Issue 221

September 2025

Ray Klerck dives into intriguing research about thousands of UFC fighters, which proves your wingspan, height, and bouldering traps don’t mean anything when you’re fighting.

If you’re playing sword fights in public toilets, size matters. In combat sports, not so much. However, that hasn’t stopped this fallacy from getting sprayed against the walls, particularly if you’re reluctant to argue against it when it’s delivered by a bloke built like a Smeg fridge telling you how dangerous he’d be if he trained. While that’s good pub-math, it doesn’t always hold up on the world’s biggest fight stages. Researchers who analyzed 8,505 UFC fights and released their review in August 2025 in the Journal of Sport Area had probably heard this argument one too many times, so they busted out the scientific calculators to challenge the numerical status quo. They collected data on a staggering 4,111 UFC fighters, spanning almost three decades, and what they found is that the guy with the condor wingspan and concrete pylons for legs may not be the one to bet on when the chips are down. Sure, the UFC broadcast team alludes to the notion that these metrics are success indicators, but the numbers are not very flattering. Here’s why the tale of the tape tells one story, but the story of the average fight says something different.

THE DEEP DIVE

These number crunchers weren’t skimming a few fight cards. They went into full KPMG forensic accountant mode, utilizing a publicly available dataset that analyzed the careers of over 4,000 fighters across 18 variables and three decades. That meant everything from the obvious stuff like height, weight, and reach to the more tactical nuances like striking accuracy, takedown defense, and stances. Next, they created algorithms that ran correlations, regressions, and heat maps to determine if these data points actually led to wins. This was a bit like baseball’s Moneyball moment, where previously the stats were used to shrug, but now they made sense. The research confirms what you already suspect about reach and size. If it really mattered, then a nugget like Mark Hunt wouldn’t have scored notable wins over skyscrapers like Antonio Silva and Stefan Struve. He flatlined both of them, which was a trend pioneered by shorter fighters like Randy Couture, who toppled giants like Tim Sylvia and Gabriel Gonzaga. The data nods its head in agreement: height only showed a 2% link to wins, while weight actually slipped into the negatives, meaning being heavier made you less likely to succeed. Reach? Statistically invisible. It shows that what counted was never body type. It was how you solved the man-sized puzzle in front of you. Even striking accuracy, that darling of commentary boxes, had a link to victory so small it was basically less than 1%. There are plenty of strikers with crispy stats who still folded when the big shots were thrown. Even stance, long argued as a secret weapon, only gave fighters a tiny bump in win totals. Southpaw? Orthodox? Sideways? None of them carried the kind of predictive power fans like to imagine. The study found that open stance fighters had the highest average wins at 15, but that was across just 15 fighters. A statistical blip, not a blueprint. The bigger lesson was clear: success isn’t about how you stand. It’s about how you adapt.

WHAT DID WORK

So now you know what not to do, what does work? Grappling and its precursors. If you have any doubt, ask Khabib, Khamzat, and Islam about their takedown records. The fighters who landed more takedowns also defended more, with a modest correlation of about 35%. That’s a big stat in sports where even the slightest advantage matters. Offense and defense weren’t separate skill sets. Instead, one hand fed the other, which helped to make strong wrestlers hard to solve. Takedown accuracy alone showed a 19% link to more wins, which is far better than the statistical ghost of height. You know this pattern to be true, but you may have forgotten how it got to be this way. Khabib, GPS, and Kamaru all built title reigns by controlling the shot battles, because if you win the takedown war, you often win the fight. And if you think greatness is locked to physical freaks, think again. The fighter with the most wins on record wasn’t a giant with mutant genetics. In the UFC, Jim Miller famously holds the record with 26 wins. He’s the all-time grinder who earned every victory through consistency, not freaky genetics.

TAKE HOME LESSONS

If you’re a fighter, you can take a lot of this research that tells you to stop chasing the numbers you can’t change. Even if you’re told someone has a reach advantage on you, it means nothing. It may even make you overconfident, especially if you consider how that misplaced assurance worked out for Suga when he faced Merab. You don’t need to stretch yourself taller to be the mix for a win. It’s information that should shape how you train and where you place your energy. Drilling down on your takedown performance might be the biggest factor in breaking down your opponent. If you can blend these key skills, then you’ll become a fighter nobody wants to solve. Becoming the fighter who can drag a wrestler into a striking match or turn a striker into a wrestler against their will is the kind of edge no tape measure can ever show. And for the final reality check: only 3.75% of fighters in UFC history have ever retired undefeated. Out of more than four thousand, just 154 walked away without a loss. Everyone else got solved. That alone should kill the myth that any one physical trait gives you any form of herd immunity.