Built from Gunnar Nelson’s own numbers — record, form, fighting style and standout rate. Not reported prose. Submission grappler
5' 11" switch submission grappler campaigning at Welterweight. 10 UFC wins — 8 submission, 2 decision. Top 7% of Welterweights: connects with 61% of his significant strikes.
The facts, plainly — vitals and record from public UFC statistics; nickname, nationality and camp from the public fighter register. A field we can't source stays “pending”; it never shows a fake value. Where a fighter was born and where they fight out of come from their Wikipedia entry; where we hold neither, the hometown shown is Sherdog’s. The social accounts are the ones linked from the fighter’s own official athlete page — we don’t match handles by name. The UFC record is counted from the official results themselves, and is dated by the first and last bout it counts.
| Nickname | Gunni |
| Nationality | Iceland |
| Born in | Akureyri, Iceland Wikipedia |
| Fights out of | Reykjavík, Iceland Wikipedia |
| Camp | pending |
| Height | 5' 11" |
| Reach | 72" |
| Stance | Switch |
| Age | 38 |
| Date of birth | Jul 28, 1988 |
| Weight | 170 lbs. |
| Pro record | 19-6-1 |
| UFC record | UFC 10-6 first fight 2012-09-29 · last fight 2025-03-22 |
| Finish split | 10 UFC wins — 8 submission, 2 decision |
| Social |
Every week Gunnar Nelson has stood in the official UFC rankings, one row per table, each band running from the table that set it to the table that changed it.
Official UFC.com official rankings, 2013–present · rankings of 6 October 2026
A published rank holds until the next table changes it, so a band runs from the table that set it to the table that ended it — that is how a ranking works, and it is why an unbroken reign is drawn unbroken. Nothing is interpolated: the band is the last published STATUS, never a rank in between, and the hatched stretches are weeks the archive holds no table for at all. The champion band sits above #1 because a belt is not a rank. The three pound-for-pound tables — the combined one to January 2020, then the Men's and Women's ones — share a row, because they are one standing under three names.
Career averages over Gunnar Nelson’s UFC bouts, straight from public UFC statistics — the same eight numbers on his official record. These are the source’s figures, not our read: what we make of them is the card below.
Six 0–100 scores, each a percentile rank against the Welterweight field — not against the whole roster. Tap any i for what a score measures.
We have not called one of Gunnar Nelson’s fights in the live 2026 season. What we do have is back-tested, and it is labelled as such.
Across our full back-tested history we called 2 of Gunnar Nelson’s fights, 2 correct. Back-tested, not part of the public timestamped record: these were computed after the fact, so they show the model working on old cards — they were never published ahead of those fights.
Where the strikes go — and where they land on him. Career UFC totals, straight off the tape.
Significant strikes only, as recorded by UFCStats, across the fighter's whole UFC career. Shares are raw counts — nothing here is modelled or smoothed. Accuracy is landed ÷ attempted and comes from the per-round tape, which covers slightly fewer fights than the totals do. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average.
The level change — how often it lands, how often it is stopped. Career UFC rates, straight off the tape.
Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (5.27 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.
Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average.
Pro record: 19-6-1. In the UFC: 10-6. Gunnar Nelson’s last 8 UFC bouts, most recent first — the result in the cage, not our pick.
Straight off the official UFC fight record. Card names are left off on purpose: the only event labels in our data are derived, and we’d rather print nothing than print one that’s wrong.
5 post-fight bonuses since the UFC’s bonus programme began in 2006 — 5 Performance of the Night.
| Date | Award | Opponent | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-03-18 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Bryan Barberena | UFC 286: Edwards vs. Usman 3 |
| 2017-03-18 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Alan Jouban | UFC Fight Night: Manuwa vs. Anderson |
| 2016-05-08 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Albert Tumenov | UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski |
| 2014-07-19 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Zak Cummings | UFC Fight Night: McGregor vs Brandao |
| 2014-03-08 | POTN | Performance of the Night | Omari Akhmedov | UFC Fight Night: Gustafsson vs Manuwa |
The UFC's post-fight bonus programme began in 2006, so every total here is a career total since 2006. A fighter who fought only before then has no bonuses because the award did not exist yet. Fight of the Night is a shared award and is credited to both fighters. Performance, Knockout and Submission of the Night are individual awards, credited to the fighter the official record names.
Awards whose recipient the official list does not name are credited to nobody, so these counts are a floor: 245 of 1,339 Performance of the Night and 1 of 180 Submission of the Night awards are unassigned as of 11 October 2026.
| Date | Opponent | Method | Rd | Event | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-22 | L | Kevin Holland | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC Fight Night: Edwards vs. Brady |
| 2023-03-18 | W | Bryan Barberena | Submission | R1 | UFC 286: Edwards vs. Usman 3 |
| 2022-03-19 | W | Takashi Sato | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall |
| 2019-09-28 | L | Gilbert Burns | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs. Cannonier |
| 2019-03-16 | L | Leon Edwards | Decision (split) | R3 | UFC Fight Night: Till vs. Masvidal |
| 2018-12-08 | W | Alex Oliveira | Submission | R2 | UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega |
| 2017-07-16 | L | Santiago Ponzinibbio | KO/TKO | R1 | UFC Fight Night: Nelson vs. Ponzinibbio |
| 2017-03-18 | W | Alan Jouban | Submission | R2 | UFC Fight Night: Manuwa vs. Anderson |
| 2016-05-08 | W | Albert Tumenov | Submission | R2 | UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski |
| 2015-12-12 | L | Demian Maia | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC 194: Aldo vs McGregor |
| 2015-07-11 | W | Brandon Thatch | Submission | R1 | UFC 189: Mendes vs McGregor |
| 2014-10-04 | L | Rick Story | Decision (split) | R5 | — |
| 2014-07-19 | W | Zak Cummings | Submission | R2 | UFC Fight Night: McGregor vs Brandao |
| 2014-03-08 | W | Omari Akhmedov | Submission | R1 | UFC Fight Night: Gustafsson vs Manuwa |
| 2013-02-16 | W | Jorge Santiago | Decision (unanimous) | R3 | UFC on FUEL TV: Barao vs McDonald |
| 2012-09-29 | W | DaMarques Johnson | Submission | R1 | UFC on FUEL TV: Struve vs Miocic |
Every date links to that bout’s own page. Card names come from the official event record; where the UFC ran two cards on one date, or that record has no row for it, the Event column is left empty rather than filled with a guess.
The 8 cities Gunnar Nelson has fought a UFC bout in. Every pin was looked up by name in OpenStreetMap’s gazetteer and stored with the answer it gave; nothing here is estimated.
Coastline: Natural Earth (public domain). Pins: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Every host city and camp on one map.
