Fight Facts: Bellator 230

Last night's fights in Milan were stacked and each card delivered! Here are a few of your winners!#Bellator230 #BellatorKB12 #BellatorMilan pic.twitter.com/muHHmmFIhK

— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) October 13, 2019

Fight Facts is a breakdown of all the interesting information and cage curiosities 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.

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TOTAL NUMBER OF BELLATOR FIGHTS: 2,524
TOTAL NUMBER OF BELLATOR EVENTS: 232

Bellator MMA on Saturday returned to Italy with a hybrid kickboxing-MMA card that split the broadcast schedule. Bellator 230 in Milan featured a knockout artist who truly loves what he does, a slew of hometown fighters recording wins over non-Italian opponents and the reliable Bellator competitor from the country putting on a show for his home crowd.

ON ITS FACE …: Bellator 230 featured nine MMA bouts on the card, the fewest since Bellator 211, also in Italy. This event was supplemented by another nine bouts contested under kickboxing rules.

A TASTE OF ITALY: Fighters from Italy facing off against foreign opponents went 4-0 on the card and were responsible for half of its finishes. The bout between Walter Pugliesi and Andrea Fusi was an all-Italy battle in which Pugliesi prevailed on the scorecards.



DON’T STICK YOUR NECK OUT: Vadim Nemkov tapped Rafael Carvalho with a rear-naked choke in the second round of the Bellator 230 main event. The last time Carvalho was submitted was by Julio Cesar Araujo Fernandes in his MMA debut nearly eight years ago.

NEMKOVIAN NIGHTMARE: After securing the tap from Carvalho, Nemkov has now finished his opponent in 10 of his 11 wins.

BABY FEDOR TAKES HIS TIME: After starting his career with finishes in all six of his initial wins, Kirill Sidelnikov has won on the scorecards in each of his last four victories and five of six.

YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY?: Prior to beating Fusi by judges’ verdict, every one of Pugliesi’s wins came by stoppage within two rounds.

MELVIN IS A MONSTER: Melvin Manhoef demolished Yannick Bahati in the opening round, scoring his 29th knockout across his 32 wins and improving his mighty knockout rate to 91 percent. Twenty-six of those (90 percent) took place in the first round.

BARE KNUCKLE MANHOEF: Manhoef made his MMA debut in December 1995, when he finished Jordy Jonkers with a palm strike, as the combatants were not wearing gloves. When this took place, Stefano Paterno was 4 months old and Nicolo Solli was three years away from being born.

BRING ON THE APOCALYPSE: Although he has alternated wins and losses by knockout in each of his last five appearances, when Alessio Sakara finished Canaan Grigsby with strikes, he earned his 15th career knockout.

SHOUTOUT TO TUDOR: Sakara has appeared on six of seven Bellator cards in Italy, far more than any other fighter. No other Bellator athlete has fought on more than three Italian shows, with that being headliner and former Sakara adversary Carvalho.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into Bellator 230, Domingos Barros had never been defeated (six fights), Dragos Zubko had never fought out of the first round (three fights) and Grigsby had never competed in Europe (15 fights).

Sherdog contributing editor Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the “Eminem Curse” in 2012 and working 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.