90-95% of fights end up on the ground!?!?

Question

I'm constantly hearing people quote similar approximate percentages, or they have an exact percentage of how many fights end up on the ground.

WHERE DID YOU FIND THE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS THAT GIVES YOU THIS PERCENTAGE!!

I can say with confidence that yes, fights often end up on the ground. i have been in combat sports and martial arts for twenty years, as well as having done plenty of empirical research on the street (lol). But I haven't done the research myself, and I can't find any group, university, law enforcement agency, etc. that gives this percentage. So please, send me a link or tell me where anyone has done this research.
And I DON"T want to hear people's opinions that they think support the percentage - only true statistics. I'm betting no one who has used the percentage of fights quote can find anything!

Hugh Jass you definitely get an honorable mention for your answer but finally I have what appears to be the misquoted source of this percentage (very suspect as to how this could be misquoted as it is very easy to read and understand, don't you think?)

Answer 1

I've heard this "statistic" misquoted so often, I spent the time hunting down the source. The American Society of Law Enforcement Training provides statistical data along with a 1991 study of LAPD incident reports involving a physical confrontations. It is from these two sources that we get the misquoted "90% go to ground..blah, blah, blah". Here is a link to a Jan, 2007 article with references to the source material for this falsely quoted statistic.

http://ejmas.com/jnc/2007jnc/jncart_Leblanc_0701.html

In summary, "The LAPD study does not show that “90% of fights go to the ground.” Instead, the LAPD study shows that 95% of altercations took on one of five familiar patterns (with which any street cop will be intimately familiar). It also shows that of that 95%, 62% ended up with both the officer and the suspect grappling on the ground."

Answer 2

yes, 90-95% of fights end up on the ground, but not in the way people think. usually, one of the people are on the ground and the other is either pounding them, running, or doing something similar to that. and a lot of the time, the person is on the ground because he is knocked out. in the way most people think, yeah the guy above me is right; 65-70%. in MMA fights it's different, because there you are trying to win. so there it is probably more like 75%. still, no where near 90-95% of all fights end up in submission grappling.

in fact, all of the fights i've been in were standing up the whole time. so really it might even be a lot smaller than that, especially for things like schoolyard fights.

also, remember, even if 90-95% of fights DO end up on the ground, 99% of fights START standing up! also, probably only about 10-20% or so ends up in submission grappling!

true, ground fighting is not the only thing you need to have in order to effectively fight. it is however, one of the things you should take, because there is still a possibilty that you will end up on the ground. so take a ground art AND a standing art and you'll be fine.

Answer 3

There's no way to get that percentage because it's impossible to document every fight that occurrs. The people that usually use that type of comment are judoka or mmaists who are in need of feeling like they're competant or tricking themselves into thinking that if they play a good ground game, they won't be beaten. Fact is that any fight can go anywhere, and analyzing that would take more time than it's worth. If all these people trained as much as they talked about how statistically better they are, they'd probably need to worry less about whether or not they'll end up on the ground at all.

Answer 4

That is a retarded and useless stat. If you are some street hooligan running around fighting, than yes, you will end up roling around grabbing eyes and biting each other or what ever. If your trained in any martial arts thats not MMA...you know how to keep your balance..make your opponant go down...keep him away with your kicks, etc.

Being on the ground is the worst possible thing for anyone with extensive martial arts training...it negates your most powerfull techniques.

Answer 5

Street fight reports. Most of them start out like a sparring match, then end up as grappling. Which is the reason you should be trained in many martial arts and learn to grapple as much as straight-out fighting.
This is how percentages are recorded:
They get reports on street fights and such and ask people who have been in them what happened, and add them all up and get the percentage. They repeat in many different areas and such(probably only in america for america's news and such) and they get the average percentage of those scores and the average just so happens to come out between 90 and 95% towards grappling.

Answer 6

As there is no official records regarding fights ending standing up or on the ground, there is no valid statistic for this claim.
Just a good marketing tool for MMA and BJJ.

Answer 7

When I started training in the early 70's, this was one of the first things my Sensei told me, but he did not use any numbers.

He just told me that:

"most street fights end up on the ground".

This is true, mainly because people fall or are tripped by someone or something, or even trip on themselves.

I don't pay attention to people who use actual numbers to explain things when it comes to MA. It usually comes from something they heard someone say.

Answer 8

people just make that **** up. 90-95% is very over exaggerated. i mean yes a lot of fights ive seen do go to the ground but its not like it stays down there forever. and most people without experience just bang and punch so idk where people come up with those statistics. ill say that yes most fights do go to the ground but the percent from what ive seen is closer to about 65-70%

Answer 9

When people use percentages they usually pick an inflated or a low number depending on the point they are trying to prove. These numbers are made up. A lot of fights go to the ground because it is mixed martial arts. If people don't like it, watch Boxing.

Answer 10

9095 fights ground