As if it wasn't completely obvious that the split decision that went to Leonard Garcia in his bout against Nam Phan at The Ultimate Fighter Finale was far from the right outcome, the statistics from the fight compiled by both FightMetric.com and CompuStrike will add to Phan’s misery.
FightMetric, the official statistical provider of the UFC, determines an "effectiveness" score for each round based on a combination of striking and ground game data. This system can be somewhat misleading at times depending on the bout, but the numbers they showed for this fight represented a clear victory for Phan in all three rounds.
The CompuStrike numbers released on Monday highlights Phan’s dominance even further. In a fight contested almost entirely in the striking game, Phan out-landed Garcia by a near 2-1 margin for the fight, landing 122 strikes to Garcia's 66. Phan out-landed Garcia in every round of the fight, including a 46-15 difference in the second round. Phan landed 61 "power strikes" to Garcia's 39 in the fight as well.
Every round of this fight should have gone to Nam Phan. Garcia may have been swinging with everything he’s got, but I’ve seen more accurate strikes in pub fights. From the punches attempted, he landed a measly 23%. Throwing and missing should not win a fight, and yet it seems to be a continual pattern in Garcia's fights that his sloppy style seems to win over judges who apparently aren't concerned with strikes actually hitting their target.
This fight was just another example of the need for more accurate and trustworthy judging in MMA.
