Aunanimous decision (UD) is a winning criterion in severalfull-contactcombat sports, such asboxing,kickboxing,Muay Thai,mixed martial arts and other sports involvingstriking and submission in which all three judges agree on which fighter won the match.[1]
In boxing, each of the three judges keeps score (round by round) of which fighter they feel is winning (and losing). This only includes landed blows to the head or the body. In MMA, judges look for different criteria such as kicks, take-downs, punches, knees, elbows, cage control, submission attempts, and aggression.[2] A decision is not required to be unanimous for a boxer or mixed martial artist to be given a victory. In the modern era of Olympic boxing, UD is utilized more often than other outcomes, including stoppages.[3] Unanimous decision should not be confused with amajority decision orsplit decision.
In the early days of combat fighting, winners were determined only when one party was unable to continue the fight.[4] TheNational Sporting Club started to promote professional glove fighting. It introduced the use of officials and their capacity to declare the winner of a fight. Officials began using a scoring system to determine the winner of the fight, and this made unanimous decisions a logical outcome.
Any combat sports decision has the potential to be overturned. Some reasons for this may include counting errors, misdeclaration, and retroactive disqualification due to rule violations. One notable case of a unanimous decision being overturned is a 1983 fight betweenLuis Resto andBilly Collins Jr, where Resto won the fight, but was later revealed to have fought with tampered gloves. The discovery of the tampered gloves turned the Unanimous Decision into ano contest.
| Date | Winner | Opponent | Notes |
| March 8, 1971 | Joe Frazier | Muhammad Ali | For WBA, WBC, and vacantThe Ring heavyweight titles |
| January 28, 1974 | Muhammad Ali | Joe Frazier | Retained NABF heavyweight title |
| March 7, 1987 | Mike Tyson | James Smith | Retained WBC heavyweight title; Won WBA heavyweight title;Heavyweight unification series |
| June 11, 2009 | Georges St-Pierre | Thiago Alves | Defended the UFC Welterweight Championship. |
| May 2, 2015 | Floyd Mayweather Jr | Manny Pacquiao | Retained WBA (Unified), WBC, andThe Ring welterweight titles; Won WBO welterweight title |
| Date | Winner | Opponent | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 10, 2010 | B.J. Penn | Frankie Edgar | Lost the UFC Lightweight Championship.[5] |
| February 4, 2012 | Carlos Condit | Nick Diaz | Won the interim UFC Welterweight Championship.[5] |
| July 2, 2017 | Jeff Horn | Manny Pacquiao | Lost WBO welterweight title |
| February 12, 2023 | Islam Makhachev | Alexander Volkanovski | Retained UFC lightweight Championship.[6] |
| February 8, 2020 | Jon Jones | Dominick Reyes | Defended the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. |
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