[MMA] What is a way to record all actions inside the octagon?

The Problem #

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is one of the fastest growing professional sports today. Although the early years of MMA was more of a circus / freak show, today the sport has settled into the realm of professional sports with rules, and professionalism.

The sport is maturing and this means improvements are needed left and right. One of the areas I see needing improvements are the fight statistics. FightMetric LLC is the official stats keeper for the UFC. In a collection of fights, many things are happening between two fighters. Strikes, take-downs, submissions, are all terms familiar to a regular MMA fan. FightMetric does a good job recording the SUMMARY of a fight.

However, my main disappointment is with the lack of detail to this data. Did the take-down attempt come after a quick jab? Was a rear-naked choke attempt successful due to a stunned opponent? The time and order of the fighter’s action is missing. I want to have data which allows me to see the fighter’s type of attack and its result without watching the fight itself.

BrainStorm #

1. BaseBall #

Project Scoresheet was a collaborative effort by baseball fans to record every play of every game.

For example,

S9/L : Line drive single to right field

8/F : Fly out to center fielder

54(1)3/GDP : Ground into double play, third baseman to second baseman to first baseman.

2. DNA #

Repetition of the letters ATCG to store all the information life requires.

Concept of Solution #

I like the idea from Project Scoresheet. Although the data itself is hard to read for an untrained eye, the data allows us to know what is happening inside the game without watching the game itself. DNA also gave me an idea to turn a fight into a stream of letters and numbers to record a fight.

1. The Building Block #

Space 1 <- What is the current position of the fighter?

Space 2 <- Which body part was used for attack?

Space 3 <- How did the body part projected towards the opponent?

Space 4 <- Which body part was attacked?

Space 5 <- What is the result of the attack?

2. Codes #

I want to create a 5 digit code for a fighter’s attack. I want every value to be unique so that a given trait could be easily searched when the data grows. I can use all English alphabets and numbers.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789

(to be continued)