UFC wins are increasingly tied to striking, while grappling still matters

An analysis of 1,722 bouts found that striking actions became more common and more closely associated with victory over three UFC eras.

Editorial illustration — not from the study.

Researchers analyzed 1,722 UFC fights from three periods: 2003–2004, 2013–2014 and 2023–2024. They compared six types of actions and examined which were associated with winning within individual bouts and across the periods.

Significant strikes showed the largest increase, rising 125% among winners and 225% among losers between the earliest and latest periods. Significant strikes were the strongest within-bout predictor of victory, followed by total strikes, while takedowns became less important as the difference between winners and losers fell by 23%.

How UFC victories changed

Significant strikes increased substantially from the Early Era to the Modern Era: by 125% among winners and 225% among losers. Within individual bouts, significant strikes were the strongest predictor of victory, followed by total strikes. Knockdowns were not significantly associated with victory in that analysis, although they were the strongest overall correlate in a separate logistic regression, with an odds ratio of 2.48.

A descriptive ranking placed knockdowns first, followed by total strikes, significant strikes and takedowns. The winner–loser difference in takedowns declined by 23% between the Early and Modern Eras. Submission attempts had modest importance, accounting for 12.8% of the combined importance ranking, while sweeps accounted for 0.4%. Overall, the results associate modern UFC victories more strongly with striking, while still indicating that grappling remains part of the sport’s successful skill set.

Why the shift matters

The findings describe a change in the actions most closely associated with UFC victory over time. They suggest that modern mixed martial arts increasingly rewards effective striking, but do not support treating striking and grappling as competing replacements: grappling-related actions still made a meaningful contribution to the overall ranking. The results also support the authors’ conclusion that defensive grappling remains a baseline requirement even as striking proficiency becomes more important.

Evidence and caveats

This was a cross-temporal analysis of recorded actions in 1,722 UFC bouts, using statistical models to examine associations with victory across three eras. It can show which actions were linked with winning and how those links changed over time, but it does not by itself establish that a particular action caused a fighter to win.

The abstract does not provide details about fighter characteristics, weight classes, individual matchups, or how defensive grappling was measured. The findings are specific to the UFC bouts and periods included in the study, and the two later eras contained many more fights than the Early Era: 813 in 2013–2014 and 832 in 2023–2024, compared with 77 in 2003–2004.

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