Stepping in for Kelvin Gastelum on less than a week’s notice, Strickland kicked off his campaign with a unanimous decision triumph against Nassourdine Imavov in a makeshift light heavyweight headliner at UFC Fight Night 217 on Saturday. Strickland rebounds from back-to-back defeats to Jared Cannonier and Alex Pereira while proving himself to be the ultimate company man in the process. Imavov, meanwhile, sees a three-fight winning streak snapped in defeat.
Here is a by-the-numbers look at UFC Fight Night 217, with statistics courtesy of UFCStats.com.
16: Fighters in UFC history to earn victories in three different weight classes. Strickland joined this select group with his five-round verdict over Imavov in Saturday’s light heavyweight main event. Strickland also owns wins in the Octagon at middleweight and welterweight.
182: Significant strikes landed by Strickland. By comparison, Imavov landed 123. Strickland outlanded his foe 24 to 19 in Round 1, 47 to 24 in Round 3 and 57 to 23 in Round 4. Both fighters landed 22 significant strikes in Round 2, while Imavov enjoyed a 35-to-32 advantage in Round 5.
134: Significant head strikes for Strickland. Imavov, meanwhile, landed 67 significant strikes to the head.
8: Featherweight victories for Dan Ige since 2018. That’s the second most in the division behind only reigning 145-pound king Alexander Volkanovski. Ige added to his total with a second-round KO of Damon Jackson in the UFC Fight Night 217 co-main event.
13: Unofficial media scorecards, of the 15 tracked by MMADecisions.com, that awarded the women’s bantamweight clash between Raquel Pennington and Ketlen Vieira to Vieira. Judges Michael Bell and Derek Cleary saw things differently, as both submitted 29-28 tallies in favor of Pennington to give “Rocky” a split-decision triumph.
81: Significant strikes landed by Pennington. Vieira, meanwhile, landed 64. Pennington notably outlanded her foe by a 32-to-5 count in significant body strikes. Vieira held a 138-to-104 advantage in total strikes landed.
.700: Significant striking accuracy for Umar Nurmagomedov in a first-round stoppage of Raoni Barcelos at bantamweight. Nurmagomedov landed 36 of 51 significant strikes, including 20 to the head, 12 to the body and four to the legs.
16: Consecutive victories by Nurmagomedov to begin his professional tenure. That includes four triumphs in UFC competition.
66: Significant strikes by which Javid Basharat outlanded Mateus Mendonca in a unanimous decision triumph at bantamweight. Basharat also defended nine of his opponent’s 11 takedown attempts.
6: KO/TKO victories in UFC competition for Abdul Razak Alhassan. “Judo Thunder” defeated Claudio Ribeiro via knockout 28 seconds into Round 2 of their middleweight encounter on Saturday night. It was the Alhassan’s first KO/TKO victory to go past the first round in UFC competition.
89: Significant strikes landed by Mateusz Rebecki in a three-round verdict over Nick Fiore at lightweight. By comparison, Fiore landed 34. Rebecki also held a 130-to-52 edge in total strikes landed.
14: Career submission victories, among 20 professional triumphs overall, for Allan Nascimento, who garnered a win with a first-round rear-naked choke of Carlos Hernandez at flyweight.
78: Total strikes by which Dan Argueta outlanded Nick Aguirre in a unanimous decision triumph at featherweight. Argueta was successful on four of six takedowns, logged 10:14 of control time and attempted two submissions in victory.
756: Days since Jimmy Flick’s last Octagon appearance, a first-round flying triangle choke submission victory over Cody Durden at UFC Fght Night 183 on Dec. 19, 2020. Flick returned from a short-lived retirement on Saturday but fell to Charles Johnson via first-round TKO in the evening’s opening bout.