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While some of the greatest fights in UFC history have gone the distance, it’s also true to say that there’s nothing more exciting than a violent finish in the octagon, be it a knockout or submission.
Over the years, some UFC events have definitely delivered more finishes than most, usually making them highly memorable shows in the eyes of the fans.
With that considered, here are five UFC events with the most finishes in the promotion’s history.
Note: for the purposes of this article, only events featuring the current Unified Rules of MMA – which were introduced at UFC 31 – have been taken into consideration.
#5. UFC Fight Night 13: Kenny Florian vs. Joe Lauzon (10 finishes)
Back in 2008, it was rare for many UFC events to have more than eight or nine fights on the card, meaning that April’s Fight Night offering, which was headlined by lightweights Kenny Florian and Joe Lauzon, was an outlier of sorts.
The event, which took place in Colorado – the birthplace of the promotion some 15 years earlier – featured a total of 12 bouts. Had the majority of them gone the distance, the card could easily have been one that dragged.
Instead, fans were treated to a ridiculous 10 finishes, with only two bouts – Josh Neer vs. Din Thomas and Gray Maynard vs. Frankie Edgar – going the distance.
There was also a fine mix of finishes up and down the card, with seven bouts ending via knockout or TKO, and three finishing with submissions.
Remarkably, three of the fights didn’t last longer than a minute, with Marcus Aurelio’s 16-second armbar win over Ryan Roberts being the joint-third fastest submission in the promotion’s history, and James Irvin’s eight-second knockout of Houston Alexander being, at the time, the joint-second fastest KO ever seen in the octagon.
#4. UFC on Fuel TV: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Fabricio Werdum (10 finishes)
The second season of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil largely went ignored by UFC fans outside of the South American country, but the event that featured the season’s final, as well as the bout between its coaches, was definitely a memorable one.
UFC on Fuel TV: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Fabricio Werdum featured 12 bouts, and only two of them went the distance, giving the fans in attendance in Fortaleza a total of 10 finishes to enjoy, including a promotional record of eight submissions.
Interestingly, the submissions used had a wide variation too, ranging from Werdum’s armbar win over Nogueira to Antonio Braga Neto’s kneebar of Anthony Smith and Leonardo Santos’ arm triangle choke victory over William Macario.
The event also featured a pair of pretty brutal knockouts, as Felipe Arantes finished Godofredo Pepey with a series of elbows and punches on the ground, and Thiago Silva ruined the octagon debut of Rafael Feijao by knocking him out late in the first round.
Strangely, fans watching on television may have actually had a more enjoyable time than those in attendance, too. Every televised bout ended in a finish, with the only two to go the distance being part of the unaired preliminary card.
#3. UFC Fight Night: Thiago Santos vs. Jamahal Hill (10 finishes)
The latest entry on this list took place just this weekend, and was another prime example of a classic Dana White cliche – that UFC fans should never judge the quality of a card by how it looks on paper.
This event, headlined by light heavyweights Thiago Santos and Jamahal Hill, seemed to be largely lacking in name value, with the other big selling point on the card being the finals of TUF 30, a season which seemed to have largely flown under the radar.
In the end, though, the event turned out to be one of the best of 2022 to date. While it only showcased 10 fights in total, none of them went the distance, with seven finishing via knockout or TKO and the other three ending in tapouts.
Interestingly enough, though, the majority of the finishes on offer didn’t come too easily for the victorious fighters. Just three of the bouts ended in the first round, with only one – Bryan Battle’s head kick knockout of Takashi Sato – taking less than a minute.
Outside of that, we saw two bouts end violently in the third round, with the headliner ending midway through the fourth when Hill was able to finally put Santos away with a combination of punches.
Overall, this was just the third event in modern history to feature a 100% finish rate, following 2002’s UFC 40 and 2014’s Fight Night 55.
#2. UFC 224: Amanda Nunes vs. Raquel Pennington (11 finishes)
When the octagon headed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2018 for UFC 224, the event didn’t look all that special on paper. Featuring a headliner of Amanda Nunes vs. Raquel Pennington for the bantamweight title and a card filled with Brazilian talent, the event felt like one that would only excite hardcore fans.
In the end, though, it turned out to be one of the best events not only of 2018, but in recent memory, period. Remarkably, out of the 13 fights on offer, just two went the distance, with one – the co-headliner between middleweights Kelvin Gastelum and Jacare Souza – being so good that it received the Fight of the Night bonus.
It was the 11 finishes that made this event truly memorable, though. Not only were fans treated to some excellent knockouts and submissions, but a number of the stoppages came in rare fashion, too.
Lyoto Machida pulled off one of the more memorable knockouts of his career, stopping Vitor Belfort with a brutal front kick; Alexei Oleinik once again delivered his trademark Ezekiel choke to submit Junior Albini, and Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos unleashed an incredible spinning wheel kick to take out Sean Strickland.
Essentially, this event had something for everyone, and with 11 stoppages, it remains tied for the most finishes in octagon history.
#1. UFC Fight Night 55: Michael Bisping vs. Luke Rockhold (11 finishes)
Like UFC 224, November 2014’s Fight Night 55, which featured a middleweight headliner pitting Michael Bisping against Luke Rockhold, saw 11 finishes on offer. However, given that the event as a whole only featured 11 bouts, giving it a 100% finish rate, it stands at the top of this countdown.
From the opening bout, which saw Marcus Brimage turn the lights out on Jumabieke Tuerxun with a head kick, it felt like the fans in Sydney, Australia, were going to be in for something special. That feeling proved to be correct.
Five of the 11 fights on offer ended in the first round, but it was the clashes that went a little longer that really shone. Rockhold’s finish of Bisping, which saw him drop ‘The Count’ with a head kick before submitting him with a guillotine choke, was spectacular, but so was Robert Whittaker’s violent knockout of Clint Hester.
The most memorable finish on offer, though, came on the preliminary card. The bout in question saw flyweight Louis Smolka stop Richie Vaculik with a Shawn Michaels-inspired superkick. That finish, thus far at least, has never been repeated in the octagon.
Overall, this event didn’t score heavily when it came to name value, but in terms of sheer action, it remains hard to top to this day.
