MMA Prediction Contest

[Turd Ferguson]

For last night's Strikeforce event, Jeff, IndyJon, Armbar, and myself did a trial run for an MMA Prediction Contest. Right now, the plan is to give it a first shot on a bigger scale for UFC 114. The plan for now is to just do the predictions for the fights that will be televised. If there's a demand for it, we'll do it for every fight.

The way it will work is pretty straightforward if you know how the wrestling prediction games work. You have your list of fights, you pick the winner and how confident you are that they'll win. Then for bonuses, you pick the method of victory (Strikes, Submission, or Decision) and round (or decision).

You'll be given a link to Sherdog to evaluate each fighter as well and help you make correct predictions. If you click on the name of the fighter, you get a complete breakdown of their Win/Loss Record.

Here is an example for a card with 5 fights...

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Kimbo Slice
Winner: Emelianenko (5)
Method of Victory: Submission hold
Round: 1

If this is correct, you would score 7 points.

Here are the results from last night, and a very simple breakdown of how this would work:

Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery Results:
Heavyweight Championship: Alistair Overeem d. Brett Rogers (Rd. 1, Strikes)
Antonio Silva d. Andrei Arlovski (Decision)
Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza d. Joey Villasenor (Decision)
Roger Gracie d. Kevin Randleman (Rd. 2, Submission hold)
Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante d. Antwain Britt (Rd. 1, Strikes)

Results:
GuyCompton

Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship
Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers
Winner: Overeem (1)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 2

Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva
Winner: Arlovski (4)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 2

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Joey Villasenor
Winner: Jacare (5)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 1

Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman
Winner: Gracie (2)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 3

Antwain Britt vs. Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante
Winner: Britt (3)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 2

9 Pts... Not a good performance. Gracie's submission was the only bonus I scored.

IndyJon:

Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship
Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers
Winner: Overeem (1)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 2

Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva
Winner: Arlovski (4)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 2

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Joey Villasenor
Winner: Jacare (2)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 1

Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman
Winner: Gracie (3)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 1

Antwain Britt vs. Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante
Winner: Cavalcante (5)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 1

15 Pts. Jon nailing Overeem by strikes, Gracie by submission, and getting the Cavalcante fight completely right, plus putting the maximum allotted confidence points into Cavalcante winning is what really allowed him to get such a great score.

Via Armbar:

Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship
Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers
Winner: Overeem (1)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 3

Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva
Winner: Arlovski (3)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 2

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Joey Villasenor
Winner: Jacare (4)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 2

Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman
Winner: Randleman (2)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 2

Antwain Britt vs. Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante
Winner: Britt (3)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 1

5 Pts, primarily because he picked Kevin Randleman. Dang it!

[YOUTUBE]DS9vdoX3Ju0[/YOUTUBE]

JMT225:

Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship
Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers
Winner: Overeem (4)
Method of Victory: Knockout
Round: 1

Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva
Winner: Arlovski (3)
Method of Victory: Decision
Round: .....

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. Joey Villasenor
Winner: Jacare (5)
Method of Victory: Submission
Round: 1

Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman
Winner: Randleman (1)
Method of Victory: Strikes
Round: 2

Antwain Britt vs. Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante
Winner: Britt (2)
Method of Victory: Decision
Round: ......

11 Pts... JMT scored big on Overeem, predicting that fight correctly.

So here's the breakdown:

IndyJon: 15 Pts
JMT225: 11 Pts
GuyCompton: 9 Pts
Via Armbar: 5 Pts

IndyJon won this pick'em.

If anyone has any questions regarding scoring or anything of the sort, please let me know.

 

[Boxer38]

Sounds fun, I'll do it.

One question though. What does the number next to the name mean?

Winner: Overeem (1)

Winner: Arlovski (4)

Winner: Jacare (5)

Winner: Gracie (2)

Winner: Britt (3)

If you explained it already I'm sorry. I'm still a little tired, and I just wanted to post this before I forget.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Those are confidence points.

So because there were 5 fights we were picking, it's who you feel most confident in winning. So, in the example, the person making the prediction feels like Jacare has the best chance of winning his fight, so he allotted 5 points to him. It's high-risk/high-reward. So whenever you give someone 5 points, you should feel like they're giving you the best chance to score points.

Overeem was only allotted one point, because it was (in hindsight, hysterically) thought to be a close fight against Brett Rogers.

One other thing too. If you think it's going to be a knockout, call it strikes or TKO. For Submission, sub hold.

It prevents confusion when a verbal submission takes place. In the Kongo/Buentello fight, it ended by verbal submission, where Kongo used strikes to make Buentello tap out.

If you think it will be a decision, do what JMT did and do not give a round.

 

[Buffalo Dave]

Im in, pretty simple to grasp! What would deadline be to fill out your picks? Maybe do bonus points for the 3 awards fight of the night, knock out of the night, and submission of the night, if you pick any of them correctly, just a thought!

 

[Turd Ferguson]

That's a good question.

Picks would have to be in by the time the first prelim fight starts (say 6:30 EST).

That's also a real good idea for bonuses as well. If we get a lot of ties, I'll definitely consider adding that in the criteria.

 

[Via Armbar]

I really should have put more thought into those lol. With Gracie, perhaps I just had a bad taste in my mouth from the last Gracie I saw fight. Arlovski also looked like shit, which I wasn't expecting. I've got much stronger feelings about 114 and the fights seem much easier to measure.

 

[jmt225]

Hey guys, it's awesome you want to participate, but this is still a non-spam section, lol. Guy put this up to explain the rules and give you guys a chance to ask questions. No Warnings/Infractions issued here because I understand it's simply a misunderstanding, but yeah... just wait until a Prediction thread goes up and then you can shoot Guy a PM letting him know your predictions. That's how this is going to work, I think.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

OOH! Yes, that's one thing I forgot. PM predictions to me rather than posting them here. That way, people can't leech off of others' picks and we're in compliance with the rules.

All of these ancillary questions will be covered when I open the UFC 114 Prediction Thread, I promise.