We matched every UFC fight recorded by UFC Stats, the fight-by-fight database at ufcstats.com, 8,909 bouts from 1994 through September 26, 2026, with the stance it lists for each fighter: orthodox (left foot forward), southpaw (right foot forward) or switch (fighters who change stance). Draws (65), no contests (90) and 188 decisive fights with a missing or rare stance are out. That leaves 8,566, and 3,346 of them were between fighters with different stances: 2,445 southpaw against orthodox, 709 switch against orthodox and 192 switch against southpaw.
Southpaw vs orthodox win rate in the UFC
Southpaws won 1,305 of their 2,445 fights against orthodox opponents, or 53.4 percent. With this many fights the margin of error is about two points either way, 51.4 to 55.3 percent, so the edge is real but small: about three extra wins per 100 fights. Put the other way, the orthodox vs southpaw record in the UFC is 1,140-1,305.
A better record has mattered more. In the same fights, the fighter with the higher UFC win percentage going in won 59 percent of the 1,648 where the two differed, an edge more than twice as large.
Switch stance in the UFC
UFC Stats lists 153 UFC fighters as switch. They won 371 of 709 fights against orthodox opponents (52 percent) and 105 of 192 against southpaws (55 percent): 476 of 901 in all, 52.8 percent, with a margin of error from 49.6 to 56.1 percent that takes in a coin flip. Where the two UFC records going in differed, the switch fighter had the better one 55 percent of the time; judged by records alone, switch fighters would have been expected to win about 51 percent.
Where the southpaw advantage shows up: weight class and method
Among the men, the edge lives in the four middle divisions, featherweight to middleweight, where southpaws won 852 of 1,525 fights against orthodox opponents, 55.9 percent, and 57.6 percent at welterweight, the highest rate. At heavyweight and light heavyweight they won 49.5 percent of 376, and at bantamweight and flyweight 44.5 percent of 301, below even, though with so few fights that could be chance.
Women's divisions show no edge overall: southpaws won 104 of 200 fights, 52 percent. Flyweight stands out at 57 of 88, 11 of them by Valentina Shevchenko in her 12 such fights, while southpaws won fewer than half at bantamweight and strawweight. Across 11 divisions, a few results this far from even can be chance.
| Division | Fights | Southpaw won | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heavyweight | 162 | 80 | 49% |
| Light heavyweight | 214 | 106 | 50% |
| Middleweight | 419 | 228 | 54% |
| Welterweight | 403 | 232 | 58% |
| Lightweight | 516 | 286 | 55% |
| Featherweight | 187 | 106 | 57% |
| Bantamweight | 174 | 76 | 44% |
| Flyweight | 127 | 58 | 46% |
| Women's bantamweight | 44 | 19 | 43% |
| Women's flyweight | 88 | 57 | 65% |
| Women's strawweight | 59 | 25 | 42% |
| All divisions | 2,445 | 1,305 | 53% |
Stance is mostly a striking matter, and the numbers agree. Southpaws won 54.1 percent of the fights against orthodox opponents that ended in a knockout or technical knockout and 54.2 percent of decisions, but 50.4 percent of submissions. Our count of how UFC fights end shows how common each result is.
The southpaw advantage over time
The edge was larger in the early UFC. Southpaws won 57.6 percent of 337 fights against orthodox opponents before 2010 and 52.7 percent of 2,108 since, between 52 and 53 percent in 2010-14, 2015-19, 2020-24 and 2025-26 alike; in 2026 so far they have won 48 of 93. The early sample is small.
How many UFC fighters are southpaws
About one in six. Of the 2,616 fighters with a listed stance who have fought in the UFC, 445 are southpaws (17 percent), 2,009 orthodox (77 percent) and 153 switch (6 percent). The southpaw share has barely moved, between 16 and 19 percent of the fighters in every five-year span since 1994. The switch share has grown, from about 2 percent of fighters in 2005-2014 to 9 or 10 percent since 2020; each fighter counts under today's label in every year they fought. Jim Miller has beaten 21 orthodox fighters in the UFC, more than any other southpaw.
Southpaw champions and UFC title fights
The edge does not carry over to the belts. Of the 108 fighters who have held an undisputed UFC title in the 11 current divisions, 19 are listed as southpaws, 17.6 percent, close to their share of all fighters in those divisions, 17.0 percent; among them are Anderson Silva, Conor McGregor and Valentina Shevchenko. Since 2019, seven of the 38 new champions have been listed as switch and four as southpaws.
In title fights, southpaws have won 45 of 101 against orthodox opponents, 44.6 percent, too few fights to tell apart from a coin flip. Our study of first title defenses follows what happens after a belt changes hands.
What the orthodox vs southpaw record can and cannot show
These are raw win rates, not an experiment: stance is the label UFC Stats lists today, not what each fighter used in each fight, and there are no betting odds here to say how good each fighter was thought to be. Four checks point the same way:
- Southpaws were not simply the better fighters going in: the southpaw had the better UFC win percentage in 51.6 percent of the fights where the two differed.
- Given their UFC records, southpaws would have been expected to win about 50 percent of these fights, judging by same-stance fights with the same gaps in UFC wins and losses; they won 53.4 percent, about 75 fights more than expected.
- Between fighters within one win and one loss of each other in the UFC going in, southpaws won 53.7 percent of 775 fights.
- The 1,094 orthodox fighters who met both stances won 54.8 percent of their fights against other orthodox fighters and 47.7 percent against southpaws; the 264 southpaws who did won 57.0 percent against orthodox fighters and 51.0 percent against other southpaws.
Both groups did worse against southpaws, as the familiarity explanation would predict: southpaws are rarer, so everyone gets less practice against them. The data cannot prove it: an orthodox fighter's earlier UFC fights against southpaws made no consistent difference, with the southpaw winning 54.5 percent against orthodox fighters who had never faced one in the UFC and 50.9 to 53.8 percent after that.
Current UFC champions' stances and the next title fights
Seven of the ten current champions are listed as orthodox. Islam Makhachev, the welterweight champion, and Kayla Harrison, at women's bantamweight, are southpaws, and Petr Yan, at bantamweight, is listed as switch. Makhachev is 13-0 against orthodox fighters in the UFC and has lost there once, in 2015, to another southpaw, Adriano Martins.
| Division | Champion | Listed stance | Vs. orthodox | Vs. southpaws | Vs. switch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavyweight | Ciryl Gane | Orthodox | 10-2 | 1-0 | — |
| Light heavyweight | Carlos Ulberg | Orthodox | 7-0 | 3-1 | — |
| Middleweight | Sean Strickland | Orthodox | 14-3 | 3-0 | 1-4 |
| Welterweight | Islam Makhachev | Southpaw | 13-0 | 3-1 | 2-0 |
| Lightweight | Justin Gaethje | Orthodox | 7-4 | 2-1 | 2-0 |
| Featherweight | Alexander Volkanovski | Orthodox | 13-1 | 1-2 | 1-0 |
| Bantamweight | Petr Yan | Switch | 10-3 | 1-0 | 1-1 |
| Flyweight | Joshua Van | Orthodox | 8-0 | 2-0 | 1-1 |
| Women's bantamweight | Kayla Harrison | Southpaw | 2-0 | 1-0 | — |
| Women's flyweight | Vacant | — | — | — | — |
| Women's strawweight | Mackenzie Dern | Orthodox | 10-4 | 1-1 | 1-0 |
The next five title fights on the UFC schedule, with stances as listed by UFC Stats:
- October 3, UFC 332 in Salt Lake City: Natalia Silva and Wang Cong, both southpaws, fight for the women's flyweight title, which Valentina Shevchenko vacated with an injury.
- October 24, UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi: Alexander Volkanovski defends the featherweight title against Movsar Evloev, both orthodox, and Yan the bantamweight title against Merab Dvalishvili, orthodox, in their third fight; Dvalishvili won the first in 2023 and Yan the second in December 2025, both on decisions.
- November 14, UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden: Ciryl Gane, promoted to undisputed champion in September, defends the heavyweight title against Josh Hokit, both orthodox, and Harrison the women's bantamweight title against Amanda Nunes, orthodox.
Harrison and Nunes are the only southpaw-versus-orthodox title fight on the schedule; Harrison is 2-0 against orthodox fighters in the UFC, and Nunes 3-1 against southpaws. Every card is on the Vertize UFC schedule, and the UFC hub lists the divisions and their weight limits. Reach is another small edge: the longer reach has won 52 percent of UFC fights with a gap, as our study of reach in the UFC found.
Southpaws in the UFC: frequently asked questions
Do southpaws have an advantage in the UFC? A small one. Southpaws have won 53 percent of 2,445 UFC fights against orthodox opponents, about three extra wins per 100 fights, and the edge holds between fighters with similar UFC records.
What is the orthodox vs southpaw record in the UFC? 1,140 wins for the orthodox fighter and 1,305 for the southpaw in decisive UFC fights between them from 1994 to September 2026, by the stances UFC Stats lists.
How many UFC fighters are southpaws? About one in six: 445 of the 2,616 UFC fighters with a listed stance, a share that has stayed between 16 and 19 percent since 1994.
Is switch stance an advantage in the UFC? Not measurably. Fighters listed as switch have won 53 percent of 901 fights against orthodox and southpaw opponents, within the margin of error of a coin flip.
Which UFC champions are southpaws? Among the current champions, Islam Makhachev and Kayla Harrison. Of the 108 undisputed champions in the 11 current divisions, 19 are listed as southpaws, among them Anderson Silva, Conor McGregor and Valentina Shevchenko.
How this was built: the 8,909 UFC fights recorded by UFC Stats (ufcstats.com) from UFC 2 in March 1994 to the Fight Night of September 26, 2026, from the copy on GitHub refreshed on September 27, with the stance UFC Stats lists for each fighter today. Stance is not recorded fight by fight, so fighters who changed stance count under their current label. Draws, no contests and fights with a missing or rare stance are left out, among them 18 fights since November 2025 involving newer fighters not yet on the UFC Stats fighter list. Fighters who share a name were told apart by weight and age; records going in count UFC fights only. The expected win rate compares each fight with same-stance fights that had the same gap in UFC wins and in UFC losses, each capped at three. Champions: undisputed titles in the 11 current divisions, including champions named at a merger or promoted from interim. Current champions follow the UFC rankings of September 29, except that the women's flyweight title counts as vacant: Shevchenko gave it up on September 5, though the rankings still list her. Margins of error are 95 percent Wilson intervals.