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TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC FIGHTS: 5,529
TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC EVENTS: 510
The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday visited Auckland, New Zealand, with a card that delivered action from start to finish. UFC Fight Night 168 featured a rumble that took both combatants into uncharted territory, the most active female fighter in company history and the quickest knockout in women’s flyweight history.
THIS CITY MADE US: Three fighters from City Kickboxing competed at UFC Fight Night 168, and all three emerged victorious. Dan Hooker and Brad Riddell won razor-thin split decisions, and Kai Kara-France took a unanimous verdict from Tyson Nam.
BELLATOR, TAKE NOTE: Hooker and Paul Felder engaged in a back-and-forth main event for five full rounds, with “The Hangman” emerging victorious by split verdict in a “Fight of the Night”-winning battle. The bout marked the first time that either man had competed beyond the third round in their combined 50-fight careers.
KIMURAMAN: Jim Crute hit a kimura on Michal Oleksiejczuk in the opening frame, earning his second UFC win using the maneuver. In doing so, he became the fifth fighter in promotional history to notch more than one of these particular submissions, joining Frank Mir, George Sotiropoulos, Krzysztof Soszynski and Rani Yahya.
THE YAN DYNASTY BEGINS?: Xiaonan Yan took home a one-sided decision win over Karolina Kowalkiewicz. In the Chinese fighter’s short UFC tenure, “Fury” has won five bouts, all by unanimous verdict. The only fighter in strawweight history with more wins on the scorecards is Joanna Jedrzejczyk (seven). Across all women’s divisions, Jedrzejczyk holds eight such decisions, while Jessica Andrade and Katlyn Chookagian each sport six.
75 MINUTES OF FURY: Yan is the first female fighter to win five consecutive decisions in promotional history.
HOW DID YOU EVER MAKE 205, LET ALONE 185?: Former middleweight Marcos Rogerio de Lima smashed Ben Sosoli in 88 seconds in a heavyweight showcase to earn his 15th stoppage win in 17 career triumphs. Thirteen of those finishes have now taken place in the opening frame.
THE 10-MINUTE MAN: For the first time in his 17-fight career, win or lose, Magomed Mustafaev went to a judges’ decision. The Russian had never even competed into the third round before dropping a split decision to Riddell, with his longest previous bout lasting 9:31.
REBUILDING HIS SPIDER ARMADA: Jalin Turner finished Joshua Culibao with punches and one final elbow in the second round. “The Tarantula” maintained his 100 percent finish rate with that stoppage win, although it marked the first time he had ever finished a fight that went beyond the first round.
BOTH CHINESE FIGHTERS DOMINATED: Kenan Song picked up his 14th career finish when he knocked out Callan Potter with a swarm of punches in the first round. The Chinese welterweight now owns a finish rate of 87 percent.
RIDE ON, COWGIRL: Angela Hill became the first female UFC fighter in history to take six fights in a calendar year. The only other competitors to achieve this feat are Donald Cerrone, Neil Magny and Sam Alvey.
ONE MONTH TO GET SEVEN: Hill knocked out Hannah Cifers on Jan. 25 and returned less than a month later to defeat Konklak Suphisara. In doing so, she joins a small group of UFC athletes to win multiple bouts in the span of a month. They include Cerrone and Chris Leben.
DING! GRATS!: Hill picked up her seventh win in the strawweight division when she captured a decision against “Loma Lookboonmee.” She tied Jessica Andrade. They both trail Jedrzejczyk for the most victories in divisional history (nine).
QUEEN OF THE DESERT: Priscila Cachoeira demolished Shana Dobson in 40 seconds with a picture-perfect uppercut. In doing so, Cachoeira also shattered the record for the fastest knockout in UFC women’s flyweight history, which previously stood at 3:04. It was delivered by Maycee Barber at UFC on ESPN 6.
TURNED HER CAREER AROUND: Cachoeira’s stoppage also marked the fifth-fastest knockout in women’s divisional history and the second-quickest for any female fighter below 135 pounds. Poliano Botelho holds that record at strawweight, as she finished Syuri Kondo with a body kick and punches in 33 seconds at UFC Fight Night 129.
100 PUSH-UPS, 100 SIT-UPS, 100 SQUATS, 10 KM RUN: Cachoeira became the seventh fighter in all UFC women’s divisions to score a one-punch knockout. Those that came before her: Andrade, Ronda Rousey, Amanda Nunes, Viviane Araujo, Ji Yeon Kim and Irene Aldana.
EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY BONUS: The Brazilian picked up a “Performance of the Night” bonus by laying waste to Dobson and became the first female fighter to earn a post-fight bonus since Irene Aldana dispatched Ketlen Vieira at UFC 245 in 2019. The previous flyweight to pocket bonus money was Veronica Macedo, who tapped Poliana Viana with a first-round armbar at UFC Fight Night 156.
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into UFC Fight Night 168, Sosoli (11 fights) and Dobson (six fights) had never been finished, Kevin Aguilar had never competed outside of the United States (19 fights) and Culibao had never been defeated (eight fights).
THEY ARE STILL TOURING: Sosoli made his walk to the Octagon accompanied by an unusual choice of music in “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!” by Vengaboys. He is the first fighter in UFC history to ever choose this Dutch dance group as a walkout artist.
DANCE NIGHT IN AUCKLAND: Although Johnny Walker twice used Snap! for his walkouts, Mustafaev selected “The Power” by the German dance group as his entrance music. Neither he nor Sosoli danced at the end of their fights, both suffering defeats.
HEAVY METAL MACHINE: For each of his first three UFC outings, Emil Meek walked out to “Fare Fare Krigsmann” by Autokarma. Before his unsuccessful bout against Jake Matthews, “Valhalla” changed his song to “Danse Pa Bordet” by the same band—a band for which he plays guitar.