Heel Hook

Limb — Leg24 Finishes · 1.4% of All Submissions

Total Finishes

Share of All Subs

1.4%

Most by One Fighter

Peak Year

2025

Year by Year

18 Years with a Finish

Statistical overview

The ninth most used submission in the UFC

Every figure below covers complete years only, from 1995 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.

23finishes

1.4%of all 1,644 submissions

#9of 39 distinct submissions

2025peak year, 3 finishes

How’s it trending?

+83%on a good run

Across the last 1,000 men’s fights the heel hook finished 5 against 2.7 its earlier rate predicts — 0.50 per 100 fights against 0.27 before. It sits below our threshold for calling a trend shift, though. On 5 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

1.5%of submissions1995–2020

1.1%of submissionslast five years, 2021–2025

The heel hook first appears in 1995. That looks like a gap, but on 448 it is well inside what chance alone would produce. Treat the two as the same. Over five years it is holding roughly the share it always had.

That looks like a gap, but on 448 it is well inside what chance alone would produce. Treat the two as the same.

1.1% against 1.5% · 5 of 448 · 95% range −1.6 to 0.8 points

95% range −47% to 407% · 2024-06-28 to 2026-09-19, men’s divisions. Measured as the rate at which the heel hook ends a fight, not its share of submissions — share moves whenever the overall submission rate moves.

When does the finish come?

87.0%Round 1

4.3%Round 2

8.7%Round 3

0.0%Round 4

0.0%Round 5

heel hook every other submission

87.0% of these finishes come in the first round, against 50.6% for every other submission. That is a real difference — 36.4 points earlier than the rest, and big enough that chance does not explain it. Within the round itself the median comes at 1:37 against 2:52 — 75 seconds earlier.

Does weightclass matter?

Welterweight and middleweight1.2%6 of 488

Featherweight and lightweight0.9%4 of 446

Light heavyweight and heavyweight3.8%9 of 240

Flyweight and bantamweight0.9%2 of 235

Women's divisions0.0%0 of 168

The heel hook is at its strongest in light heavyweight and heavyweight, taking 3.8% of the submissions there against 1.0% elsewhere — 2.8 points clear, interval 0.3 to 5.2. It is weakest in women's divisions at 0.0%, 1.6 points below the rest of the sport, interval −2.2 to −0.9.

The men’s and women’s divisions

Across the women’s divisions the heel hook accounts for 0.0% of submissions — 0 of 168 — against 1.6% everywhere else. That is a real difference — 1.6 points less 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

Nothing stands out. No year, card or fighter sits outside what the heel hook’s own volume predicts — it arrives at a steady rate, spread across the roster, rather than in bursts belonging to one night or one person.