The Scenario
You are an MMA data analyst building a fighter-profiling tool for a betting research firm. You need full career records for 10 UFC fighters — every fight, result, opponent, method (KO, submission, decision), and date — loaded into an Excel workbook. That is roughly 200+ fight rows before you add analytical columns.
The win method breakdown is the core of the model. A fighter who wins 80% by submission profiles very differently from one who wins 80% by decision.
The bad version:
- You try to pull the MMA data through Power Query using a web connector with the API key in the URL
- Power Query auto-detects a record structure but leaves the bouts array unexpanded
- You write an M formula to expand it, it expands correctly for fighter ID 1 but errors on fighter ID 5 because the response schema differs slightly for older fighters
- You give up and write a Python script, run it for all 10 IDs, get 23 rows with blank method data for older fights
- You paste the data into Excel and discover the method field uses "TKO (Punches)" in some records and just "TKO" in others
- Your summary formula undercounts KO wins and the model is wrong.
The faster version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Excel workbook that calls the MMA career records endpoint for a list of fighter IDs and normalises the method naming across different data vintages.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Fetch the complete career fight records for MMA fighter IDs 1, 5, 12, 18, 23, 30, 44, 55, 67, and 89 and write fighter name, opponent, result, method, and date into this workbook. Add a summary block at the top showing wins, losses, KO wins, submission wins, and decision wins for each fighter.
SheetXAI calls the API-Sports MMA endpoints for each fighter ID, normalises the method naming across historical data vintages, and writes the fight-by-fight records along with the aggregated summary block.
What You Get
A career records workbook with two sections:
- Summary block — one row per fighter with total wins, losses, KO wins, submission wins, and decision wins
- Fight-by-fight table — fighter name, opponent, result (W/L/NC), method, and date, one row per bout
Method normalisation means "TKO (Punches)", "TKO", and "Technical Knockout" all resolve to the same category before the summary counts are calculated. Your model gets the right KO rates.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Fighter profiling for a betting model needs more than raw records. SheetXAI can add the analytical layers inline.
When older fight records have blank method data
Fights from the early 2000s sometimes lack method data. Your KO-rate formula will undercount if those blanks are treated as zeros.
For rows where the method column is blank, write 'Unknown' into the method column. Adjust the summary block so KO wins, submission wins, and decision wins are shown as percentages of wins-with-known-method only. Add a 'Data Completeness' column to the summary showing what percentage of each fighter's record has a known method.
When you want a recency-weighted win method profile
A fighter who won 10 by KO before 2020 and 5 by decision since is a different proposition. You want the last 3 years weighted separately.
Split the fight history into two periods: before 2022 and from 2022 onwards. Recalculate KO%, submission%, and decision% separately for each period and add both breakdowns to the summary block.
When you want fighters ranked by submission rate
Your model weights submission-heavy fighters differently for certain matchup types.
Calculate each fighter's submission win rate as submission wins divided by total wins. Add a 'Sub Rate' column to the summary block and sort the summary by Sub Rate descending.
When you want the full fighter brief for the betting model in one pass
You have the 10 fighter IDs and nothing else. You want the career records, the summary block, the win method profile split by era, a flag for fighters with a KO rate above 50%, and a separate tab for active fighters only.
Fetch complete career records for MMA fighter IDs 1, 5, 12, 18, 23, 30, 44, 55, 67, and 89. Write the fight-by-fight records to the main tab. Build a Summary tab with total record, KO%, submission%, and decision% for both pre-2022 and 2022-onwards periods. Flag fighters with a KO rate above 50% in a 'High KO Risk' column. Create an 'Active Fighters' tab for any fighter whose most recent fight is within the last 18 months.
The pattern: instead of pulling the raw data and building the profiling model separately in Excel, you describe the full analytical output and SheetXAI runs the data pipeline and the model construction together.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and ask it to pull career fight records for a list of MMA fighter IDs into your Excel workbook. The API-Sports integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to build a multi-player career comparison table in Excel or the API-Sports in Excel overview.