On Submissions in MMA

Nate highlighted Josh Gross’s piece about the lack of submissions in the past few UFC cards and whether or not it’s becoming a trend in MMA.  Being a big follower of sabermetrics and sabermetric thought, it irks me when people make blanket statements based strictly off personal observation.  I assume Gross has access to a fight database, and it wouldn’t be hard to test his theories with concrete data.  I’m not as lazy though, so here you go:

ALL STATS UFC ONLY

Since September 2000 (introduction of the Unified Rules)

845 fights
222 submissions

26.3% submission rate

In the past 3 years

545 fights
149 submissions

27.3% submission rate

In the past 2 years

386 fights
103 submissions

26.7% submission rate

In the past year

204 fights
47 submissions

23.1% submission rate

It’s safe to say the average submission rate is probably between 25-27%.  I wouldn’t look to deep into the lowered rate in the last year either.  Adding just 5 submissions raises the rate to 25.5%.  Josh, in my opinion, is speaking wholly on conjecture and doesn’t have much of a case here.