Insights
Data isn’t just a set of numbers, it tells a story. Understand the story being told and you’ll get a fighting advantage.
The Disappearing ClinchClinch strikes are down 27% a fighter since 2015. The takedowns have not moved, and the man who wins the clinch still wins two fights in three. One man never got the memo.−27%clinch strikes per fighter since 2015Read the story →
more strikes thrown by the light divisions — and not one more landedEverybody Lands the SameThe lighter divisions throw 10.7% more significant strikes than the heavyweights and land not one more. The fast-forward is real — it is strikes in the air, not damage arriving.Read the story →Quick hitFirst to FinishUmar Nurmagomedov had never been finished in nine UFC fights. Song Yadong knocked him out in one minute forty-eight — and became the tenth man in UFC history to reach eighteen fights before turning twenty-nine.Watch & swipe →
43.9%of 2026 fights had a knockdownThe Year They Started FallingThrough 22 August, 43.9% of fights had a knockdown in them — the highest share in the fifteen years the statistic covers. The scorers did not get generous and the cards did not get heavier. In the women’s divisions it did not happen at all.Read the story →351fights in 2026, to 22 Aug154had a knockdown in them29more than the old rate givesQuick hitThe One Man It Worked ForGrappling spent a decade rebuilding itself around the heel hook and the UFC has seen twelve of them since 2015. Four belong to Valter Walker, who has won five fights here and won every one of them at the leg.Watch & swipe →Quick hitThe Real ZombieMarlon Vera has never been stopped in twenty-six UFC fights. The Korean Zombie earned the nickname; the record says the name is on the wrong man.Watch & swipe →The knockout goes missingAngela Hill has lost sixteen fights in the UFC and has never been knocked out. There are four ways a fight can end, and women are level with the men in three of them. The fourth does not arrive.Read the story →
Quick hitThe TwisterFive twisters in the history of the UFC, and two of them landed eight weeks apart. Charles Johnson was on the receiving end of a different rare finish forty-nine days before he threw this one.Watch & swipe →
HometownAdvantageThe most quotable number on home advantage is worth nothing. Underneath it, two opposite effects — and a real edge that is not the crowd and not the scorecards.Read the story →
The Changing of the GuardThe armbar and the triangle have all but gone from men’s fights while the rear naked choke has not moved at all. Chokes taken from the top took the difference — and the women’s divisions did not follow.0.86armbar finishes per 100 men’s bouts, down from 7.78Read the story →
points of win rate lost to a year awayThe Year OutRing rust is the most convenient excuse in the sport. Measured against the same man's own record, a year away costs nine points of win rate — and survives every control.Read the story →
The Aim of the SportThree quarters of everything is thrown at the head, which lands 38% of the time. The leg lands 82% and decides almost nothing. The body is the target being left on the table.77%of strikes aimed at the target they hit leastRead the story →fewer submission attempts by the last roundBlood, Sweat and SubmissionsSubmissions collapse across the rounds and everyone blames the sweat. Attempts fall by 57%; the finish rate falls by six points. The choke still works — nobody reaches for it.Read the story →
strikes — the entire five-round slowdownFive Round Fight PaceEvery broadcast says they are pacing themselves for the championship rounds. Measured against the same men in their own three-round fights, it does not happen. In the women's divisions it does.Read the story →65%of the time the shorter man wins the takedown countComing Up ShortGive away ten centimetres and you win the takedown count in 65% of fights — but your success rate per attempt is identical. The edge is volume, not leverage.Read the story →wrestler against striker, and a coin flipWrestler vs. Striker,who wins?When a wrestler meets a striker, everyone knows what happens. Across 165 of them, the wrestler wrestles less than he usually does, the striker strikes less than he usually does, and the winner is a coin flip. Both game plans die at once.Read the story →
Submission Rate by YearThe leg lock that never arrivedGrappling spent a decade rebuilding itself around one hold: the heel hook. Inside the UFC cage there are whole years with none at all — and almost every one that lands now belongs to the same heavyweight.Read the story →21leg submissions in the modern era
of the effect survives a fair comparisonNever the same againIt is the most repeated claim in the sport: once a fighter has been knocked out, something is gone for good. Set against fighters whose first defeat was a decision — same age, same decline, no trauma — the effect disappears completely.Read the story →19.1%women by submission, against 19.2% for menThe armbar belongs to the womenWomen finish fights by submission at precisely the rate comparable men do — 19.1% against 19.2%. What they do not share is the target. One game hunts the neck. The other hunts the arm, and it is the only place in this database where the two sports genuinely part company on the mat.Read the story →UFC fights, if you lose your debut by knockoutThe First FightEvery fighter gets one night to answer a question the promotion is asking about them, and the answer sticks harder than it has any right to.Read the story →
75.8%win rate for the fighters who landThrowing More,Landing LessEvery fighter who is losing reaches for the same lever. It is a weaker lever than accuracy by a distance — but it is not, as the sport tends to assume, the wrong one.Read the story →
the minute control starts to payThe Price of ControlThe least popular thing in mixed martial arts turns out to have a price list, and almost everything anyone argues about sits below the line where it starts costing anything.Read the story →
Survive the RoundA knockdown looks like the end of a fight, and 86% of the time it is — but the fighters who hear the bell before the referee waves it off are in a very different fight from the one the highlight reel suggests.313heard the bell — and wonRead the story →
before reach means anything at allThe Ten-Centimetre RuleCommentary reads the tale of the tape before every fight, and for most of those fights it is reading out a coin flip — the number only starts to mean anything past ten centimetres.Read the story →fights say the coaches were rightThe Southpaw ProblemEvery coach in combat sports says the same thing about left-handers, and the record of 2,430 UFC fights says they are right — by about three and a half points.Read the story →
The Undefeated OpponentEvery fighter eventually loses to the same opponent, and the tape is unusually clear about what it takes first — not the offence, which barely moves, but everything on the other side of the ledger.8,641decided fights, one opponent nobody beatsRead the story →times the third judge saw another fightThe Third Scorecard828 times, two judges saw one fight and the third saw another. Inside the UFC's one-in-five problem.Read the story →
Submission Rate by YearThe Undisputed King - The rear naked chokeThe choke that outlived every era: thirty years of the UFC's most reliable finish.Read the story →663rear naked choke finishes
Gravity Always WinsThree decades of the takedown — the least glamorous move in fighting, and the most consequential.14,480takedowns landed since UFC 1Read the story →4:46when the median knockout landsWhen the Knockout Comes2,878 knockouts, one clock. The median UFC finish lands ten seconds before the end of round one.Read the story →
