How MMA fights end

KO

A strike puts a fighter out and the referee stops it because they are no longer conscious or no longer defending themselves. The unambiguous version.

TKO

Strikes still ended it, but the fighter was conscious. The referee steps in, the corner throws in the towel, or a doctor calls it off. Ground-and-pound stoppages and cut stoppages both land here.

Retirement

A fighter stays on the stool or tells the referee they are done — usually an injury: a hand, a knee, a rib.

Most official records lump KO and TKO together, which is why the two words get swapped around so freely on a broadcast. In your own notes it is worth separating them: a fighter with a run of late TKOs is wearing people down, and a fighter with first-round knockouts is landing something very specific very early. Those are different fighters and they lose to different opponents.

A hold forces a tap, or forces the referee to stop it because the fighter is unconscious or a limb is about to go. Chokes and joint locks are the two families: a choke takes the blood or the air, a lock threatens an elbow, a shoulder, a knee or an ankle. A verbal tap counts, and so does going limp in a choke without tapping at all.

Unanimous

All three judges scored it for the same fighter.

Split

Two judges for one fighter, one for the other.

Majority

Two judges for one fighter and one scoring it even. Less common than a split, and routinely mistaken for one.

Draw

The cards come out level. A majority draw and a split draw are both possible, which is as confusing as it sounds.

No contest

Something outside the fight ended it — an accidental foul that left someone unable to continue, or a result overturned afterward. Neither fighter is credited with a win or a loss.

Disqualification

A deliberate or repeated foul serious enough to end the fight. Rare, and it goes down as a loss.

A draw or a no contest is not a miss. If you are grading your own Picks, a fight that ended level or was waved off never had a correct answer, and Cornerman leaves it out of your Track Record rather than counting it against you.