How often fights end early varies widely by division
Since 2013, the share of UFC bouts ended by KO/TKO or submission ranged from 46% (flyweight) to 64% (light heavyweight) in the men's divisions, and from 34% (women's strawweight) to 43% (women's featherweight, 30 bouts) in the women's. Heavyweight: 309 of 495 (62%).
62.4%Heavyweight bouts ended by KO/TKO or submission
309 of 495 · UFC bouts since 2013
Wilson 95%: 58.1% to 66.6%
Breakdown
| Group | Share | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Heavyweight | 62.4% | 309 of 495 |
| Light Heavyweight | 63.6% | 316 of 497 |
| Middleweight | 57.2% | 450 of 787 |
| Welterweight | 50.2% | 484 of 964 |
| Lightweight | 52.2% | 541 of 1,036 |
| Featherweight | 47.4% | 374 of 789 |
| Bantamweight | 46.5% | 334 of 719 |
| Flyweight | 45.9% | 191 of 416 |
| Women's Featherweight | 43.3% | 13 of 30 |
| Women's Bantamweight | 39.7% | 100 of 252 |
| Women's Flyweight | 36.5% | 104 of 285 |
| Women's Strawweight | 34.2% | 131 of 383 |
How this was measured
Every UFC bout since 2013 in the twelve standard divisions; a finish is a KO/TKO (doctor stoppages included) or a submission; draws count as non-finishes; no contests are left out.
Included
- UFC bouts since 2013 in the standard divisions
Left out
- No contests and overturned results
- Catch weight and open weight
Caveats
- Not a straight line by weight: light heavyweight is above heavyweight, and lightweight above welterweight; neighbouring divisions often differ by less than their margins of error.
- Men's and women's divisions are best compared within each group: every women's division is below every men's division over the period, but they differ in size and history.
- Card composition differs by division (title fights, five-round main events).
How it was checked
- Overall, men's bouts were finished more often than women's in both 2013–2019 and 2020–2026; the order of individual divisions changes between the two periods.
- Reproduced exactly by an independent re-implementation written from the definition alone (28 Oct 2026).
- Survives the Benjamini–Hochberg correction across all 59 tested research hypotheses (q < 0.001).
- Research catalog entry `finish_rate_by_division` (validated).
Sources and updates
- Greco1899/scrape_ufc_stats @5d6622f · GPL-3.0 (code); data from UFC Stats
- nlbair/ufc-data @a9c6543 · CC BY 4.0 (files)
Data as of 24 Oct 2026. Recalculated after UFC events and reviewed by an editor before any change is shown. A historical description, not a prediction for any fight.