The folks at FightMetric have decided to compile stats from mixed martial arts fights and to compute a Total Performance Rating from those stats.
For an idea of the stats they decided to use, take a look at their scoresheet:
From striking distance they score both jabs and power shots to the head, just power shots to the body, and neither to the legs. (All strikes, whether punches, kicks, knees, or elbows are divided into jabs and power shots.)
From the clinch they score just power shots to the head or body — and various takedowns.
From the ground they score just power shots to the head — and various submissions and grappling transitions.
What’s peculiar, from my perspective, is that they decided what was important simply by deciding what was important. They thought about it, and they surveyed some fans, but didn’t run any kind of analysis to determine what stats lead to a win — or they haven’t explained it if they did. The closest they came was normalizing the coefficients so that the average winner’s score would be 55 and the average loser’s score 45.
(Hat tip to John.)