As we’re now a little over the halfway point of the year, I thought I’d present a statistics-based summary of some of the winners, losers and general trends of 2018 in the UFC thus far.

This year, 466 different fighters have entered the Octagon to partake in 286 fights, resulting in 88 TKO/KOs, 47 submissions, 110 unanimous decisions, 40 split/majority decisions, 0 draws, 0 No Contests and 1 DQ.

UFC

Most Fights- Anthony Smith, Brandon Davis, Israel Adesanya, Jeremy Stephens + Thiago Santos (3).

Most Wins- Israel Adesanya (3).

Most Losses- Austin Arnett, Brandon Davis, Brett Johns, Cub Swanson, Daichi Abe, Danielle Taylor, Dennis Bermudez, Emil Weber Meek, Francis Ngannou, Gleison Tibau, Matt Bessette, Mike Santiago, Nick Hein, Stefan Struve, Tecia Torres + Teruto Ishihara (2).

Most KO/TKO Wins- Anthony Smith, Dan Hooker, Daniel Cormier, Dustin Poirier + Jeremy Stephens (2).

Most KO/TKO Losses- 88 fighters (1).

Most Submission Wins- Manny Bermudez (2).

Most Submission Losses- 47 fighters (1).

Most Unanimous Decision Wins- Corey Anderson, Enrique Barzola, J.J. Aldrich, Kamaru Usman + Katlyn Chookagian (2).

Most Unanimous Decision Losses- Brandon Davis, Brett Johns, Daichi Abe, Danielle Taylor, Emil Weber Meek, Francis Ngannou, Stefan Struve + Tecia Torres (2).

Most Split/Majority Decision Wins- Ji Yeon Kim (2).

Most Split/Majority Decision Losses- Dennis Bermudez (2).

Most Performance Bonuses- Anthony Smith, Ben Saunders, Daniel Cormier, Dustin Poirier, Israel Adesanya, Jeremy Stephens + Ronaldo Souza (2).

Most Times Missing Weight- Yoel Romero (2).

Most Fight Withdrawals- Max Holloway (3).

Highest Dwyer Score of the Year- UFC 224: Nunes vs. Pennington (+30).

Lowest Dwyer Score of the Year- UFC Fight Night: Shogun vs. Smith (-2).

Here’s a graphic which shows the timeline of successful UFC title defenses made in all weight classes since 1997, updated to include all results in 2018.

Here are the individual images for each division (the vertical gray lines denote the crowning of a new champion, whilst the colored markers let you know when a title defense was successfully made): Heavyweight, Light-Heavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Lightweight, Featherweight, Bantamweight, Flyweight, Women’s Featherweight, Women’s Bantamweight, Women’s Flyweight + Women’s Strawweight.

Here’s a graphic which shows the timeline of successful Bellator title defenses made in all weight classes. These graphs have been presented on the same scale as their UFC counterparts to aid comparisons between the two.

Here are the individual images for each division: Heavyweight, Light-Heavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Lightweight, Featherweight, Bantamweight, Women’s Featherweight, Women’s Flyweight + Women’s Strawweight.

This graph shows the average winning streak that a fighter needed to put together before receiving a title shot against a reigning UFC Champion each year. As you can see, fighters in 2018 have needed to put an average streak of 1.75 wins together before they earned a title shot against a reigning UFC champion.

This table goes into a little more detail on each year’s title challengers, highlighting the best and worst winning and losing streaks that resulted in a UFC title shot each year.

This graph shows the average number of successful title defenses made by the reigning champions at any point in UFC history.

Today, our twelve reigning champions hold a combined 14 successful defenses, giving them an average of 1.17 successful defenses each.

Statistically speaking, the most dominant crop of champions in UFC history (pictured below) reigned between the 25th of May 2013 and the 6th of July 2013. The nine reigning champions at that time had made 35 combined successful title defenses- an average of 3.89 successful title defenses each.

This graphic shows the fewest number of days taken for a fighter to reach two UFC wins in a calendar year over the last decade. This year, Jeremy Stephens was the first fighter to reach that mark, taking just 55 days to do so.

These two charts display the same information (the first fighter to reach two UFC victories in a year), split into male and female categories.

This graph shows the number of reigning UFC interim champions at any time between 1993 and today. The UFC has introduced 15 interim titles in total.

These two graphs, both updated to include interim titles introduced in 2018, show how many interim titles were introduced each year and which weight divisions those titles were introduced in. There has yet to be an interim champion crowned in any women’s division.

There have been 8 unification bouts (interim champion vs. undisputed champion) in UFC history, with interim champions getting the better of undisputed champions 5 wins to 3 in those match-ups.

That wraps up my statistical review of 2018 thus far. As always, enjoy the fights.