Fightnomics, a Look at Combat Sports, Set for Release, 12/20

Many mainstream sports have well-understood patterns and statistics that define how they work, but combat sports, like the wildly popular Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), do not. To date, no author has presented numbers that identify trends and drivers within fighting despite MMA being considered the fastest growing sport in the world. Analyzing the patterns that determine how fighters compete and even predicting the outcomes of specific fights using deep statistical analysis hasn't been attempted, meaning common theories about the sport have gone virtually untested since inception. This is despite demonstrable benefit sports analytics offers football, basketball, baseball, and many other sports.

That will all change today when the book Fightnomics, the brainchild of Reed "The Fight Scientist" Kuhn and New York Times bestselling author Kelly Crigger becomes available. Mixed Martial Arts has thrived on an accelerated pace since 1993 and this book is one more step in its modernization and widespread acceptance.

"We're setting benchmarks for the sport and answering long-standing and hotly debated questions," says Kuhn. "Statistics for traditional sports have inched their way forward over decades. We're covering a lot of ground in MMA in one fell swoop by analyzing how fights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) really go down at a level of detail never seen before."

A strategy consultant by trade with diverse analytical experience, Kuhn has been a fan of MMA since the early days of the UFC. Creating the Fightnomics blog and book were natural endeavors that reconciled his passions and skills and shed a scientific light on the sport he loves. He can discuss fighter matchups as comfortably as he does evolutionary biology or astronomy, and just as passionately.

"I may not look the part, but I'm a diehard fight fan," says Kuhn. "We come in all shapes and sizes. I just wanted to answer the same questions that every other MMA fan had using a little bit of science and a whole lot of numbers."

An underlying theme of Fightnomics is that every fighter is unique and the cage is chaotic, but analyzing the relative strengths and weaknesses of each fighter as well as the context of how MMA really works can and does pay off for understanding and even predicting outcomes. Individual stats can easily mislead, but Fightnomics is based on unbiased averages, well-documented patterns, and meaningful context. Kuhn and Crigger bring these analytical styles together in Fightnomics and in some cases coin new terminology that will likely become part of MMA's vocabulary, such as The Youth Advantage, The Pace Advantage, Knockdown Rates, and Knockdown Resiliency.

"The MMA fanbase is passionate, but for a long time the same hunches and myths have perpetuated without any data to settle the score," adds Crigger. "No fan should enter those debates without first being literate on the real trends in fighting. In Fightnomics we provide definitive answers to some of the oldest questions like 'is there a southpaw advantage?' and 'is ring rust a real thing?'"

Kuhn's co-author Kelly Crigger is both a veteran of the military and a veteran writer, achieving New York Times bestseller status with his 2011 book, Dark World, co-written with Travel Channel host Zak Bagans. Crigger has written three prior books about MMA and was a regular contributor to several MMA outlets including FIGHT! Magazine.

Fightnomics will available in eBook formats on Amazon, Apple, Nook, and numerous other outlets on December 9th. Paperbacks will be available on Amazon December 20th. Get yours here - http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_seeall_2?rh=k%3Afightnomics%2Ci%3Astripbooks&keywords=fightnomics&ie=UTF8&qid=1386606168.

Follow Fightnomics on twitter @fightnomics.

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