How important is finishing fighters?

I was bored, and I got this idea from the p4p discussion when reading people complaining that GSP doesn't finish guys and Fedor does, ergo, Fedor is better. I decided to see how bad GSP really was at finishing fights compared with his top 10 contemporaries, and I did so for the other divisions listed in the Ninjas Place divisional rankings (which means nothing lower than welterweight). I really wanted to see if finishing is all that important when it comes to how these guys are ranked, and I wanted to do it within the context of their divisions. So I charted people's finishes per wins and came out with the percentage of time fighters finish. I used the top 10 guys according to Ninjas Place in each division. Disqualifications were not counted. I left out Wandy because he's in our top 10 at Middleweight, but he's never finished a guy at middleweight so it didn't make sense to put him there. I also left off Anderson at LHW and Shields at MW because they fight most of their fights at the weightclasses they are ranked higher in. I will rank the fighters in order of finishing %. My conclusions will come in reply to this.

HW Division- 132/159 - 83%

1. Shane Carwin- 12/12 - 100%
1. Junior dos Santos- 11/11 - 100%
1. Brett Rogers- 10/10 - 100%
4. Cain Velasquez- 7/8 - 88%
5. Fabricio Werdum- 11/13 - 85%
6. Josh Barnett- 21/25 - 84%
7. Frank Mir- 10/12 - 83%
8. Fedor Emelianenko- 25/32 - 78%
9. Brock Lesnar- 3/4 - 75%
10. Antonio Nogueira- 22/32 - 69%

LHW Division- 99/145 - 68%

1. Thiago Silva- 13/14 93%
2. Mauricio Rua- 17/19 - 89%
3. Jon Jones- 8/10 - 80%
4. Mo Lawal- 5/7 - 71%
5. Quinton Jackson- 21/30 - 70%
6. Antonio Nogueira- 11/18 - 61%
7. Forrest Griffin- 10/17 - 59%
8. Rashad Evans- 7/14 - 50%
9. Lyoto Machida- 7/16 - 44%

MW Division- 122/180 - 68%

1. Jorge Santiago- 20/22 - 91%
2. Demian Maia- 10/12 - 83%
3. Vitor Belfort- 15/19 - 79%
4. Nate Marquardt- 22/29 - 76%
5. Anderson Silva- 19/26 - 73%
6. Yushin Okami - 13/23 - 57%
7. Dan Henderson- 13/25 - 52%
8. Chael Sonnen- 10/24 - 42%

WW Division- 153/222 - 69%

1. Nick Diaz- 18/21 - 86%
2. Paul Daley- 19/23 - 83%
3. Paulo Thiago- 10/13 - 77%
4. Matt Hughes- 34/44 - 77%
5. Dan Hardy- 16/23 - 70%
6. Thiago Alves- 11/16 - 69%
7. Georges St. Pierre- 13/20 - 65%
8. Josh Koscheck- 9/15 - 60%
9. Jake Shields- 13/25 - 52%
10. Jon Fitch- 10/22 - 45%

Hmmm... For a "LnPer" Hughes finishes a ton of fights.

Are you going to do the lower weights?

I was expecting the finishes to decrease at weight went down but that isn't really true.

After seeing this charted out, I've come to the conclusion that finishing fighters isn't really all it's cracked up to be. Finishing fights simply doesn't necessarily make you a better fighter. Seeing Jon Fitch, Chael Sonnen, and Lyoto Machida in dead last in their divisions, when they're realistically probably the second best, made me realize that great fighters are great fighters because they win, not because they can finish. As far as what this does for my p4p rankings is it makes me realize that finishing isn't that important when it comes to who's a better p4p fighter, and anyone who says it is really hasn't thought it through. It also made me realize that Fedor's really not that great at finishing his opponents. Compared with the other heavyweights, he's only ranked 8th . Sure he finishes a higher percentage than Anderson and GSP, but that goes with being a heavyweight. They tend to finish A LOT more than the other divisions. But like I said before, finishing shouldn't be that important when ranking people. Greatness comes with fighting the best competition available and beating that competition. That's why it's silly to bash GSP for not finishing fighters and to drop him in any p4p rankings.

Farmer1906 wrote:

Hmmm... For a "LnPer" Hughes finishes a ton of fights.

Are you going to do the lower weights?

I was expecting the finishes to decrease at weight went down but that isn't really true.

I wanted to do the lower weights, but we didn't have rankings up for them.

chorky777 wrote:

Farmer1906 wrote:

Hmmm... For a "LnPer" Hughes finishes a ton of fights.

Are you going to do the lower weights?

I was expecting the finishes to decrease at weight went down but that isn't really true.

I wanted to do the lower weights, but we didn't have rankings up for them.

Finals got me

Chork, you ever gonna put up the Av for the bet you lost from 113?

Good idea Chorky. To me, it's not about finishing...although a good finish is awesome to see...it's more about the performance. If a fighter dominates throughout a fight it's very impressive. More impressive than if a guy is getting his ass kicked and pulls off a sub or a KO at the last second. Anyone arguing about GSP needs to take into account the dominating performances he's had. People almost never land a punch or kick on the guy. He comes out of fights without a scratch because he dominates his opponents that much.

Your finish percentage can be telling when coupled with a strong list of opponents, but any thing over 10 or so fights and better than 80% is impressive regardless. It's to easy to not win.

GDPofDRC wrote:

Your finish percentage can be telling when coupled with a strong list of opponents, but any thing over 10 or so fights and better than 80% is impressive regardless. It's to easy to not win.

I agree that if you finish a high percentage of opponents, it is impressive. But for a p4p discussion, it isn't really relevant. You aren't a better fighter because you finish more people. You're a better fighter for beating more people. If you want to become a champion, you can outwrestle people all you want. Jake Shields is a great fighter. Top 20 p4p guy in the sport, but his finishing percentage is horrible. Finishing just isn't a good indicator of how good a fighter is.

Finishing is a great indicator of where a guy is. Winning is great and everything but when your doing almost no damage as well as taking no damage that doesn't tell us much. I'm sorry, you can argue for GSP all you like but it isn't like his last two opponents were guys most of us though deserved to be there with him. The fact that he can pass guard any time he wants and still not finish a fight while leaving almost no marks with ground and pound isn't that impressive. It tells me he's great at taking guys down and holding them down, not much else.

chorky777 wrote:

GDPofDRC wrote:

Your finish percentage can be telling when coupled with a strong list of opponents, but any thing over 10 or so fights and better than 80% is impressive regardless. It's to easy to not win.

I agree that if you finish a high percentage of opponents, it is impressive. But for a p4p discussion, it isn't really relevant. You aren't a better fighter because you finish more people. You're a better fighter for beating more people. If you want to become a champion, you can outwrestle people all you want. Jake Shields is a great fighter. Top 20 p4p guy in the sport, but his finishing percentage is horrible. Finishing just isn't a good indicator of how good a fighter is.

But if Shields had as many wins as he has with a finishing percentage over 80 would he be ranked higher than he is currently? If he had finished his last two fights I think he would be getting a lot more respect than he does.

If Jake Shields had finished his last two fights he'd be the Consensus #2 middleweight in the world and #4 pound for pound if not higher. Finishes mean something in this sport. Anderson Silva would not be the #1-#2 pound for pound fighter in the world if he dragged Henderson, Forrest, Irvin, Franklin, Marquardt, Lutter, and Leben to decisions. Finishing power and the ability to finish is what impresses utter dominance. Outwrestling a Brazilian and a Brit doesn't exactly reek of awesomeness when it isn't coupled with the ability to put those guys away. Dominance is the knockout, the submission, the ability to destroy your opponent in a matter of ten seconds or less on any given night. What does it say when most people hear GSP is fighting again and thier first(and majority of) prediction is "GSP takes him down whenever he wants and wins a Unanimous Decision"?

Finishing fights means nothing if you're winning as easily as GSP. If the fights were close like Rua-Machida 1 then yes it would but not like how GSP-Hardy was.

Your right, Freak, it wasn't close in the least bit. Which is exactly why he should have finished it. He passed guard whenever he wanted to, locked up two subs and damn near broke Hardy's arm and yet still let the fight last two more rounds.

I think you're also failing to recognise how hard the fighters GSP has been fighting are to finish. Dan Hardy hasn't been finished in the last 5 years. It's been 7 since Fitch has been finished. 4 years for Alves. There are sometimes stylistic reasons for not finishing fighters, not the effort or skills of the fighter in question. You can't blame Fedor for not finishing Nogueira when he fought him because Nog couldn't be finished. There are guys out there that are just too good defensively to be finished. And as for St. Pierre's last 2 opponents not being deserving of being in there, that's silly. Dan Hardy was and is a top 10 welterweight with a solid skillset. The fact that he was so outmatched is a credit to GSP, not somehow a knock on GSP. And I don't recall anyone ever thinking Alves didn't deserve a title shot, but whatever. And as for people coming out of fights with him without a mark, don't get too into the Dan Hardy trash talking. He hurts people in ways that are way more painful than if he just choked them out real quickly:

For me, I just need to see fighters attempt to end fights.

Chorky made some good points on GSP. He had some good G n P on Alves, two really deep sub attempts on Hardy and just generally beat the shit out of Fitch the entire night. He just lacks the power to end a lot of fights. Pisses me off when people call GSP a L n P fighter.

Jake is another guy people like to call a L n P guy. He tries to end fights with his subs in much the same way GSP does. And since he's just a WW fighting at MW, a lot of times, he's not strong enough to sub people.

Guys like Sonnen, Maynard, and Fitch are fighters I can't stand. They go into fights with no intention in trying to finnish them. Fitch is a little better about this than Sonnen and Maynard. Sonnen makes no attempt to finnish fights. None. Then he runs his mouth about people. Look at the Nate fight. Nate didn't have one mark on him. Maynard is in the same boat. He's content leg humping guys for slit decisions.

Gray Maynard doesn't try and finish fights now? We've watched him in short order go from a wrestler with few other skills to for mma terms an accomplished boxer with more rounded submission skills.

Well when I see him actually submit someone, I'll take back what I said. He's still mainly a Lay n Pray guy. JMO

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He insists on standing in fights he should just take to the ground. He could have prison raped Diaz but he stood with him to prove a point. Maynard if anything is an example of a wrestler who will lose fights he could win by trying to be more exciting and well rounded. I know he had a bad looking fight against No Love, but you could see that coming a mile away with the way their resumes and skillsets matched up.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

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He insists on standing in fights he should just take to the ground. He could have prison raped Diaz but he stood with him to prove a point. Maynard if anything is an example of a wrestler who will lose fights he could win by trying to be more exciting and well rounded. I know he had a bad looking fight against No Love, but you could see that coming a mile away with the way their resumes and skillsets matched up.

So you think Maynard could be like Kos? Get caught slipping a couple times trying to put on exciting fights?

finishing fights = money for yourself and for the organization. That's why its important.

Finishing fights = the difference between the title and not. Rampage cracked Forrest a bunch of times and nearly ended the battle, but he didn't and look what happened. BJ boxed Edgars ears off but because he didn't dance around as much look what happened. And if Shogun was indeed awarded the title on the first fight there would still have been controversy from Machida fans, and it wouldn't have been as awesome a win as the way he destroyed him in the second fight.

I don't take anything away from a fight like GSP has had against Hardy, Alves, or Fitch, but I would give him more if he submitted or knocked them out.

Ask Jon Fitch how important finishing fighters is. I bet Alves could get a much faster 2nd shot then Fitch. I guess that is not just the finishing but the style as well.

Gray tries to finish fights, but he's not at all good at it. If he was finishing the guy's that he has been beating it would be he, and not Edgar who got the title shot and he'd certainly be higher ranked in both the div, and p4p rankings.

And if gsp were finishing these dudes in the 2nd rd like it seems he should be he'd be getting alot more p4p #1 votes.

If Rogers had not KO'd his list of opponents he'd never would have been considered a worthy prospect, he never would have even been in the ring with AA. Not ironically, he beat AA so quickly that people actually don't give him proper credit for that win, but I see that as total bs.

so imo it matters. Not the end all be all, but it matters.