Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Everyone has the feeling that the UFC fights in 2026 have been a bit different, somehow there seems to be more knockdowns and knockouts than ever. Are we just imaging it?
We tested the data to find out!
0:00 The question
0:08 The year in one fight
0:40 A number that does not move
1:10 It is not the scoring
1:52 It is not the heavyweights
2:26 It is not three good Saturdays
2:53 It is not the cheap fights
3:40 It all rests on May
4:12 Nothing in the women's divisions
4:48 What it means in the gym
5:38 Where to read the rest
Through 22 August, 43.9% of this year's UFC fights have carried a knockdown, against 35.5% across the previous decade. A knockdown used to turn up in about one fight in three. In 2026 it is in nearly one in two.
That should not be happening. Every year the athletes are better prepared, better coached and better at not getting hit - striking defence is a taught skill now in a way it was not a decade ago. The obvious expectation is a slow decline, and the obvious explanation for any rise is that somebody changed their mind about what counts as a knockdown.
So we tested it, four ways, and it survived all four.
It is not the scoring. A knockdown is a judgement; a referee stopping a fight is not. Measured against knockouts the ratio is 1.47 against a ten-year average of 1.37 — entirely ordinary — and the knockouts rose with it: 129 stoppages where the previous decade predicts 110. Generous scoring inflates knockdowns and leaves the finishes alone. These moved together.
It is not the card sheet. Heavyweights drop each other and flyweights rarely do, so a heavier year would produce this with nobody behaving differently. Holding the divisions still, 2026's own mix predicts 36%; those same fights produced 44. Matchmaking explains half a point of the 8.4, and seven of the nine divisions are up.
It is not three wild Saturdays. Twenty-eight events have run inside the window. Remove the three biggest contributors entirely and the remaining 318 fights still run at 41.2%.
And it is not the cheap fights, which is the objection people actually make. The main card is up 7.7 points and the prelims 8.9 — the same rise, top to bottom — and on knockouts it is the main card that clears the bar and the prelims that do not. Rank every fight by how far apart the two men are in experience and the most lopsided pairings show the smallest rise of the lot. 38.2% of this year's fights were between two established men against 34.8% before: a more experienced card, not a cheaper one.
Two honest limits. The year is not evenly loaded — split it on 1 May and the first four months are ordinary at 38%, on an interval that comfortably contains the baseline. Everything here rests on the last four months. And nothing has shown up in the women's divisions: 15.9% against a 16.2% baseline, on 44 fights, which is too small a sample to settle it either way. The sentence this data supports is not that the sport got more violent this year. It is that the men's divisions did.
The year has three and a half months left to take this back. We will publish the answer either way.
Full story, every figure and the workings: https://fightstats.online/insights/the-year-they-started-falling
#ufc #mma #stats
Everyone has the feeling that the UFC fights in 2026 have been a bit different, somehow there seems to be more knockdowns and knockouts than ever. Are we just imaging it?
We tested the data to find out!
0:00 The question
0:08 The year in one fight
0:40 A number that does not move
1:10 It is not the scoring
1:52 It is not the heavyweights
2:26 It is not three good Saturdays
2:53 It is not the cheap fights
3:40 It all rests on May
4:12 Nothing in the women's divisions
4:48 What it means in the gym
5:38 Where to read the rest
Through 22 August, 43.9% of this year's UFC fights have carried a knockdown, against 35.5% across the previous decade. A knockdown used to turn up in about one fight in three. In 2026 it is in nearly one in two.
That should not be happening. Every year the athletes are better prepared, better coached and better at not getting hit - striking defence is a taught skill now in a way it was not a decade ago. The obvious expectation is a slow decline, and the obvious explanation for any rise is that somebody changed their mind about what counts as a knockdown.
So we tested it, four ways, and it survived all four.
It is not the scoring. A knockdown is a judgement; a referee stopping a fight is not. Measured against knockouts the ratio is 1.47 against a ten-year average of 1.37 — entirely ordinary — and the knockouts rose with it: 129 stoppages where the previous decade predicts 110. Generous scoring inflates knockdowns and leaves the finishes alone. These moved together.
It is not the card sheet. Heavyweights drop each other and flyweights rarely do, so a heavier year would produce this with nobody behaving differently. Holding the divisions still, 2026's own mix predicts 36%; those same fights produced 44. Matchmaking explains half a point of the 8.4, and seven of the nine divisions are up.
It is not three wild Saturdays. Twenty-eight events have run inside the window. Remove the three biggest contributors entirely and the remaining 318 fights still run at 41.2%.
And it is not the cheap fights, which is the objection people actually make. The main card is up 7.7 points and the prelims 8.9 — the same rise, top to bottom — and on knockouts it is the main card that clears the bar and the prelims that do not. Rank every fight by how far apart the two men are in experience and the most lopsided pairings show the smallest rise of the lot. 38.2% of this year's fights were between two established men against 34.8% before: a more experienced card, not a cheaper one.
Two honest limits. The year is not evenly loaded — split it on 1 May and the first four months are ordinary at 38%, on an interval that comfortably contains the baseline. Everything here rests on the last four months. And nothing has shown up in the women's divisions: 15.9% against a 16.2% baseline, on 44 fights, which is too small a sample to settle it either way. The sentence this data supports is not that the sport got more violent this year. It is that the men's divisions did.
The year has three and a half months left to take this back. We will publish the answer either way.
Full story, every figure and the workings: https://fightstats.online/insights/the-year-they-started-falling
#ufc #mma #stats
