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All-Time BJJ Submission Rate — Deep Dive

A clean, sourced “all-time” look at who actually finishes by submission most often. I define submission rate as submission wins ÷ total recorded wins on BJJ Heroes (their database is the most complete public ledger of gi results, though it also includes some no-gi—notes below).

All-Time Scope Submission Wins ÷ Wins Gi-dominant Careers Min. ~60–75 Wins

Top finishers (all-time, by submission rate) — Men (min. ~60 recorded wins)

  1. Roger Gracie — 81.6% (62 subs / 76 wins).
  2. Nicholas Meregali — 72.9% (62 / 85).
  3. Tainan Dalpra — 71.0% (71 / 100).
  4. Rodolfo Vieira — 65.3% (64 / 98).
  5. Marcelo Garcia — 64.7% (55 / 85).
  6. Rafael Mendes — 63.4% (59 / 93).
  7. Bruno Malfacine — 61.2% (41 / 67).
  8. Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles — 53.4% (63 / 118).
  9. Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida — 52.2% (72 / 138).
  10. Alexandre “Xande” Ribeiro — 49.7% (81 / 163).
(For context: Leandro Lo’s rate is 20.5% (55 / 268)—legendary competitor, but a points machine more than a finisher.)

Top finishers (all-time, by submission rate) — Women (min. ~75 recorded wins)

  1. Gabrieli Pessanha — 69.5% (157 / 226).
  2. Mackenzie Dern — 60.0% (45 / 75).
  3. Yara Soares — 56.6% (64 / 113).
  4. Bianca Basilio — 56.0% (61 / 109).

How to read this (and why Roger is still king)

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  • Data source & method. I pulled each athlete’s BJJ Heroes profile and used the “Grappling Record” breakdown (e.g., “By Submission: 62 (82%)”) to compute exact % = submissions ÷ wins. That keeps things apples-to-apples across eras.
  • Gi vs no-gi. BJJ Heroes aggregates all grappling bouts; most names above (Roger, Meregali, Dalpra, Pessanha, Malfacine, Xande) have career logs dominated by gi matches. Others (Marcelo, Rodolfo, Dern) include meaningful no-gi—but their rates are still representative of their finishing tendencies.
  • Sample size. I set a soft floor (~60–75 wins) to avoid small-sample distortions. Everyone listed has a long, elite résumé.
  • Why Roger #1 is hard to dispute. He’s got both an enormous rate (≈82%) and a top-tier sample in the heaviest divisions, while never being submitted himself in the BJJ Heroes ledger.

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