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“The Nigerian Nightmare” utilized a grinding approach to wear down Jorge Masvidal, earning a unanimous verdict in Saturday’s main event at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. While Usman defended his 170-pound belt for a second time, Masvidal faded down the stretch after accepting the bout on six days’ notice.
Here is a by-the-numbers look at UFC 251, with statistics courtesy of UFCStats.com.
3:07:27: Total time of UFC 251, the longest event in promotion history. Saturday’s card, which featured a trio of title fights — two of which went the distance and one that ended in Round 5 — surpassed the previous record of 3:04:18 set during UFC Fight Night 121 “Werdum vs. Tybura” in November 2017.
12: Consecutive triumphs for Usman. That ties him with pound-for-pound legend Georges St. Pierre for the longest winning streak in UFC welterweight history.
5: Takedowns landed in 16 attempts for Usman. While Masvidal’s ability to remain upright was solid, that figure still represents the most times an opponent has grounded “Gamebred” during his UFC and Strikeforce career. Demian Maia, with four takedowns at UFC 211, previously held the top mark against Masvidal.
263: Total strikes landed by Usman. By comparison, Masvidal landed 88. The reigning welterweight champion also held a 94-to-66 advantage in significant strikes landed.
9: Consecutive triumphs for Alexander Volkanovski, the fourth-longest winning streak in the UFC. The City Kickboxing representative earned a narrow split verdict over Max Holloway in a featherweight title rematch in Saturday’s co-headliner.
137: Significant strikes landed by Volkanovski. By comparison, Holloway landed 102. The Australian outlanded his foe 22 to 21 in Round 2, 25 to 15 in Round 3, 34 to 24 in Round 4 and 37 to 23 in Round 5. Both featherweights landed 19 significant strikes in Round 1.
3: Takedowns landed in nine attempts for Volkanovski.
67: Significant leg strikes landed by Volkanovski. Holloway, meanwhile, landed 31. In their first meeting at UFC 245, Volkanovski outlanded his foe by a 75-to-17 count in significant leg strikes.
6: Undisputed bantamweight champions in UFC history. Following his fifth-round TKO of Jose Aldo on Saturday, Petr Yan joins Dominick Cruz, Renan Barao, TJ Dillashaw, Cody Garbrandt, and Henry Cejudo in that exclusive club.
7: Consecutive triumphs for Yan, tying him with Raphael Assuncao and Renan Barao for the longest winning streak in UFC bantamweight history.
194: Significant strikes landed by Yan, a new bantamweight record for UFC/WEC competition. In defeat, Aldo landed 83 significant strikes. Yan held whopping advantages of 150 to 38 in head strikes and 86 to 0 in ground strikes.
61: Significant strike advantage for Yan in Round 5, where he battered Aldo with ground-and-pound to earn a stoppage at the 3:24 mark of the period. Yan also held a 113-to-1 edge in total strikes in the round.
376: Total strikes attempted by Yan. Aldo, meanwhile, attempted 157.
Related » UFC 251 Round-by-Round Scoring
17: Significant leg strikes landed by Aldo, his most since landing 20 in a successful featherweight title defense against Ricardo Lamas UFC 169 in February 2014.
7: UFC strawweight triumphs for Rose Namajunas, tying her with five others for the second most in the history of the division behind only Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who has 10. Namajunas edged Jessica Andrade via split decision in a rematch on Saturday night.
82: Significant strikes landed by Namajunas. By comparison, Andrade landed 70. Namajunas outlanded her foe 31 to 18 in Round 1 and 31 to 26 in Round 2, while Andrade held a 27-to-20 edge in Round 3.
63: Significant head strikes for Namajunas. Andrade, meanwhile, landed 31.
25: Significant body strikes for Andrade; Namajunas had 12. The Brazilian also held a 15-to-7 edge in significant leg strikes.
9: Consecutive first-round finishes for former Rizin Fighting Federation champion Jiri Prochazka, who knocked out Volkan Oezdemir 49 seconds into Round 2 of their light heavyweight encounter.
39: Significant strikes landed by Oezdemir in Round 1, in which he took advantage of Prochazka’s unorthodox mannerisms to land numerous clean shots. Prochazka, meanwhile, landed 26 significant strikes in the opening frame.
14: Unofficial media scorecards, of the 16 tracked by MMADecisions.com, that awarded the welterweight clash between Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos and Muslim Salikhov to dos Santos. Two of the three cageside judges saw things differently, as the “King of Kung Fu” emerged with a split-decision triumph.
3: Fighters in UFC history to win two fights via anaconda submission. With his first-round tapout of Danny Henry, Makwan Amirkhani joined Charles Oliveira and Phil Davis as the only athletes to accomplish that feat.
6: Consecutive triumphs for Leonardo Santos, tying him with Diego Ferreira and Islam Makhachev for the third-longest active winning streak in the UFC’s lightweight division. Santos defeated Roman Bogatov via unanimous decision on Saturday.
75: Total strikes landed by Santos in Round 2, when he had Bogatov rocked and was nearly able to earn a finish. By comparison, Bogatov landed 27 total strikes.
15: Unofficial media scorecards, of the 18 tracked by MMADecisions.com, that awarded the flyweight clash between Zhalgas Zhumagulov and Raulian Paiva to Zhumagulov. However, judges Lukasz Bosacki, Ben Cartlidge and Vito Paolillo all submitted 29-28 tallies in foavor of Paiva.
66: Significant strikes landed by Zhumagulov. By comparision, Paiva landed 52. Zhumagulov also landed the bout’s only two takedowns, although Paiva successfully defended nine other attempts.
120: Significant strikes landed by Karol Rosa in a dominant decision triumph against Vanessa Melo at flyweight. Rosa outlaned her foe 40 to 4 in Round 1, 47 to 4 in Round 2 and 33 to 27 in Round 3.