UFC 168 milestones and footnotes

Saturday night gave us UFC 168, featuring one of the most anticipated main events in the history of the promotion with Chris Weidman rematching Anderson Silva for the middleweight title. But, before the lights went low for 185-pound gold, plenty of fighters’ fates changed for better and for worse. Let’s take a look at the numbers of UFC 168.

* Robert Peralta found himself down two rounds to zero in his featherweight bout with Estevan Payan when Peralta decided to go for broke and chase a necessary third-round finish. Whatever Peralta’s cornermen told him certainly worked because he knocked Payan out at just 12 seconds into the final frame. It’s the quickest knockout ever in the third round of a UFC bout, besting finishes made at 13 seconds into the third round by Lucas Martins at UFC on FX 8 and John Lewis at UFC 22.

* William “Patolino” Macario put on a striking clinic in his dominant decision victory over Bobby Voelker, tallying 133 significant strikes. Patolino’s volume was, perhaps, surpassed by his accuracy. He connected on 133 of 210 significant attempts for a striking accuracy rate of 63.3 percent. Among single-fight performances featuring 200 or more attempts, it’s the third-most accurate striking performance in UFC history. The two more accurate performances: Nate Diaz (65.8 percent) over Donald Cerrone at UFC 141 and Tim Sylvia (64.5 percent) over Wesley “Cabbage” Correira at UFC 39.

* Though we have grown to appreciate Dennis Siver’s skills as a dangerous kickboxer, he’s recently shown an overwhelming ground-n-pound attack. Siver landed 135 ground strikes against Manny Gamburyan, comprising the bulk of his 191 total strike output. Siver’s 191 strikes against “The Anvil” are the fifth-most ever landed in a single UFC/WEC featherweight fight. Siver is now the author of the highest and fifth-highest total strike outputs in UFC/WEC 145-pound competition (222 total strikes vs. Nam Phan at UFC on Fox 5).



* Michael Johnson is quickly becoming a power-punching force in the lightweight division. Johnson knocked his opponent Gleison Tibau down in the second round before following up with punches and earning the finish. Tibau had not been knocked out since his UFC debut against Nick Diaz at UFC 65, a span of 20 UFC bouts. It was Johnson’s eighth knockdown of a UFC opponent, tying Yves Edwards for second-most knockdowns in lightweight history (Guillard, 13). In the loss, Tibau passed Frankie Edgar for most fight time in UFC lightweight history. Tibau did so at the 1:31 mark of round one and now sits at 3:56:11 of lightweight fight time.



* Uriah Hall finally got into the UFC win column with a dominating striking performance against veteran Chris Leben. The fight was called off between rounds one and two as Leben wished not to continue. It became the seventh UFC fight to end at 5:00 of round one, joining McGee/Rizzo, Smith/Ruas, Pokrajac/Brown, Bisping/McCarthy, Lambert/Hinkle, and Sokoudjou/Nakamura. Leben notched his tenth UFC loss, tying David “Tank” Abbott and Chris Lytle for second-most UFC losses behind Tito Ortiz (11).



* Jim Miller earned the fifth submission of his UFC career, tapping Fabricio Camoes with an armbar from bottom position in first round. It was Miller’s 30th attempt at a submission in the UFC, just one behind Chris Lytle’s all-time record of 31 attempts. The lightweight and welterweight divisions are home to the most active submission artists. Nine of the top ten submission attempters have fought the vast majority of their UFC careers at 155 and 170 pounds with only Frank Mir and his 20 attempts ranking tenth as being the lone stand-out.

* Travis Browne continues to defy odds and exceed expectations. He became the first man to finish Josh Barnett since Barnett submitted to strikes from Mirko Cro Cop at PRIDE Final Conflict Absolute in 2006. Browne did so by landing vicious elbows while defending a takedown attempt against the fence. It was eerily similar to Browne’s finish of Gabriel Gonzaga at the TUF 17 Finale: elbows to the head while leaning against the cage, and the two stoppages were just 11 seconds apart. With the Barnett knockout, Browne became the first fighter in UFC history to earn two knockouts stemming from standing elbow strikes. Only nine fighters have earned knockouts in the UFC stemming from standing elbows. Browne earned Knockout of the Night honors, his fifth post-fight bonus in his UFC career, tying Stefan Struve and Roy Nelson for most bonuses in heavyweight history. And of strange note: the finish is officially listed as 1:00 of round one, making it the first knockout in UFC history at the 1-minute mark.



* For the first time in her career, Ronda Rousey fought beyond the first five minutes of an MMA match, but things ended all the same. Rousey earned the sixth armbar submission of her UFC/Strikeforce career. Combining the histories of those two promotions with PRIDE and WEC, only Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s seven armbars rank ahead of Rousey. Her six armbars are tied with Kazushi Sakuraba and Paulo Filho in the combined histories of the four promotions. Rousey’s two armbars in the UFC are the only two submissions in her division.

* And, though the rematch between Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva ended in tragic fashion, Weidman once again showed moments of dominance over the once indomitable Silva. In their previous match, Weidman became the first fighter in Silva’s career to score a knockdown of “The Spider." And Saturday night, Weidman did it again. Weidman is currently on a seven-fight UFC win streak, the second-longest in the promotion (Jones, 10).