Ok, first of all, yes, I know there's MMA outside the UFC. But...the UFC is the biggest MMA organization there is in the world that allows elbows to a downed opponent, so, I decided to just go through their events. If you, NearDark, want to go through the rest of the american organizations that allow elbows to a downed opponent's head, I'd love to see the stats...contrary to what some people may think, I don't have all that much free time
On the other hand, this is the list of fights stopped by doctors or cuts, according to fightfinder, from UFC30 to UFC72, UFC Fight Night (UFN) and The Ultimate Fighter finales (TUF) included:
(EDIT: Ok,
Archaelleon came up with an answer for some of the reason why some of this fights were stopped, info in the last column).
(EDIT: Ok,
Dr. Abysmal came up with another two fights, Tank's and Kongo's)
(EDIT: More info, this time from
SolidPunch on 3 fights)
71 Thiago Silva James Irvin TKO
(Knee injury)
61 Cheick Kongo Gilbert Aldana TKO (Doctor Stoppage) (
cut from elbow while *standing*)
61 Joe Stevenson Yves Edwards TKO (Doctor Stoppage)
(cut from elbows)
UFN3 Spencer Fisher Aaron Riley TKO (Doctor Stoppage)
(Broken jaw...youch)
TUF2 Melvin Guillard Marcus Davis TKO (Cut)
55 Joe Riggs Chris Lytle TKO (Cut)
(from elbows, from the bottom)
UFN2 Jonathan Goulet Jay Hieron TKO (Cut)
UFN2 David Loiseau Evan Tanner TKO (Cuts)
(cut from elbows...obviously
UFN1 Kenny Florian Alex Karalexis TKO (Cut)
(cut from elbows)
53 Rich Franklin Evan Tanner TKO (Doctor Stoppage)
(cuts from punches)
51 David Loiseau Gideon Ray TKO (Doctor Stoppage) (
cuts from elbows, obviously
49 Randy Couture Vitor Belfort TKO (Doctor Stoppage) (
accidental headbutt)
46 Vitor Belfort Randy Couture TKO (Cut) (
glove slide on a punch)
45 Wesley Correira David Abbott TKO (Cut) (
From a knee)
43 Pedro Rizzo Tra Telligman TKO (Cut) (
Knee to Tra's forehead)
40 Matt Hughes Gil Castillo TKO (Cut) (
Accidental headbutt)
39 Sean Sherk Benji Radach TKO (Cut)
36 Evan Tanner Elvis Sinosic TKO (Cut)
32 Tito Ortiz Elvis Sinosic TKO (Cut) (
Elbow from the guard)
Let's see who remember which of those all come from elbows, and which of the "doctor stoppage" are or aren't from cuts.
BTW...first is event name (number is a PPV, UFN is UFC Fight Night, TUF is The Ultimate Fighter finale. Second is the winner's name, third the loser's name, fourth the reason.
EDIT: Having some answers as for cause for some of those cuts and doctor stoppages, the new numbers would be:
11 cuts from elbows to a downed opponent out of 457 fights, 2.407% of fights stopped from cuts caused by elbows on the ground. And there's still 4 fights in which I have no clue what caused the cut, so it may go even lower.
Also, to the poster who said the statistical universe was wrong...I agree, to an extent. The problem is that I'm really not willing to spend 174hr re-watching all those 58 UFC events to get which ones had elbows and which ones didn't....which is also why I only did UFC stats...I know there's other promotions that allow elbows on the ground, but that would need too much time, which I don't have...the original "study" took me about 20 minutes...I actually don't have all that much time for this stuff lol!