Can the Lost Art of Submissions Be Salvaged?

Editorial by Roland Lawrence

I recently stumbled upon a statistical article concerning the UFC and submission finishes. The author had looked through the first 200 fights of 2012, and recorded each result. Forty six of these fights finished with a submission (RNC being the most common), for an impressive 23%. In the real world, UFC is considered the gold standard of talent, so I thought I’d take a peek at some of our top organizations, and tally some of my own statistics.

I chose four of the most hyped orgs in the game, and looked at each of their most recent 50-60 fights. I chose (for no particular reason, other than high hype, and impressive looking fighters.) Nordic, Empire, CBK ONI, and Versus. I looked at 220 fights, and found 17 submissions, or a rate of 7.7% All of these involved disparity of belt level for the fighters, excepting 2 fights. In other words, brown belts were subbing purple belts, black belts brown belts, but only 1% of the time did a fighter with the same belt as his opponent manage a submission.

So the questions can easily start flowing from this data, and have been for some time now. Is it that the fighters are content with a brown belt, and won’t train higher? Is it the game engine? Surely just because 2 fighters have the same BJJ level doesn’t mean one couldn’t sub the other more than 1% of the time?

Interestingly enough, this editorial precedes imminent changes to the engine, where two new skills will be unveiled. The question: Will they improve our percentages, or will it push more people away from the ground game in favor of stand-up and clinch dominance?

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