This article is part of our Fight Stat Wrap series.
This past Saturday, the UFC kicked off a two-event day with a Fight Pass card in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The main featured a few fighters scoring impressive knockouts and picking up career accomplishments. 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.
Gegard Mousasi continues knockout streak against Uriah Hall
It seems his loss to Hall in their first fight has really lit a fire under Mousasi and pushed him to have one of the best years of his career. On Saturday, he picked up his fourth win in a row and his third knockout in a row. Mousasi has not won three fights via knockout in a row since he finished Renato "Babalu" Sobral, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and Gary Goodridge back in 2009. In the past, Mousasi has used his defensive advantages to outpoint overmatched opposition instead of going for the finish. This led to dominant victories over the likes of Thales Leites, Costa Philippou and Ilir Latifi, but each were left to the judges. Now, he appears to be determined to score quick finishes, which makes him that much more appealing to DFS players.
Stevie Ray outpoints Ross Pearson for biggest win to date
In his five-fight UFC career, the story for Ray has been the same. If he can stop takedowns and keep the fight standing, he is going to win. In his only UFC loss, Ray was taken down five times by Alan Patrick. This never allowed him to unleash his striking game, and he finished with only two landed significant strikes. Pearson, on the other hand, did not even attempt a takedown and ended up getting badly outstruck. Pearson has now lost four of his last five bouts. Over that stretch, he has been outstruck outstruck in every bout for a total of 371 to 224.
Alexander Volkov takes dubious decision over Tim Johnson
This was a pretty tough decision to swallow. Johnson was the clearly the busier and more active fighters in the first two rounds. In those rounds, he slightly outlanded Volkov 39 to 32. Often times, judges will incorrectly reward a fighter who comes forward and throws, because it looks like they are being more active. That couldn't have been the case here, however, as Johnson attempted to 74 significant strikes compared to only 60 for Volkov.
Artem Lobov sets new career high against Teruto Ishihara
Lobov seems to be getting better with every fight in the UFC. After a pair of less than inspiring performances against Ryan Hall and Alex White, he has picked up back-to-back wins over Chris Avila and Teruto Ishihara. His significant strikes landed per minute rate has improved in every fight. Against Hall it was a paltry 0.13, but then it improved against White (1.53) and Avila (3.53) before he set a career high against Ishihara (5.47).
