UFC 219: Cris Cyborg vs. Holly Holm alternative stats

After beating up on Invicta’s 135 lb. champ at UFC 214, Cris Cyborg is back tomorrow night at the year-ending UFC 219 show to attempt to do the same against the UFC’s former 135 lb. champ Holly Holm.

In the co-main event, the “Tiramisu Takedown” Khabib Nurmagomedov finally returns to try not to get knocked out on his feet against Edson Barboza, and instead ground and pound him into submission.

There are four fights with good data on the night. Statistical breakdowns are below and exact win probabilities will go up at Bloody Elbow at 6pm ET tomorrow, shortly before the Fight Pass prelims start.

Remember, what you’re about to read are not official UFC statistics. They’re alternative stats designed to (1) give more weight to the recent present than the distant past and (2) not let one huge or horrible performance dominate the data.

See the notes at the bottom for definitions of certain statistics and check out an earlier piece for an explanation of how this works.

Cris Cyborg vs. Holly Holm

Cyborg’s bout closeness measure of 3 (0-to-100 scale, 0 is dominance, 100 is super close) is the lowest I’ve ever seen. For perspective, out of her eight documented bouts including Strikeforce, Tonya Evinger put on the best statistical performance and still got walloped with 96.9% Cyborg dominance.

A good argument can be made that Cyborg hasn’t faced the same level of competition as Holm, but the model attempts to control for that.

Cyborg’s stats are so gaudy it’s almost embarrassing to write about them. In the alternative stats world, she spends 3:07 standing at distance with Holm at 4:10. Cyborg lands 75% of her head jabs, 72% of head power shots, 84% of body power shots, and 96% of power leg strikes.

All distance accuracy percentages in the 70s or above. That’s all, no big deal.

For volume at distance, Cyborg throws 47.4 head jabs per 5 minutes (P5M) to Holm’s 9.7 and 165.4 power strikes to Holm’s 35.1. She out-lands her opponents by a staggering 117.7 power strikes P5M and 34 head jabs. Holm is equal to her opponents in head jabs and out-lands them with power by 3.3.

Top it off with Cyborg’s opponents only landing 7% of their head jabs at distance, 3% of power shots to the head, and 5% of their overall power shots. Oh, and she gets a knockdown in 70.7% of her alternative stats rounds.

The champ’s distance numbers are insane, neither fighter spends much time in the clinch, and the only thing I’ll say about the ground numbers is that Cyborg has top control 97% of the time and Holm is on bottom 90% of the time. Holm hasn’t even been good at standing up from her back.

The last time I wrote about the dominance of a Holm opponent, Holly head kicked Ronda Rousey into an effective retirement since the Nunes fight was essentially a regulated beating for money.

The model doesn’t count Holm out and I wouldn’t either, but…

The model’s pick is Cyborg.