This article is part of our Fight Stat Wrap series.
UFC 212 turned out to be an exhilarating affair, as all of the fights on the main card were either exciting or intriguing for some reason or another. The following is a by-the-numbers recap that highlights the stats and milestones that stood out on the main card, with stats courtesy of FightMetric.com.
Max Holloway puts his stamp on the MMA world with stoppage over Jose Aldo
Holloway stuck with his trademark volume striking style, and it carried him to the undisputed featherweight championship. Going into this fight, it was clear that Holloway had a sizable advantage in striking volume. Prior to this fight, he threw 13.2 significant strikes per minute compared to 7.6 for Aldo. After a slow first round, Holloway turned up the volume in the next two. His final number was 14.56 significant strikes attempted per minute, while Aldo only managed to get off 7.95 per minute. In the third round alone, Holloway outlanded Aldo 64 to 7, scored a knockdown and finished the fight. This was a masterful performance.
Holloway earned players 116 DraftKings points, which was the third most of the card. His points came from a variety of sources as he landed 104 significant strikes (52 points), three passes (9 points), a knockdown (10 points) and a 45-point third-round finish bonus.
Claudia Gadelha dominates Karolina Kowalkiewicz on the ground
Gadelha scored a finish for the first time in her UFC career. In the process, she cemented her place as the second best women's strawweight in the world. Once the fight went to the ground, she had a clear advantage and scored the finish. In her six-fight UFC career, Gadelha has scored 27 takedowns but managed to only earn five submission attempts (FightMetric's definition of a submission attempt is more akin to a near finish).
Gadelha finished with a 105 DraftKings points. As previously stated, she had never scored a finish in the UFC. At the same time, she has been fighting some of the best fighters in the division since entering the promotion. Against lesser competition, she is a threat to finish in the first round and score major points.
Vitor Belfort does just enough against Nate Marquardt
For the first time in his UFC career, Belfort landed more than 20 significant strikes in a fight. Prior to this fight, he either finished his opponent early or struggled to land shots. This was his first fight to go to decision since 2007 and only his fifth decision victory of his 40-fight career. Belfort appeared to land the harder shots in the fight, but he was outlanded in all three rounds. Marquardt landed 57 significant strikes to only 37 from Belfort. The majority of media members tracked by MMADecisions.com had the fight for Marquardt. StrikeScore, a stat that measures striking efficiency, favored the Greg Jackson protege 160 to 59.
Belfort's value from a DFS perspective comes from his finishing power. If he is not going to score an early finish, he not worth the play. He finished with 48.5 DraftKings points, which the lowest total for any winning fighter on Saturday.
Paulo Borrachinha weathers storm and stops Oluwale Bamgbose
Borrachinha came into this fight as a big favorite -- roughly in the -275 range on fight day. In the first round, it looked like Bamgbose was going to put a scare into him. However, Borrachinha asserted himself as the better striker and finished the fight. The Brazilian ended up outlanding Bamgbose 43 to 33, and he has now scored knockouts in nine of his 10 professional fights.
For the second-round finish, Borrachinha finished with 91.5 DraftKings points. However, due to his high price point ($9,200), he cost players $100.55 per point, which was ninth best on the card. He has clearly shown finishing power in the UFC, but has has not yet faced higher level competition.
Yancy Medeiros has just enough defense to best Erick Silva
To get the bad out of the way first, Silva probably should have been given more time to defend and recover at the end of this fight. After the knockdown, Medeiros swarmed, but he did not really land anything devastating. However, this should take nothing away from the Hawaiian's masterful performance. Medeiros will always eat a lot of shots, but he did just enough defensively against Silva. For his career, he has absorbed 4.81 significant strikes per minute, but against Silva he cut that number down to 3.56. On the offensive end, Medeiros was as aggressive as always as he landed 4.7 significant strikes per minute, which is actually ahead of his career rate of 4.07.
Despite the books pegging this as a very close matchup, Medeiros was actually the higher valued competitor on DraftKings pre-fight. He finished with 96.5 points, which mostly came from his second-round finish bonus (70). During his UFC/Strikeforce career, he has scored five stoppages, but this was only his second knockout. If he has added striking power to his arsenal, he becomes a much more attractive pick for those setting daily fantasy lineups.
