Armbar

Limb — Arm200 Finishes · 11.7% of All Submissions

Total Finishes

200

Share of All Subs

12%

Most by One Fighter

Peak Year

2020

Year by Year

32 Years with a Finish

Statistical overview

The third most used submission in the UFC

Every figure below covers complete years only, from 1994 through 2025. The current year is left out until it is finished, because a part-season is both a smaller sample and a lopsided one — this section rewrites itself each January.

196finishes

11.9%of all 1,644 submissions

#3of 39 distinct submissions

2020peak year, 14 finishes

How’s it trending?

−59%down on its long-run rate

Across the last 1,000 men’s fights the armbar finished 8 against 19.4 its earlier rate predicts — 0.80 per 100 fights against 1.94 before. That clears our threshold for a confirmed shift: a move this size on these numbers is not something chance produces. Less of a threat than the record suggests, which is a reason to move defensive time off it rather than onto it.

And over the long run

13.3%of submissions1994–2020

8.3%of submissionslast five years, 2021–2025

The armbar first appears in 1994. That is a real difference — 5.0 points less of the modern game than it used to be, and big enough that chance does not explain it.

That is a real difference — 5.0 points less of the modern game than it used to be, and big enough that chance does not explain it.

8.3% against 13.3% · 37 of 448 · 95% range −8.2 to −1.8 points

95% range −83% to −16% · 2024-06-28 to 2026-09-19, men’s divisions. Measured as the rate at which the armbar ends a fight, not its share of submissions — share moves whenever the overall submission rate moves.

When does the finish come?

65.3%Round 1

22.4%Round 2

10.7%Round 3

0.0%Round 4

1.5%Round 5

armbar every other submission

65.3% of these finishes come in the first round, against 49.2% for every other submission. That is a real difference — 16.1 points earlier than the rest, and big enough that chance does not explain it. Within the round itself the median comes at 3:14 against 2:50 — 24 seconds later.

Does weightclass matter?

Welterweight and middleweight10.5%51 of 488

Featherweight and lightweight7.4%33 of 446

Light heavyweight and heavyweight12.5%30 of 240

Flyweight and bantamweight8.9%21 of 235

Women's divisions31.5%53 of 168

The armbar is at its strongest in women's divisions, taking 31.5% of the submissions there against 9.7% elsewhere — 21.9 points clear, interval 14.7 to 29.0. It is weakest in featherweight and lightweight at 7.4%, 6.2 points below the rest of the sport, interval −9.3 to −3.1.

The men’s and women’s divisions

Across the women’s divisions the armbar accounts for 31.5% of submissions — 53 of 168 — against 9.7% everywhere else. That is a real difference — 21.9 points more of the women's game, and big enough that chance does not explain it. That said, the women’s sample is 168 submissions in total, so it moves on a handful of fights in a way the men’s does not.

Anything out of the ordinary

One night

4 in a single evening at UFC - Ultimate Japan

1997. A card that size predicts 0.5 of them; it produced 4. Nothing links the fights on a card beyond the night they share, so a cluster like this is a coincidence worth seeing rather than a cause worth explaining.

See the card →