discriminate against relative to the effectiveness of head/body strikes. Even disregarding my personal views on the striking, I believe Diaz should have won based on competitive overall striking numbers but clearly superior octagon control and effective aggressiveness. Round 2 is the one round that is unanimously Diaz'. He won in overall striking/sig strikes and clearly won octagon control and effective aggressiveness. No grappling in the round. Not much of a debate here, yet two of the three judges gave this round to Condit. 3 and 4 were Condit's IMO. I still don't know how to judge 5. IIRC Condit had the better striking numbers and I thought he was taking this round as well but it wasn't dominant or anything. Then Diaz got the takedown and attempted a few subs. I've said all along, if Condit won the fight by virtue of winning 3/4/5 I'd be ok with that. The judges must know something we all don't because it seems unanimous on the interwebz (fans and fighter's accounts) that Diaz won 1 and 2, Condit took 3 and 4, and 5 is a toss up. Jarman and Peoples gave all but round 3 to Condit. Which is odd because no one else seems to think Diaz won round 3. Kamijo gave 1, 3, and 4 to Condit. Can't complain too much about that. Furthermore, Condit's leg strikes were the reason the total strikes and significant strikes look so lopsided on those fightmetric numbers you posted. A good strategy by him but it hardly seems fair to let leg kicks sway the scoring of a fight so heavily. Yes, it was a great strategy, they do hurt, and they are effective. But they're non-committal, non-engaging, unaggressive. To me you need to reward more risky/damaging/aggressive strikes such as punches, knees, and kicks to the head or body because you're engaging the opponent, allowing them to counter and initiating an exchange. You could add that these strikes are strikes aimed directly at ending the fight via KO, but that gets into a murky debate. Condit's leg kick strategy paid off but he also got the benefit of racking up a shitload of points for avoiding engagement. Wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing this more and more since Condit just won a few rounds he had no business winning because of gaudy advantages in leg strikes. The vendetta against leg strikes is just my personal opinion though, and somewhat of a supplement to the rest of the argument. I appreciate and understand them as a strike, it just rubs me the wrong way that Condit seemingly won rounds 1 and 2 almost wholly because of ridiculous leg strikes advantage while Diaz was winning exchanges, landing (many) more shots to the head and body, backing him down, etc. and Condit displayed zero control and little aggressiveness.
