How long is a UFC fight?

The scheduled maximum is not the average. A three-round fight can run 15 minutes and a five-round fight 25, but most do not get there: the average across every UFC bout on the record is 10:35. A bout booked over three rounds averages 10:13 (7,802 fights); one booked over five averages 15:11 (782 fights), because the fights given five rounds are title fights and main events between the two best-matched fighters on the card. Going the distance. 47% of the 8,760 UFC bouts with a result are decided by the judges rather than finished — the same figure the decision-rate tables compute, cut year by year and division by division. What counts. Fight length is elapsed time from the opening bell, derived from the round the bout ended in, the clock at that moment and how long each round of that format was booked for — so an open-format bout from the 1990s is measured by its real length. A handful of bouts carry a recorded clock that cannot be right (a decision timed short of the round it was scored in); they are left out of this page rather than averaged in. A fight is a UFC bout on the official record with a result. Draws, no-contests and overturned results are excluded from every count on this page; disqualifications and could-not-continues are counted as fights, which is why the knockout, submission and decision shares do not add up to 100%. 9 fights excluded. 9 bouts on the record carry a clock that cannot be right — a decision whose recorded end time falls short of the round it was scored in — so they are left out of every number on this page rather than averaged in on a figure we cannot stand behind.