A clear reach advantage has been a modest edge
Since 2001, fighters with a reach advantage of four inches or more won 1,152 of 2,066 UFC bouts (56%).
55.8%Bouts won by the fighter with a reach advantage of 4 inches or more
1,152 of 2,066 · UFC bouts since 2001
Wilson 95%: 53.6% to 57.9%
How this was measured
Reach is each fighter's listed reach on UFC Stats today (not at the time of the bout). Decided UFC bouts since 2001 with both reaches listed and a gap of four inches or more.
Included
- Decided UFC bouts since 2001
- Both reaches listed
- A gap of 4 inches or more
Left out
- Draws and no contests
- A reach not listed
Caveats
- Reach is the current listing, not the value at fight time; a quarter of decided bouts lack one.
- A modest edge: most of the time the longer fighter's edge is small.
- An association across many bouts, not a guide to any one fight: it is shown in the library only, never on a fight page.
How it was checked
- nlbair's reach column gives 55.6% on the same definition.
- 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 `reach_advantage_4in` (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.