The Numbers are In

I realize that very few of you who read this care that much about the inner workings of MMA fights, but this seemed really interesting to me. In the fight this weekend between (my favorite fighter) BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar, BJ Penn lost his championship belt on, what seemed to me among many others, a dubious decision. Soon after the fight was finsihed, the FightMetric numbers came in. Here they are. I had the bout pretty much as they have it scored in the right-hand column. Douglas Crosby's now notorius 50-45 has Edgar winning every round. Now, how does someone who does this for a living and is sitting ringside (not that that is an improvement over TV) perceive something so opposed to reality? Maybe there could be an argument that Edgar hits much harder than Penn and Penn was just throwing pitty-pat strikes, but we know pretty much the opposite to be true. Here is a more elaborate breakdown. Crosby insits that he has rewatched the fight and is still correct. Strange things are afoot. Absurd.