
By: Jaewook Cho
Max Holloway, known to be the most resilient fighter in the Featherweight division, recently got knocked out by the undefeated champion Illia Topuria in the UFC 310 Featherweight Title Match. It was his first time being knocked out in his entire fighting career. Even though Max was predicted to be an underdog coming into this fight (+225), not many UFC fans expected him to get knocked out. Resilience to punches and kicks, specifically those landed on head, is a huge advantage for fighters in UFC as opponents would have to use more time and stamina in order to knock them out. For instance, a fighter resilient to damages on head may choose a strategy to “exchange” punches on head, leading to net loss on an opponent's stamina and durability. This advantage in fights leads to a question: Which fighter in the UFC Featherweight division has the strongest chin?
Terminologies
Before trying to figure out the Featherweight fighter with the strongest chin, one must first understand the terminologies of the sport.
SigStr: Significant Strikes
KO: Knockouts
TKO: Technical Knockouts
Method
The website ufcstats.com contains the data of every fighter, including records, number of significant strikes on each fights, fight results, and the ground time. When generating dataset for top 16 fighters (champion + 15 rankers) of the UFC Featherweight, however, the data collection process did not include the the whole fighting career of the fighters. Since the number of fights vary from each fighter, it is unfair to include their entire career when comparing which fighter is the most resilient. For instance, it is more likely for a fighter with 30 fights to have more KOs compared to the one with only 10 fights. Thus, the data analysis included only the most recent 10 fights for the top 15 fighters. For each fighter, the following data were recorded: number of significant strikes landed on head each fight and the number of times they got knocked out. Below is a list of fighters included in the data collected (ordered based on their rank).
(C) Ilia Topuria
(1) Alexander Volkanovski
(2) Max Holloway
(3) Diego Lopes
(4) Yair Rodriquez
(5) Movsar Evloev
(6) Brian Ortega
(7) Arnold Allen
(8) Josh Emmett
(9) Aljamain Sterling
(10) Calvin Kattar
(11) Lerone Murphy
(12) Giga Chikadze
(13) Bryce Mitchell
(14) Dan Ige
(15) Edson Barboza
* The ranking is based on ufc.com on November 3rd.
Data Visualizations and Analysis

With the data, the visualization above first arranged the fighters based on the “average significant strike on head absorbed per game”. The average number for the top 15 contenders was 38.5. Brian, with a value of 72.3 (almost double the amount of the average), placed first in the “average significant strike on head absorbed per game”, followed by Max Holloway with 68.3 and Calvin Cater of 59.7. Interestingly, the ranking in the Featherweight division has no significant correlation with the number of absorbed strikes. Max and Yair, each ranked second and fourth in the Featherweight division, are placed higher in this graph as well. Meanwhile, Illia, a current UFC Featherweight champion, is placed 13th in the graph. Although resilience is a significant benefit, just because a fighter absorbs many strikes during the fight, that doesn’t mean that they are a good fighter. One might structure a fighting plan so that they don’t get as many strikes on head as other fighters do, and maintain a higher rank.

The second visualization shows the number of KO/TKO losses by each fighter. The maximum number of KO losses from 10 recent matches for the fighters are at most 2. Moreover, 7 of them never got knocked out for those 10 recent fights, while the average of the entire Featherweight division is approximately 2.49. Considering that the boss of UFC, Dana White, kicks fighters with disappointing performance out of the UFC ranking, the fact that the maximum KO/TKO loss is only 2 proves that they are showing outstanding performance. The graph shows that those fighters without any knockout loss had a smaller amount of significant strikes from the first visual, meaning that there is no significant correlation between the number strikes absorbed on head and the number of KO/TKO losses.

The third visualization shows the average number of significant strikes landed on head in order to knockout each fighter. This visualization shows a strong correlation with the first visualization, as the fighter with more significant strikes absorbed on head tends to require more significant strikes on head to knock them out. However, it has a weak correlation with the second visualization, for the fighters with only one KO/TKO loss in the 10 recent fights are located at the edge of the third visualization (fighters on the left and right end of the horizontal line).
Limitations and Potential Improvements
As mentioned, the number of significant strikes landed on head itself can not be a sole reason to determine if the fighter has a “strong chin”. Moreover, the damage from each “significant strike” counted on the data has a different damage to a fighter.
The data collection also includes the fighting styles of each fighter. The analysis could have compared each fighting style and generated a conclusion about the best fighting style for the UFC Featherweight division.
Conclusion
As approaching to the answer to the question “Which fighter in the UFC Featherweight division has the strongest chin?”, it was vague to include the fighters without any KO/TKO loss. Thus, it assigned the scores based on the ranking on the graph to those fighters with the KO/TKO loss so that it is possible to compare the numerical values. The score was given as follows.
(C) Ilia Topuria: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(1) Alexander Volkanovski: 3 (2 + 1)
(2) Max Holloway: 11 (9 + 2)
(3) Diego Lopes: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(4) Yair Rodriquez: 6 (5 + 1)
(5) Movsar Evloev: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(6) Brian Ortega: 7 (6 + 1)
(7) Arnold Allen: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(8) Josh Emmett: 9 (7 + 2)
(9) Aljamain Sterling: 5 (3 + 2)
(10) Calvin Kattar: 10 (8 + 2)
(11) Lerone Murphy: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(12) Giga Chikadze: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(13) Bryce Mitchell: 3 (2 + 1)
(14) Dan Ige: N/A (no KO/TKO loss)
(15) Edson Barboza: 5 (4 + 1)
Based on the score, Max Holloway has won the title: “UFC Featherweight Fighter with the Strongest Chin”.
Sources
www.ufcstats.com/statistics/events/completed (UFC Stats)
www.ufc.com/news (UFC score cards)
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