Will Chris Daukaus’s prodigious striking numbers hold up against Derrick Lewis?

From a statistical standpoint, the heavyweight battle between Chris Daukaus and Derrick Lewis is not even really a contest. Lewis certainly has the bigger name, but Daukaus has perhaps the best striking statistics in the promotion at the moment.

After four fights in the Octagon, Daukaus has the highest significant strikes landed per minute rate among ranked fighters at 9.03 and the second highest striking differential at +5.62. The only ranked fighter with a better differential is Khamzat Chimaev, and he has famously only absorbed one significant strike through four UFC fights.

On the other hand, Lewis has a +0.01 differential, which ranks 136th among ranked fighters. His 2.49 significant strikes landed per minute rate is the 11th lowest rate in the same group, and many of the fighters lower than him are wrestlers who dominate via position or named Darren Till.

Of course the narrative for many going into this fight will be something along the lines of “naturally Daukaus has the better overall numbers, but Lewis only needs to land that one big blow!” While it is hard to argue against the idea that Lewis’ best path to victory is a huge knockout, even his power numbers lag behind his upcoming opponent.

Daukaus’ 6.66 knockdowns per 15 minute rate not only probably means something to Robert Langdon, but it is also far and away tops among ranked UFC fighters. The fighter with the second best rate in the group is Sergei Pavlovich (3.93). Lewis, despite clearly having huge power, has averaged only 0.49 knockdowns per 15 minutes of fight time.

Lewis believers may counter that he spends most of his time standing around looking for that one big blow. Therefore, even though he has huge power, he does not have a very impressive knockdown rate. That is certainly true. In fact, in terms of striking output, defined as significant strikes attempted per minute, Lewis’ 4.97 rate is the seventh lowest among ranked fighters and only slightly better than Til’s rate of 4.85.

Guess who has the highest striking output among ranked fighters? If you guessed the former police officer who credits his success to practicing karate in the basement with his brother, you are correct. Daukaus’ 16.94 significant strikes attempted per minute rate is higher than the all ranked UFC fighters including Max Holloway (15.61), Shane Burgos (15.17) and Cory Sandhagen (14.35).

So we have established that Lewis does not land very many strikes, does not score many knockdowns and has one of the lowest striking outputs among ranked fighters. While that certainly does not paint a flattering portrait, it does not really mesh with reality. Over the years, we have seen him melt folks with single strikes and even earned two shots at the UFC title with this prodigious finishing power.

One stat that does reflect Lewis’ power is the number of standing significant strikes per knockdown (landed significant strikes at distance plus landed significant strikes in the clinch divided by knockdowns). Lewis has averaged 44 standing strikes per knockdown, which is the 16th highest rate among ranked UFC fighters. However, once again, he is bested by Daukaus. He has averaged a knockdown for every 15 landed standing strikes, which is second best among ranked fighters behind only Chimaev.

As previously stated, the stats really do not allude to a competitive fight. Daukaus has much more impressive numbers. However, can we really trust those numbers? Those stats are based on only four fights, which is a rather small sample size, and Lewis has certainly faced the much tougher competition. As @Fight_Expert often reminds me on Twitter, it is important to factor in the strength of the opposition.

Using their Fight Matrix ranking from when they fought Dakuas, his opponents have had an average ranking of 63.75. His first two opponents, Parker Porter (134th) and Rodrigo Nascimento (90th), were not highly ranked when he faced them. However, Aleksei Oleinik (11th) and Shamil Abdurakhimov (20th) were both ranked in the Fight Matrix top 20 when he defeated them.

As one would expect, Lewis has faced the tougher schedule in the UFC. His average opponent ranking has been 34.18, and he has not faced an opponent ranked outside the top 25 since 2016. If we include only his fights against fighters ranked outside the top 25, Lewis’ striking differential is +2.17, much higher than his overall career rate.

Daukaus’ numbers have been basically off the charts so far in his UFC career. If those numbers are predictive at all, he should breeze to a victory over Lewis on Saturday. However, it is always important to remember the sample size and strength of opposition.