A significant strike is any strike landed at a real fighting distance, plus the harder "power" strikes landed in the clinch or on the ground — it excludes the light, short strikes fighters throw for control while grappling in close. That distinction is why two fighters can throw a similar number of total strikes but show very different significant-strike totals, and it's the number behind almost every striking stat you see on a broadcast or fight page.
Where the stat comes from
UFC's official fight statistics are compiled by UFCStats.com, the promotion's stats site, using a scoring system built on the methodology FightMetric developed and that the UFC later adopted as its official stats provider. Every strike thrown in a fight gets logged by position, target, and landed-or-missed status, which is what allows the site to break a single number like "strikes landed" into much more specific categories.
Significant strikes are the category almost everything else on a fight page is built from — strikes landed per minute, striking accuracy, and striking defense are all calculated using significant strikes, not the raw total.
The rule: distance strikes all count, close-range ones get filtered
The classification depends on where the strike happens, not what kind of punch or kick it is.
At distance — meaning both fighters are standing and not in a clinch or on the ground — every landed strike counts as significant. That includes jabs, which is a common point of confusion. A jab landed at range is a significant strike just like a heavy cross or a leg kick; "significant" is a counting category, not a judgment about how much the strike hurt.
In the clinch (fighters grappling while standing, holding onto each other) and on the ground, the count gets narrower. Power strikes — punches, elbows, and knees thrown with real force — count as significant. Short, light strikes thrown mostly to maintain position or control rather than to do damage do not count as significant, even though they still land. Those short strikes still show up somewhere: they're folded into total strikes instead.
Significant strikes vs. total strikes
Total strikes is the broader number — every strike that lands, anywhere on the body, in any position, regardless of power. Significant strikes is the narrower, more selective number described above.
The gap between the two tells you something real about how a fight is being fought. A fight with total strikes far outpacing significant strikes usually means a lot of the action is happening in a clinch or on the ground, with fighters landing plenty of light, positional strikes that don't move the needle much on damage. A fight where the two numbers sit close together is usually a straightforward standing fight, where nearly everything landed counts as significant because it's happening at distance.
Neither number is "better" — they answer different questions. Total strikes is closer to a raw activity count. Significant strikes is closer to a damage estimate, though even it isn't a perfect one, since a light jab at distance and a heavy body shot both count as one significant strike each.
How accuracy and defense are built from it
Once significant strikes are logged, the rest of the standard stat line follows from them:
| Stat | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Significant strikes landed per minute (SLpM) | Average significant strikes a fighter lands for every minute they're in the cage |
| Significant strike accuracy | Significant strikes landed divided by significant strikes attempted |
| Significant strikes absorbed per minute (SApM) | Average significant strikes a fighter's opponents land on them per minute |
| Significant strike defense | The percentage of opponents' significant strike attempts that don't land |
These are the same fields shown on our fighter pages. Alexander Volkanovski's page, for example, lists a strike accuracy in the high 50s alongside heavy volume — a profile that reflects a fighter who both throws often and lands a high share of what he throws, rather than one who wins on power alone.
Why the broadcast number and the final number don't match
Watch a fight live and you'll see a running significant-strike count on screen. Check the same fight on the stats site a day or two later and the number is often slightly different. That's not an error — it's two different counting processes.
The number shown live during a broadcast is compiled in real time, in the moment, by someone tracking the action as it happens. The official number published afterward comes from a full review of the fight footage after the event, which catches strikes the live count missed or double-counted and applies the position rules consistently. Treat the number you see live as a rough estimate and the number posted after the event as the record that actually counts.
What the stat doesn't tell you
Significant strikes is a count, not a damage meter. A stiff jab and a check hook that visibly hurts an opponent both register as exactly one significant strike each — the stat has no way to weight for impact. Two fighters can finish a round with identical significant-strike totals where one round was a competitive back-and-forth and the other was one fighter walking through strikes to land a fight-changing shot.
Target location matters too, and the site tracks it — strikes to the head, body, and legs are broken out separately for exactly this reason. A high leg-strike count and a high head-strike count can produce the same overall significant-strikes number while describing completely different fights: one chipping away at mobility, the other hunting a finish. When comparing two fighters, checking the head/body/leg breakdown tells you more than the single combined total does.
The takeaway
Significant strikes counts everything landed at distance and only the power shots landed in a clinch or on the ground — a definition built to separate meaningful offense from incidental contact, even though it can't weigh how much any single strike actually hurt. When you're reading numbers on a fight page, pair the significant-strike totals with the accuracy and target-location breakdown rather than treating the raw count alone as the full picture — and remember that the live broadcast number is a preview, not the final word.