Most Submission Attempts in a UFC Round
Most submission attempts in a single round, by one fighter or by both combined. Five-minute rounds only: UFC bouts with round-by-round data, 1999–present.
Filters All divisions · Single fighter
The most submission attempts ever packed into one five-minute round — by a single fighter, and by both fighters trading threats.
The Most Submission Attempts in a Single UFC Round
Every entry here is one grappler, one opponent and one five-minute window. The list ranks the rounds in which a fighter threatened the finish more times than anyone else has managed inside a single frame — first by one fighter, then by the two-way total when both athletes were hunting.
That five-minute cap is what separates this record from the single-fight version. A fight total rewards volume spread across up to twenty-five minutes, which naturally favours five-round main events; a round total rewards density. The fighter who chains four or five real attempts before the horn ranks above one who logged the same number slowly over a full bout, and a losing effort counts exactly as much as a dominant one.
How these records are measured
An attempt is recorded when a fighter genuinely applies a submission — a choke, an armbar, a leglock — rather than merely gripping for position, and the count is taken from the official statistics for that specific round. Switch between the Single Fighter and Combined tabs to see individual finish-hunting against full back-and-forth exchanges, filter by division, and open any row to read the fight in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The top 10 as one image. Free to share, updated after every UFC card.
What is the record for the most submission attempts in a UFC round?
James Wilks, with 8 submission attempts.
Set against DaMarques Johnson at The Ultimate Fighter: United States vs. United Kingdom Finale, June 2009. Second: Rob Broughton (6).
Measured over UFC bouts with round-by-round statistics recorded on MMA.SOCIAL. A bout with no per-round data cannot appear here.