Fight Facts is a breakdown of all of the interesting information and Octagon oddities on every card, with some puns, references and portmanteaus to keep things fun. These deep stat dives delve into the numbers, providing historical context and telling the stories behind those numbers.
TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC FIGHTS: 4,915
TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC EVENTS: 460
Returning to Adelaide, Australia, for the second time, the Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday brought UFC Fight Night 142 -- the first event headlined by an Aboriginal Australian heavyweight in Tai Tuivasa -- to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. It featured a heavyweight knockout machine, the all-time leading bonus winner at light heavyweight and a name change that proved quite fruitful.
HOMETOWN BLUES: Fighters from or fighting out of Oceania went a paltry 2-7 at this event, with each of the last five on the card losing, including four by stoppage.
NOT AS UNCOMMON AS EXPECTED: Three third-round stoppages occurred at this event, good for the third-most Round 3 stoppages in UFC history with 19 other events. UFC on Fox 15 had four, while UFC Fight Night 89 in 2016 had a whopping six fights stopped in the third round.
BURN SLOW: Starting the night off with six straight judges’ decisions, UFC Fight Night 142 became the ninth event in promotional history to have at least the first six fights of the night go to a decision.
HE’S ONLY 34: By knocking out Tai Tuivasa in the second round, Junior dos Santos tied Andrei Arlovski for the second-most knockouts at heavyweight all-time with nine. They trail Derrick Lewis and Cain Velasquez, who each have 10 wins by knockout.
HERE COMES THE ARM: Coming into this event undefeated at 9-0, Tuivasa lost for the first time. All but one of his fights have ended by knockout, win or lose.
STILL HAS THE POWER: As a +415 underdog, Mauricio Rua knocked out -525 favorite Tyson Pedro and scored the second largest betting upset of 2018. The only larger upset: Paul Craig’s (+550) literal last-second submission of Magomed Ankalaev (-800) at UFC Fight Night 127 in March.
SHORUN AND SHOGUN: In earning a “Performance of the Night” bonus for knocking out Pedro, “Shogun” moved into a tie with Jon Jones for the most post-fight bonuses (eight) awarded to a light heavyweight. While Jones also earned eight, one was later rescinded after he tested positive for a banned substance and his win was overturned at UFC 214.
ROCCO’S MODERN CHOKE: Anthony Rocco Martin’s third-round anaconda choke, which put Jake Matthews to sleep, marked only the fifth time in UFC history that a fighter had been rendered unconscious by the maneuver. All four previous technical submissions via anaconda choke had taken place in the first round.
A MARTIN BY ANY OTHER NAME: Throughout his career, the fighter formerly known as “Tony” Martin has recorded nine submission victories, and after this anaconda choke, they have come in six different ways. He has now submitted opponents with rear-naked chokes, an inverted triangle choke, kimuras, a guillotine choke, a keylock and an anaconda choke.
NOT JUST A TECHNICALITY: Martin’s technical submission was the 11th of 2018 -- the most in a single year since 2014, which featured 15 fighters who were put to sleep by chokes.
GO THE EXPLETIVE TO SLEEP: Having first rendered Felipe Olivieri unconscious with a rear-naked choke in 2016, Martin joined five other fighters -- including Matthews -- who have put multiple fighters to sleep with chokes in their UFC careers.
GOODNIGHT MOON: Matthews put Shinsho Anzai to sleep with a rear-naked choke at UFC Fight Night 132 in June and then was put to sleep just over five months later by Martin. The eighth fighter to record both a win and a loss by technical submission inside the Octagon, he is only the second fighter to win and lose back-to-back fights by technical submission, joining Yancy Medeiros.
LAST MINUTE ON EARTH: Following Jim Crute’s kimura submission of Craig with nine seconds left in their fight, 17 fights in UFC history have ended within 10 seconds of the final bell. His submission is the fourth-latest in a non-title fight and sixth-latest overall.
BUZZER BEATERS: Crute’s submission with less than ten seconds remaining in the bout marked the fifth fight in 2018 to end with that little time left on the clock, the most in a calendar year in UFC history.
A THOUSAND MILES: The kimura performed by Crute marked the 1,000th time in the UFC a fighter had physically tapped out, be it from a submission maneuver, injury, exhaustion/position or strikes.
THE THREE WAYS: In remaining undefeated after nine fights, Crute’s victory gave him three wins by submission, three by knockout and another three by decision.
THE RUSSIAN GRIM REAPER IS HERE: By topping Yushin Okami on the scorecards, Alexey Kunchenko improved his undefeated record to 20-0. With the win, he tied Bellator MMA fighter Yaroslav Amosov for the third-best record for an active fighter competing in a major promotion. They trail former Bellator heavyweight champ Vitaly Minakov (21-0) and UFC lightweight champ Khabib Nurmagomedov (27-0).
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into UFC Fight Night 142, Craig had never been submitted (12 fights), Alex Gorgees (six fights) and Suman Mokhtarian (eight fights) had never tasted defeat and Ben Nguyen had never lost a fight that went to the scorecards (23 fights).
HE’S EARNED IT: Ever since his second fight inside the Octagon, dos Santos has walked out to “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti from the “Rocky” soundtrack. After knocking out Tuivasa, dos Santos boasts an impressive record of 13-4 when using the track. The most frequently used walkout song in the UFC, “Gonna Fly Now” also celebrates the most recorded wins with 27, with a winning percentage of .675.
WELL THEN PICK IT UP: Salim Touahri made an unsuccessful Octagon debut accompanied by “Drop the World” by Lil Wayne featuring Eminem. None of the last five fighters to walk out to that track have won (0-4-1).
AEROSWITCH: Making his walk to the cage with “Eat the Rich” by Aerosmith playing behind him, Mizuto Hirota dropped a decision to Christos Giagos. Throughout UFC history, fighters have fared poorly when walking out to Aerosmith songs, going a recorded 4-13-1 while winning about 22.2 percent of their fights.
Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the “Eminem Curse” in 2012, and writing for Vice Sports and Combat Docket along the way, he put together many fight result and entrance music databases to better study the sport. You can find him on Twitter at @jaypettry.