Opponent left-handedness does not affect fight outcomes for Ultimate Fighting Championship hall of famers

Lateral preference in complex combat situations: Prevalence and relationship with general measures of hand and foot preference

Laterality is considered relevant to performance in combat sports with particular emphasis being placed on fighters' handedness and combat stance. Such approach, however, may fall too short to understand the role of laterality in sports where fighters are allowed to use their hands and feet standing and on the ground. Here, we referred to grappling sports (i) to estimate lateral preferences in selected combat situations and (ii) to test for an association between those preferences and common measures of hand and foot preference. Based on the responses of 135 experienced grapplers who participated in an online questionnaire lateral preference, at the group-level, was revealed in 12 out of 18 combat situations. At an item-level, common measures of lateral preference and grappling-specific lateral preference were related in three out of 36 conditions (footedness only, not handedness). Across items, scores in a grappling-specific laterality index were positively related with foot but not with hand preference scores. Implications for the assessment of lateral preference in combat sports and the use of item-specific terminology in this context are discussed. On a broader scale, we also elaborate on potential consequences of our findings with regard to evolutionary explanations of the maintenance of left-handedness in humans.

Left-handedness is associated with greater fighting success in humans

Left-handedness is a costly, sexually dimorphic trait found at low frequencies in all human populations. How the handedness polymorphism is maintained is unclear. The fighting hypothesis argues that left-handed men have a negative frequency-dependent advantage in violent intrasexual competition giving them a selective advantage. In support of this, many studies have found that left-handed men are overrepresented among modern professional fighters, but studies typically find no difference in fighting success between left and right-handed fighters. We studied over 13,800 professional boxers and mixed martial artists of varying abilities in three of the largest samples to test this hypothesis to date, finding robust evidence that left-handed fighters have greater fighting success. This held for both male and female fighters, and for both percentage of fights won and an objective measure of fighting ability. We replicated previous results showing that left-handed fighters are strongly overrepresented in professional combat sports, but left-handed fighters did not show greater variance in fighting ability, a hypothesis suggested in previous studies. Overall we find strong evidence consistent with the fighting hypothesis.