Teixeira vs. Bader: Breaking Down the FightMetric Numbers

Glover Teixeira left the cage in Belo Horizonte with his hand in the air and a first-round TKO under his belt. But his win over Ryan Bader at UFC Fight Night 28 was not as clear-cut as the final stat line might indicate. 

In fact, it seemed for a long moment like the fight might break the other way. Bader had Teixeira backed against the cage fence and was hammering him with punches. Teixeira, who had looked fairly flat-footed throughout, finally seemed to wake up and fired a combination of punches right down the pipe. His chin having betrayed him, Bader fell to the floor in a heap. Teixeira pounced, and a few heavy ground shots later, he had the TKO stoppage.

But what can we learn about the fight from FightMetric, the UFC's official statistics provider? Interestingly, they illustrate a clear advantage for Teixeira, despite how close the fight appeared.

Teixeira outlanded Bader both in terms of significant strikes—14-24 for Teixeira, compared with 11-27 for Bader—and total strikes—20-30 for Teixeira and 16-32 for Bader.

So it's clear that, despite the fact that Bader was doing real damage to his opponent, Teixeira landed more in terms of volume and accuracy. However, because FightMetric only divides strikes into significant and not significant, the degree to which Bader's significant strikes did significant damage may have been greater cumulatively than Teixeira's.

What about the other aspects of the fight? Teixiera was the only fighter to shoot for a takedown, and did so successfully in his lone attempt. However, he landed in a guillotine choke, Bader's signature submission hold. Though it looked tight for a moment, Teixeira ended up escaping. On paper, it went down as a failed submission attempt and also counted as the only submission move of the fight.

So in addition to the striking disparity, Teixeira held a 1-0 advantage in takedowns, while Bader ceded a failed submission attempt. Bader had Teixeira in genuine trouble but ended up on the losing end. It turns out the deeper statistics bear out what happened in the top-line box score.