The Third Scorecard

Every decision in the UFC ends with three pieces of paper. Most of the time they say the same thing. But 828 times — across 4,095 decisions and 8,796 recorded fights — one card has come back different, and the sport has had to shrug and call it a split.

That is not a rounding error. One decision in five splits the judges — 20.2 percent of every fight that has ever reached the cards. Nearly one fight in ten, across the entire history of the company, ended with the people paid to watch it unable to agree on what they saw.

The count

Disagreement, tallied

The split decision arrived early and never left. The first one on record came at UFC 9 in 1996 — three years into the company's life. Since then it has scaled with the sport itself: more cards, more rounds, more close fights, more paper for a dissenting judge to sign.

828 Split decisions, all time

Split decisions per year. 2026 is a partial year. 2025's 35 was the lowest full-year count since 2020.

16 1996 – 2005

291 2006 – 2015

502 2016 – 2025

The origin

Detroit, 1996

The first split decision in the data is not a footnote fight. It is Dan Severn against Ken Shamrock — the biggest rivalry the young company had — at UFC 9 in Detroit, May 16, 1996. The rematch went the distance, and when it ended, even the judges couldn't settle it cleanly. Severn took the cards, split.

Detroit, Michigan · May 16, 1996

SEVERN TAKES SHAMROCK ON SPLIT CARDS — JUDGES DIVIDED FOR FIRST TIME

The superfight rematch goes the distance at UFC 9, and the sport discovers a new way to end a fight: in disagreement.

The Octagon has produced knockouts, submissions and referee stoppages, but Motor City Madness delivered something new — a decision the judges themselves could not agree on. Dan Severn and Ken Shamrock fought to the final bell, and when the scorecards were read, one dissented. Severn left with the win; the sport left with a precedent. Of the five decisions rendered in the UFC by the end of 1996, this was the only split — the first entry in a column that now runs 828 deep.

From the fight database · first split decision on record

The man the judges can't agree on

The emblem

Andre Fili,
edge dweller

Nobody in UFC history has won more split decisions than Andre Fili. Five times — against Dennis Bermudez in 2018, Charles Jourdain in 2020, Bill Algeo in 2022, Cub Swanson at UFC 303 in 2024, and Christian Rodriguez in 2025 — Fili has stood in the cage while two cards went his way and one went the other.

Only two other men have ever reached five: Sean Strickland and Gleison Tibau. Nobody has reached six. Seven years of Fili's career, decided by the one judge who saw it his way.

The other side of that edge is just as crowded. Max Griffin, Cortney Casey, Angela Hill, Clay Guida and Paul Felder have each lost four split decisions — careers shaped by the card that went the other way.

The stakes

Even with gold on the line

The split decision does not respect occasion. Thirty-eight times, a UFC title fight — the biggest, most scrutinised, most consequential kind of fight the company can stage — has ended with the judges divided. Championships have changed hands, or not, on the opinion of one person at cageside.

That is the quiet lesson in the 828. The sport has spent three decades getting better at measuring itself — strike counts, control time, knockdowns, all of it tallied to the second. And still, one decision in five ends with trained observers watching the same fifteen or twenty-five minutes and reaching opposite conclusions. The data can count almost everything. It still can't make three people agree on what they saw.

38 Title fights decided by split

Disagreement, tallied

Detroit, 1996

SEVERN TAKES SHAMROCK ON SPLIT CARDS — JUDGES DIVIDED FOR FIRST TIME

Andre Fili,edge dweller

Even with gold on the line

Andre Fili,
edge dweller