Kountermove: Changing the face of fantasy MMA

There are many different types of fantasy mixed martial arts sites out there, but many of them meld together.

Most offer an opportunity to pick the winners, the method and the round. Perhaps some spice things up by creating a "Hot Fight" but that's about as complicated as it gets.

That's not the case with Kountermove, not by a long shot. With Kountermove, it's not just about picking who you think will win, it's about picking how badly someone is going to win using modern MMA statistics through Fightmetric.

I've had the opportunity to use this budding fantasy mixed martial arts site for the last five months and from the first game I entered with fellow MMA media members, I've been hooked.

Allow me to explain after the jump.

"It's one thing to figure out who wins, but we wanted to take it a step further and a step deeper. Let's make it more strategic. If you just pick who's gonna win or lose, that's not exciting enough. We wanted to have more nuance and be a little more sophisticated and I think that's what we do on the site," says Aaron Ard, an executive at Kountermove during a recent appearance on The Verbal Submission radio show.

The way Kountermove works is you get a total of $25,000 fantasy dollars and you get to pick five fighters for your "team" during a UFC or Strikeforce event. Each fighter is given a specific value by a group of Kountermove employees. They assign a value for each fighter based on how they believe the fight will go. Points are scored if your fighters scores a finish, wins a round, lands significant strikes, knocks an opponent down, scores takedowns, secures dominant positions or attempts submissions. The more dominant your fighters' performance, the more points you're going to score.

For example, Nate Diaz scored the most points in Kountermove history at UFC 141 in his fight against Donald Cerrone because he won all three rounds (10 points each) and landed a whopping 238 significant strikes (0.5 points each) for a total of 149 points.

"What you're trying to do is basically not only outsmart your opponents but outsmart us," said Ard. "If you think, 'Hey, this guy is undervalued.' that's really good. You should look at what we're doing and you're trying to find the guys that we mispriced and beat your opponents with that information."

Kountermove features all sorts of differently priced games from free games for newcomers all the way up to big-time games which cost up to $100. The current biggest prize for winning a tournament will be $1000 for the winner of one of the upcoming UFC 145 games.

Now what I like the most about Kountermove is the fact that the first guy fighting on the undercard can score just as many points if not more than whoever is fighting in the main event. If you want to truly have an advantage over your opponents, it pays to know who these preliminary fighters are. Thus, it encourages fans and gamers to get to know the lesser-known combatants.

The other factor with having the salary cap is that means you almost certainly will have to try and find the most logical upset on the fight card. If you can budget your fantasy cash effectively, it will better allow you to afford the pricier big favorites who are likely to score quick finishes.

Needless to say, the more research you do and the more you know about each fighter and how they perform, the higher percentage you have of winning big.

With a huge wave of UFC events about to take center stage. Now would be a terrific opportunity to test your MMA knowledge with fantasy MMA whether it's a pick 'em site like FFFLeague or the more statistic-savvy Kountermove.

Good luck!

Disclaimer - I was comped a few tournaments to use Kountermove and test out the site.