UFC Title Fight Outcomes by Weight Class, 1994–2026

Title Fights Have Been Finished Less Often Since 2016, in 5 of 9 Divisions

Pooling every title fight before 2016 gives a finish rate of 63.1% over 260 bouts, against 52.7% over the 226 bouts from 2016 to 2026: 10.4 percentage points lower. The average title fight went from 12.8 to 16.4 minutes. The split at 2016 is a simple halving of the bouts, chosen before looking at the result; it is a comparison of two periods, not a test of any single cause.

Of the 9 classes with at least 5 title fights in each period, 5 finish less often now (Light Heavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Bantamweight and Women's Bantamweight) and 4 finish more often (Heavyweight, Lightweight, Featherweight and Flyweight). The largest fall is Women's Bantamweight, from 100.0% to 53.8%; the largest rise is Lightweight, from 40.5% to 73.9%.

Across all years, Open Weight title fights finish most often (75.0% of 16) and Women's Flyweight least often (35.7% of 14). Heavyweight, at 74.2% over 62 bouts averaging 10.1 minutes, contrasts with Welterweight at 48.4% over 64 bouts averaging 16.3 minutes. The busiest year was 2014 with 26 title fights.

Title Fight Finish Rate by Weight Class, Before and From 2016

Each row is a weight class; the left dot is its pooled finish rate for 1994–2015, the right dot for 2016–2026, joined by a line. A dash means fewer than 5 title fights in that period. Hover a dot for the value.

Title Fight Outcomes by Weight Class and Year

Only class-years with at least one title fight are listed; a missing pair is not a proven zero. Duration assumes five-minute rounds.

Download the full table (CSV) · 224 rows

How the Numbers Were Made

Source and counting. A bout counts as a title fight when UFCSTATS.com's event page shows the belt icon beside it (788 event pages, retrieved 2026-09-13). Bouts were grouped by weight class and the calendar year of the event. A finish is a KO/TKO or submission; a decision is any judges' verdict; everything else (no contest, overturned, disqualification, other) is the NC / Other column. Elapsed time is (round − 1) × 5 minutes plus the clock time. The 486 title fights equal the belt-flagged bout rows on those event pages.

The finding. Era finish rates pool all title fights before 2016 and from 2016 on: finishes divided by bouts in that period. The per-class comparison uses the same pooling and needs at least 5 title fights in each period; classes below that show a dash. Durations are weighted by the number of title fights in each class-year.

What it does not show. The belt icon does not separate interim from undisputed titles, and title eliminators are not flagged, so the counts may include interim bouts. Vacated or stripped titles are not captured. Class-years with no title fight are absent rather than zero.

Coverage. UFCSTATS.com's own completed-events index starts at UFC 2 (March 11, 1994); UFC 1 (November 12, 1993) is not in it, so the table runs 1994 to 2026 rather than 1993 to 2026. 2026 is a partial year: it covers January 1 to September 12, 2026, the retrieval date. Every 1994 to 2025 row is a full calendar year.

Licence. UFCSTATS.com states no licence for its statistics pages. The table republishes counts and shares derived from those pages, names the site as the source, and links to it. Anyone reusing the figures under terms that need an explicit licence grant should check with the publisher first.

Sources

1. UFCSTATS.com completed events index and event-details pagesprimaryUFCSTATS.com · primary · retrieved 2026-09-13 · No stated licence; public official statistics site (checked 2026-09-13) — 788 events, UFC 2 (1994-03-11) to 2026-09-12; weight class, method, round, time and title-bout flag read from each event page