UFC Fight Data - 2026

By shrijeetverma13 · May 24, 2026

Update 5-20: Downloaded all fights from my database so everything could be in one file, updated through UFC Fight Night 5-16 Arnold Allen vs Melky Costa…

The analysis produced a grouped bar chart and data tables comparing KO and submission rates across all UFC weight classes. The visualization shows how each weight class performs in terms of finishes per fight, making it easy to spot which divisions tend to end fights by knockout versus submission.

Betting favorites win about 2 out of every 3 UFC fights — specifically 66.3% of the time (4,819 wins out of 7,265 fights). Two charts were generated showing the overall favorite vs. underdog win rates and how win rates vary by the strength of the favorite's odds.

Two interactive charts were generated showing how fight volume has trended yearly by gender and by weight class. Overall, UFC fight volume grew significantly from 2010 through 2025, peaking at 522 fights in 2025. The data covers 16 years (2010–2026), with 2026 showing only 202 fights so far (likely an incomplete year). Male fights dominate with 6,357 total compared to 908 female fights. Among weight classes, Lightweight leads all divisions with 1,174 fights across the dataset.

Age difference has a meaningful impact on fight outcomes. Younger fighters hold a clear advantage — when the red fighter is younger than their opponent, they win 66.3% of fights. When they're the same age, red wins 59.2%, and when the red fighter is older, win rate drops to just 50.2%. Two charts were generated: a bar chart showing red fighter win rates across age difference bins, and a scatter plot with a trend line showing how win rate shifts with exact age gaps.

Reach and height advantages are weak predictors of fight winners. The analysis found correlations very close to zero for both reach difference and height difference when compared to which fighter wins. The data tables generated break down win rates by advantage category (Red fighter with more reach/height, Blue fighter with more, or similar sizes), confirming that having a physical size edge does not meaningfully determine the outcome. Other factors like betting odds, win records, and win streaks are far stronger predictors of who wins a UFC fight.

The analysis reveals that Switch-stance fighters facing Southpaw opponents enjoy the highest win rate at 54.19% (97 wins out of 179 fights). Southpaw fighters against Orthodox opponents also perform well at 52.5% across a large sample of 2,061 fights. A heatmap and bar chart were generated showing all stance matchup win rates visually.

The analysis computed a correlation matrix for 12 key numerical difference columns plus the binary red winner variable across your UFC dataset. Six data tables were generated showing the pairwise correlations between features including odds diff, age diff, reach diff, height diff, wins diff, losses diff, ko diff, submission diff, win streak diff, sig str diff, td diff, and rank diff. The tables capture both the full correlation matrix and the ranked correlations of each feature against red winner (encoded as 1 for 't' and 0 for 'f'), along with p-values indicating statistical significance (p<0.05).

The stacked area chart shows how UFC fight finish types have shifted from 2010 to 2024. KO/TKO finishes increased by 4.5 percentage points (from 38.6% to 43.1%), submissions rose slightly by 1.6pp (25.7% to 27.3%), while decisions dropped by 6.1pp (35.7% to 29.6%). This suggests fighters are finishing more fights rather than going to the judges.

The analysis identified 162 extreme mismatch fights out of 7,265 total, using an IQR of 759 (Q1: -470, Q3: 289) with outlier bounds of [-1608, +1428] on the odds diff column. Heavy favorites dominated these fights, winning 92% of the time (149 out of 162). However, 13 upsets did occur — the biggest being Mairon Santos defeating Francis Marshall in a Featherweight bout with an odds diff of 8,300. Bantamweight had the most upsets (4) among all weight classes. A box plot showing the odds diff distribution with outlier bounds, a bar chart of upsets by weight class, and a detailed table of the top 10 biggest upsets were all generated.

The grouped bar chart and data tables show red-corner win rates across all UFC weight classes broken down by four scenarios: overall, when red is ranked higher, ranked lower, or unranked vs. a ranked opponent. Across all 13 weight classes, the red corner wins about 58.2% of fights on average, confirming a consistent home-corner advantage. The strongest overall red-corner win rate belongs to Women's Featherweight (63.3%), followed by Heavyweight (59.9%) and Featherweight (59.0%). Ranking is a powerful predictor: when the red fighter holds a higher rank than their blue opponent, they win ~54.7% of bouts on average — but when ranked lower, that drops dramatically to just 24.7%. Flyweight shows the largest ranking advantage gap at 54.5 percentage points. Interestingly, unranked red fighters facing ranked blue opponents still win 64.4% of the time, suggesting unranked fighters in the red corner may often be experienced veterans or former champions.