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When all was said and done, Volkanovski retained his featherweight crown with an enthralling unanimous decision triumph over Ortega in the UFC 266 headliner at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The victory didn’t come without adversity, including a couple of near-miss submission attempts for Ortega in the third round. Ultimately, Volkanovski prevailed to earn his 20th consecutive professional victory, but Ortega’s stock didn’t fall much, if at all, in defeat.
Here is a by-the-numbers look at UFC 266, with statistics courtesy of UFCStats.com.
10: Straight victories in UFC competition for Volkanovski, the third-longest active winning streak in the promotion, regardless of weight class. Only Kamaru Usman (14) and Amanda Nunes (12) have longer winning streaks.
5: Athletes to being their UFC careers with 10 consecutive victories. After Saturday, Volkanovski joins Anderson Silva, Usman, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Royce Gracie in this exclusive group. Additionally, the Australian is one of only 10 fighters in the history of the Las Vegas-based organization to win 10 consecutive fights at any point in time.
214: Significant strikes landed by Volkanovski, the third most ever in a UFC featherweight fight. Max Holloway holds the top two spots, landing 445 against Calvin Kattar in January and 290 against Ortega in a title defense at UFC 231.
126: Significant strikes by which Volkanovski outlanded Ortega. “The Great” outlanded his adversary 30 to 16 in Round 1, 38 to 23 in Round 2, 61 to 17 in Round 3, 35 to 6 in Round 4 and 50 to 25 in Round 5.
2: Fighters in UFC history to suffer a significant striking deficit of more than 100. Ortega, who was outlanded by 126 significant strikes against Volkanovski and by 180 by Holloway, joins Nam Phan in this category. Phan was outlanded by 118 significant strikes in a loss to Vaughan Lee at “The Ultimate Fighter China” finale and by 104 in a loss to Dennis Siver at UFC on Fox 5.
48: Significant leg strikes landed by Volkanovski. By comparison, Ortega landed just nine. Volkanovski also held notable advantages in significant head strikes (146-59) and ground strikes (53-0).
3: Submission attempts for Ortega, including a tight guillotine and triangle choke during a wild sequence in Round 3 in which he appeared to have the featherweight champ on the verge of tapping out. “T-City” has 11 submission attempts during his UFC career overall.
7: Victories in title bouts for Valentina Shevchenko, the second most in UFC history behind only Amanda Nunes (nine). Shevchenko rolled against Lauren Murphy, winning via fourth-round technical knockout in Saturday’s co-main event.
87: Significant strikes by which Shevchenko outlanded Murphy. “Bullet” outlanded her foe 20 to 3 in Round 1, 10 to 1 in Round 2, 21 to 5 in Round 3 and 47 to 2 in Round 4.
.120: Significant striking accuracy for Murphy, who struggled to pull the trigger and landed just 11 of 91 attempts. Not surprisingly, Shevchenko was far more efficient, landing 98 of 170 significant strikes for a 57 percent success rate.
281: Combined significant strikes landed by Lawler (131) and Diaz (150) in their featured middleweight affair, which Lawler won via TKO 44 seconds into Round 3. Diaz showcased his typical volume before succuming to Lawler, outlanding his foe 71 to 57 in Round 1 and 73 to 64 in Round 2. Lawler outlanded Diaz by a 10-to-6 count in an abbreviated third stanza.
12: Fighters in UFC history, including Diaz, to land 150 or more significant strikes in a defeat. All of the 11 other bouts went longer than the 10:44 the Stockton, Calif., native spent in the cage on Saturday night.
2,429: Days since Diaz’s last fight, a five-round defeat to Anderson Silva at UFC 183. The result was later overturned to a no contest after both Silva and Diaz failed drug tests in relation to the bout.
3,619: Days since Diaz’s last victory, a unanimous decision victory against B.J. Penn at UFC 137 on Oct. 29, 2011.
10: UFC victories for Curtis Blaydes since his Octagon debut in 2016. That ties him with Francis Ngannou for the second most in the heavyweight division during that time behind only Derrick Lewis (12). Blaydes outpointed Jairzinho Rozenstruik in a featured encounter on Saturday.
12: Fighters in UFC history who have landed 60 or more takedowns. Blaydes joined that group when he grounded Rozenstruik in the opening stanza of their bout. “Razor” landed three of his six takedown attempts to give him 62 for his UFC career.
13: UFC wins for Jessica Andrade, who scored an opening-round technical knockout of Cynthia Calvillo in a featured flyweight encounter. That figure ranks second in UFC women’s history behind only two-division champion Amanda Nunes, who has 14 victories.
7: Finishes in UFC competition for Andrade. That also ranks second in UFC women’s history behind Nunes (10).
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6: Consecutive 135-pound triumphs for Merab Dvalishvili, who rallied to defeat Marlon Moraes via second-round TKO in a preliminary matchup. That ties him with Aljamain Sterling for the longest active winning streak in the UFC’s bantamweight division. “The Machine” has won seven straight in UFC competition overall.
63: Career takedowns landed by Dvalishvili. The Georgian fighter went four for four on takedowns against Moraes.
142: Total strikes by which Dvalishvili outlanded Moraes in a lopsided second round. The Serra-Longo Fight Team product outlanded also outlanded his foe 38-to-0 in significant strikes.
246: Total strikes landed by Dvalishvili in the bout. By comparison, Moraes landed just 34. After being dropped early on in the bout, “The Machine” dominated the fight the rest of the way through takedowns and ground-and-pound.
73: Signficant strikes landed by Dan Hooker in a clear-cut three-round veridict over Nasrat Haqparast in a preliminary lightweight affair. “The Hangman” distributed his offense well, landing 26 significant strikes to the head, 27 to the body and 20 to the legs. By comparison, Haqparast landed just 27 significant strikes.
4: Consecutive victories for Chris Daukaus, tying him with Tom Aspinall for the fourth-longest active winning streak in the UFC’s heavyweight division. Only Ciryl Gane (seven), Francis Ngannou (five) and Marcin Tybura (five) have longer winning streaks. Daukaus defeated Shamil Abdurakhimov via second-round TKO in a preliminary contest on Saturday night.
4: Consecutive finishes for Daukaus, the second-longest active finishing streak behind Ngannou (five).
2: Knockdowns landed by Daukaus in the fight, giving him a total of six in his first four Octagon appearances.
118: Total strikes landed by Taila Santos in a clear-cut three-round verdict against Roxanne Modafferi at flyweight. By comparison, Modafferi landed 43. The Brazilian also held a 55-to-18 edge in significant strikes landed and was successful on all five of her takedown attempts for 8:03 of control time.
34: Total strikes by which Jalin Turner outlanded Uros Medic en route to a submission win 4:01 into the first round at lightweight. “The Tarantula” has won three straight in UFC competition, with all his victories coming inside of two rounds.
0:15: Time of Matthew Semelsberger’s first-round KO of Martin Sano. That ties “Semi the Jedi” for the sixth-fatest finish in UFC welterweight history. Semelsberger also has a 16-second stoppage of Jason Witt at UFC Fight Night 187 on his resume.
2: Fighters in UFC history with two knockout victories of 20 seconds or less. Semelsberger joined currently Bellator talent Anthony Johnson as the only men to accomplish that feat. Johnson stopped Glover Teixeira in 13 seconds at UFC 202 and knocked out Chad Reiner in 13 seconds at UFC Fight Night 10.
2,731: Days since Sano’s last professional MMA victory, a second-round submission of Clint Roberts at Legacy Fighting Championship 30 on April 4, 2014. The Nick Diaz Academy representative entered Saturday’s matchup with Semelsberger on a three-bout winless streak and hadn’t fought since February 2017.
6: Takedowns landed in 11 attempts for Jonathan Pearce in 8:31 of Octagon time against Omar Morales. Pearce submitted Morales via rear-naked choke 3:31 into Round 2.