Statistical overview
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.
Across the last 1,000 men’s fights the bulldog choke finished 0 against 0.9 its earlier rate predicts — 0.00 per 100 fights against 0.09 before. It sits below our threshold for calling a trend shift, though. On 0 finishes in a window this size, a run like this turns up often enough by chance that we will not call the underlying rate changed — a genuine move and a good spell look the same until more fights land. Worth watching rather than worth re-planning a camp around.
And over the long run
The bulldog choke first appears in 1994. That is a real difference — 0.6 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 — 0.6 points less of the modern game than it used to be, and big enough that chance does not explain it.
0.0% against 0.6% · 0 of 448 · 95% range −1.0 to −0.2 points
95% range −100% to 491% · 2024-06-28 to 2026-09-19, men’s divisions. Measured as the rate at which the bulldog choke ends a fight, not its share of submissions — share moves whenever the overall submission rate moves.
bulldog choke every other submission
42.9% of these finishes come in the first round, against 51.1% for every other submission. That looks like a gap, but on 7 it is well inside what chance alone would produce. Treat the two as the same. Within the round itself the median comes at 2:50 against 2:52 — 2 seconds earlier.
The bulldog choke is at its weakest in light heavyweight and heavyweight at 0.0%, 0.5 points below the rest of the sport, interval −0.9 to −0.1.
Across the women’s divisions the bulldog choke accounts for 0.6% of submissions — 1 of 168 — against 0.4% everywhere else. That looks like a gap, but on 168 it is well inside what chance alone would produce. Treat the two as the same. 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.
One night
2014. A card that size predicts 0.0 of them; it produced 2. 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 →Share of all 1,716 submission finishes
Rear Naked Choke39.2%672Guillotine Choke17.7%303Armbar11.7%200Arm Triangle7.9%135Triangle Choke5.5%95D'Arce Choke2.9%50Kimura2.7%46Anaconda Choke2.3%39
