Reliving the UFC’s Only Perfect Night: 11 Fights, 11 Finishes
By the time 2024 wraps up, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will have hosted a staggering 716 events over its 31-year history. Yet, only one fight card stands out as truly “perfect.” Unless UFC Fight Night in Tampa, Florida, this Saturday delivers a miracle, the record set on Nov. 8, 2014, will remain untouched.
That night in Sydney, Australia, at the Allphones Arena, Luke Rockhold delivered a highlight-reel finish by landing a devastating left-footed kick to Michael Bisping’s head. He followed it up with a mounted guillotine choke, forcing Bisping to tap out in front of 9,904 fans. It was the exclamation point on a historic event: 11 fights, 11 finishes. Not a single judge was needed that night, making it the only UFC card in history to achieve a 100% finish rate.
Why Fans Love Finishes
For MMA fans, a fight ending in a submission or knockout is the ultimate payoff. Decisions, while sometimes necessary, can leave fans feeling unsatisfied or questioning the outcome. A finish, on the other hand, provides clarity and excitement. That’s why the Sydney card remains so special—it delivered action-packed endings in every single bout.
On that unforgettable night, the stats were as jaw-dropping as the finishes themselves:
- Four submissions and seven knockouts.
- Five fights ended in the first round, five in the second, and only one made it to the third round—ending just 18 seconds in.
- Total fight time: 1 hour, 1 minute, and 1 second, with an average fight length of just 5 minutes and 48 seconds.
It remains the shortest UFC card with at least 11 fights. The event, which started at 11 a.m. local time, was headlined by the heated first clash between Rockhold and Bisping. It also marked the middleweight debut of future champion Robert Whittaker, who is the only fighter from that card still active on the UFC roster.
The Unspoken Perfection
Interestingly, the commentary team of John Gooden and Dan Hardy never mentioned the possibility of a perfect card during the broadcast. Superstition, perhaps? Hardy, now a Bellator commentator and PFL Europe’s head of fighter operations, explained their silence: “It was just one of those days where you ride the energy. And then, when you get to the end of it, you look back and go, ‘Man, we got a 100 percent finish rate.’”
Gooden added, “No one wants to put it out to the universe that we could get a night full of finishes and be ‘that guy’ that cursed it.”
Fighters Felt the Energy
One fighter who noticed the finishing streak early on was Sam Alvey. After suffering a decision loss in his UFC debut, Alvey was determined to make a statement. Watching the first four fights end in spectacular fashion, he felt the pressure—and the motivation—to deliver his own highlight.
“I got so pumped watching people I know or just met backstage,” Alvey told ESPN. “I was glued to the screen while warming up.”
Alvey delivered, scoring a first-round knockout over Dylan Andrews. While he didn’t earn a Performance of the Night bonus (those went to Rockhold, Whittaker, Clint Hester, and Louis Smolka), Alvey still remembers the unique nature of his finish. “I knocked him out with my ass,” he joked, recalling how he fell on Andrews’ head during a takedown attempt before finishing him with ground-and-pound.
The Main Event Seals the Deal
As the night progressed, the possibility of a perfect card became more real. Jake Matthews’ second-round submission of Vagner Rocha closed out the prelims, and the main card began with Soa Palelei finishing Walt Harris in the second round. Whittaker followed with a knee strike to stop Hester, and Al Iaquinta delivered a crushing right hand to finish Ross Pearson in the co-main event.
All eyes then turned to the main event. Rockhold had promised to finish Bisping in the first round, but the durable Brit made it to the second. Still, Rockhold delivered on his promise of a finish, submitting Bisping with a guillotine choke to cap off the historic night.
“There was a lot of excitement for what the main event was going to bring,” Hardy said. “But we tempered our expectations because Rockhold kept promising a first-round finish and Bisping was known to be durable. But he got the job done.”
Why Hasn’t It Happened Again?
In the decade since that magical night, no UFC card has replicated the feat. UFC 224 in 2018 and UFC 281 in 2022 came close, with 11 finishes each, but both had decisions on the early prelims that spoiled the chance for perfection.
So, why is a perfect card so rare? Hardy believes it comes down to the increasing talent level in MMA. “The talent certainly is increasing across the board in mixed martial arts, and there are a lot more competitive fights,” he said. “I think that we are now seeing less cards where you feel like you can predict the winners of the fights.”
Gooden added, “With the well-considered matchmaking and with so much on the line for each athlete, we simply don’t see events at the highest level turn a 100% finish rate.”
Will We See Another Perfect Night?
Despite the challenges, Hardy is optimistic. “I think we’ll have another card or two in the next 10 years that will have a 100 percent finish rate,” he said. “The level of skill, speed, and athleticism that we’re going to see in the next 10 years of the sport is going to be beyond anything that we’re seeing right now.”
For now, though, the Sydney card of Nov. 8, 2014, remains a one-of-a-kind event in UFC history—a night where every fight delivered the ultimate payoff.
Originally Written by: Marc Raimondi
