Comparing UFC fighters without mixing their records

Start by choosing the scope

A professional MMA record and a UFC record answer different questions. The career record includes eligible professional MMA bouts across promotions. UFC statistics describe the covered UFC bouts. Kickboxing, boxing, amateur and exhibition results should not silently become professional MMA wins or losses, and a scheduled bout is not a completed result.

A profile can legitimately contain a career total larger than the known bout history when older results are missing from that history. The reverse needs investigation: a table with more eligible completed wins than the asserted full-career win total cannot be explained merely by an incomplete table. A corrected record should be reconciled with identity, sport, bout status and source evidence together.

Inspect Aalon Cruz’s record and completed bouts · Inspect Alex Pereira’s MMA profile

Compare rates with their denominators

A rate such as significant strikes landed per minute divides landed significant strikes by covered fight time. Comparing two rates without knowing the underlying time can make a short appearance look as informative as a long career. Look at the fight count, time covered and opponent context before drawing a conclusion.

Accuracy divides landed attempts by recorded attempts. Defense concerns the opponent’s attempts, and should not be replaced with 100 minus the fighter’s own accuracy. Takedown and submission-attempt rates are shown per 15 minutes; control time can be expressed per fight. Rates in different units cannot be compared as if they shared a scale.

Unavailable values are not zero

No recorded takedown attempt may be a genuine observation. No usable takedown data is a coverage limitation. Those cases carry different information. Missing reach, age or statistics should remain unavailable, and missing observations should not be inserted as zeros into a percentile calculation.

A population percentile describes a position among available values under the displayed comparison group. It does not automatically adjust for division, era, schedule difficulty or sample size. A higher percentile in one statistic does not by itself predict a head-to-head winner.

Open the free fighter database · Compare Islam Makhachev and Charles Oliveira

A useful research sequence

Check both identities and the dates of their most recent completed bouts. Read the professional and UFC-only records separately. Compare covered time and fight count, then compare striking and grappling rates in the same units. Read the bout history for context that a single aggregate can hide.

Finally, record the uncertainty. Incomplete histories, changing divisions and unavailable metrics limit the conclusion. If a result or physical measurement is disputed, report the affected field and the strongest source rather than filling the gap with an estimate.

Metric definitions and data coverage · Request a sourced correction