Tai Tuivasa Record: 14-10-0

Early UFC rise

The momentum continued in 2018. Tuivasa opened the year with a first-round TKO of Cyril Asker, then outpointed former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski over three rounds to move to a perfect start in the Octagon. The climb hit a wall over the next year: he was stopped by former champion Junior dos Santos, dropped a decision to Blagoy Ivanov, and was submitted by Serghei Spivac – a three-fight skid that forced him to rebuild.

The knockout streak and title contention

Tuivasa came back transformed. Starting in 2020 he ripped off five straight knockouts, beginning with a first-round finish of Stefan Struve and running through Harry Hunsucker, Greg Hardy and Augusto Sakai. The signature moment came in February 2022, when he knocked out former interim title challenger Derrick Lewis with a brutal elbow to surge into the heavyweight top five. That streak ran into elite resistance: Ciryl Gane stopped him in a back-and-forth main event in 2022, and Sergei Pavlovich ended things in the first round later that year.

Later career

The back half of Tuivasa's career has been a difficult stretch. He was submitted by Alexander Volkov in 2023 and Marcin Tybura in 2024, dropped a split decision to Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and lost decisions to Tallison Teixeira and Louie Sutherland into 2026, leaving him at 14-10. The losses are real, but so is the body of work: at his peak, few heavyweights generated more excitement than "Bam Bam."

Fighting style

Tuivasa is a finisher in the purest sense. Of his 14 wins, 13 have come by knockout for a 93% finish rate, the kind of number that explains why every one of his fights carries genuine stoppage threat. He fights with explosive, fast-twitch power and heavy hands, and his lone career decision win underscores that he is built to end fights early rather than coast to the cards. The vulnerabilities are just as clear from the record: he has been knocked out three times and submitted three more, and his takedown defense and grappling have repeatedly been exposed by the division's more well-rounded operators. He remains, above all, a high-variance heavyweight capable of ending any night with a single shot.

Career highlights

• First Indigenous Australian to win a UFC fight — his flying-knee knockout of Rashad Coulter in 2017 made history and launched his career.
• Five-knockout streak into title contention — his 2020–2022 run, capped by an elbow KO of Derrick Lewis, pushed him into the heavyweight top five.
• 93% finish rate — 13 of his 14 wins by knockout make him one of the most explosive finishers the heavyweight division has produced.