UFC Fight Cards in 2009: The Numbers

by SSreporters on Dec 31, 2009 12:23 AM EST

This is something I've been working on the last few days since I am a statistics enthusiast. With 2009 coming to a close an two UFC events in a nine day span ready to kick off 2010, I decided to crunch the numbers for each fight card the UFC has put out this year. I've separated the PPV cards from the Spike cards.

Pay-Per-View

13 cards, starting from UFC 93 and ending with 107. UFC 95 and 105 were aired on Spike.
75 prelim bouts, which saw:
- 21 unanimous decisions
- 11 split decisions
- 18 technical knockouts
- 5 knockouts
- 19 submissions
- 1 draw (Fabricio Camoes vs. Caol Uno at UFC 106)
- 23 of the 75 aired on the live PPV broadcast.
  - 1 from UFC 93
  - 4 from UFC 96
  - 3 from UFC 98
  - 1 from UFC 101
  - 3 from UFC 102
  - 3 from UFC 103 (1 of which was replayed from the Spike prelims)
  - 2 from UFC 104 (1 of which was replayed from the Spike prelims)
  - 4 from UFC 106 (all were aired on the Spike prelims)
  - 2 from UFC 107
68 main card fights, which saw:
- 8 title fights
- An 0-3 record for The Ultimate Fighter alums in title fights.
- 25 unanimous decisions
- 6 split decisions
- 1 majority decision (Paul Buentello vs. Stefan Struve at UFC 107)
- 15 technical knockouts
- 11 knockouts
- 9 submissions
- 1 no contest (Karo Parisyan vs. Dong Hyun-Kim at UFC 94 after Parisyan tested positive for painkillers)
- 2 fights originally scheduled for the preliminary card that were pushed to the main card due to time constraints (Sam Stout vs. Matt Wiman at UFC 97 and Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley at UFC 101)

Spike TV

10 cards were broadcast.
- 3 were hour-long, commercial free prelim specials preceding the live PPV broadcast.
- 3 were Ultimate Fight Nights.
- 2 were UFC international events in UK aired on tape delay.
- 2 were The Ultimate Fighter Season Finales.
59 prelim bouts, which saw:
- 14 unanimous decisions
- 6 split decisions
- 14 technical knockouts
- 5 knockouts
- 19 submissions
- 1 draw (Uno vs. Camoes at UFC 106, which could've aired on Spike's prelim special)
- 21 of the 59 aired on the original Spike TV broadcast.
  - 11 aired on Spike's prelim specials.
  - 4 from UFC 95.
  - 2 from UFC 105.
  - 2 from Ultimate Fight Night: Lauzon vs. Stephens.
  - 2 from The Ultimate Finale 10.
- 38* main card fights, which saw:
  - 11 unanimous decisions
  - 4 split decisions
  - 8 TKOs
  - 5 KOs
  - 9 submissions
  - 1 disqualification (Jon Jones vs. Matt Hamill on the TUF 10 Finale card)
  - 10 decisions and 3 submissions on the televised card from Ultimate Fight Night: Condit vs. Kampmann, TUF 9 Finale, and Ultimate Fight Night: Diaz vs. Guillard, which were 3 consecutive Spike shows during the year.
  - 17 alums from The Ultimate Fighter featured on Ultimate Fight Nights as well as UFC 95 and UFC 105.
  - 6,000,345,711,521,344 commercials during Ultimate Fight Night: Lauzon vs. Stephens.

Final Total for 2009

23 fight cards
221 fights (115 preliminary, 106 main card)
66 unanimous decisions
51 technical knockouts
51 submissions
25 split decisions
24 knockouts
1 majority decision
1 draw
1 no contest
1 disqualification

I actually have a table which breaks down each individual card and its results, but I have no idea how to paste that here and I don't want to make it even "geekier" than it already is. Digest the stats and then quickly discard them from your brain. Have a great new year and cheers towards another successful year in the growth of MMA as a globally popular sport.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.

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me love stats.

me rec this.

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by Anton Tabuena on Dec 31, 2009 12:32 AM EST reply actions

I’m surprised that there were only 8 title fights. That’s only 1.6x per belt.

by Jahbulon on Dec 31, 2009 2:03 AM EST reply actions

Yeah it was kind of an odd year with all the injuries plus BJ and Anderson having fights that weren’t for their belts.

by ufc4 on Dec 31, 2009 8:32 AM EST via mobile up reply actions

Heavyweight defended once and then Brock got sick.
Light Heavyweight defended twice, Evans won belt Dec 27th 2008 which pushed out any defenses early in 2009
Middleweight defended once, Anderson Silva fought Forrest Griffin out of weight class and then had elbow surgery
Welterweight defended twice, GSP pulled groin in July fight and didn’t fight rest of year
Lightweight defended twice, Penn fought for Welterweight belt in early 2009(it’s not often that Penn fights three times in one year)

It really was an odd/bad year for title defenses, two of the belts were only defended once in 2009. Two champs fought outside of their weight class and three champions spent time of the shelf injured. Only lightheavyweight seemed to be keeping to a regular schedule(although I don’t understand why the next defense is pushed all the way back to May 2010?).

by who me on Dec 31, 2009 1:16 PM EST up reply actions

It should also be noted that only one belt changed hands in 2009, there were 5 in 2008 (not counting the heavyweight interim belt being awarded and changing hands in 2008).

by who me on Dec 31, 2009 1:26 PM EST up reply actions

What does this mean?

6,000,345,711,521,344 commercials during Ultimate Fight Night: Lauzon vs. Stephens

Is it an exaggeration because there were a lot of commercials? I think this is going right over my head.

by ChiCubs23 on Dec 31, 2009 2:26 AM EST reply actions

you hit it right on the head.

by bigislandboi808 on Dec 31, 2009 6:30 AM EST up reply actions

Regarding the asterisk next to 38

I counted the two fights per prelim special on Spike as “main card” with any additional prelims treated as if they were airing a prelim on any other show.

FIRE JIM MORA NOW!

by SSreporters on Dec 31, 2009 1:53 PM EST reply actions

Interesting how much more prevalent submissions are on the undercards.

Ranking MMA

by JRN on Dec 31, 2009 6:26 PM EST reply actions

It sucks that there were more split decision than decisive KOs. That is just awful.

by TDITZ on Dec 31, 2009 7:22 PM EST reply actions

Maybe it just means that fighters at UFC events tend to be evenly matched. I’d say that’s a good thing.

Ranking MMA

by JRN on Dec 31, 2009 9:15 PM EST up reply actions

The judges couldn’t agree on 26 out of 92 decisions. I can understand not agreeing sometimes but 28% of the time sounds high to me.

by Dropkick434 on Jan 1, 2010 10:40 AM EST reply actions

I think it’s more a product of close fights than incompetent judging

by CrowCrucifix on Jan 1, 2010 1:42 PM EST up reply actions

With all the UFC bashing going on, the only real qualm I have is them playng the same fights from the prelims during the main card. By the end of 106 I was bored.

Kimbo wants to take your caterpiller and do bad things to it.

by Mr.Kib on Jan 1, 2010 5:00 PM EST reply actions