UFC 188 Data Dump: Statistics from Velasquez vs. Werdum Fight Card Results
We have a new champion.
Not long after Fabricio Werdum got his arms around Cain Velasquez's throat, he had his hands around the UFC heavyweight belt. The underdog used a watertight game plan to stun then subdue the champ, who appeared to struggle with the thin air of the Mexico highlands.
But UFC 188, which happened Saturday in Mexico City, featured a lot of interesting moments. A lot of the fights were boring, and the card was ultimately just, well, it was all kind of odd.
But that's a gut reaction. What do the cold, hard facts tell us about what happened Saturday?
We're trying something a little different here. It's called Data Dump. We'll try to find some interesting stats that explain or contextualize what we just saw. Hope you like it. Let's get it on.
Velasquez vs. Werdum: Zero Ground Strikes
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Not in any round. Not from either fighter. But none, at all. Zero, at least according to UFC stat keeper FightMetric.
Werdum got plenty of credit for seizing a stand-up advantage and essentially forcing Velasquez to go for takedowns. That, in turn, created the favorable conditions for Werdum's fight-ending guillotine choke. Ironically, though, the factor that might have driven Velasquez into Werdum's jiu-jitsu trap was jiu-jitsu.
Velasquez ended up scoring four takedowns on five attempts in two-and-a-half rounds of action. Each time, he let Werdum back to his feet, preferring not to engage in a ground sequence with the second-degree jiu-jitsu black belt.
That robbed Velasquez of arguably his most potent offensive weapon.
In his successful title defense against Junior dos Santos, Velasquez scored the finish on the ground, and he landed 18 total ground strikes in that contest.
Velasquez landed 12 ground strikes in his rematch with Antonio Silva. In the original trucking, the number was 50, plus the TKO finish from mount.
In his second match with Dos Santos, he landed 49 strikes on the ground.
You get the idea. Without that weapon in his arsenal, Velasquez was a defanged cobra. Credit Werdum for winning the stand-up exchanges; credit his jiu-jitsu for serving as an even larger deterrent.
Fabricio Werdum 18th Champ
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Shortly after UFC 188, MMA stathead Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie tweeted that Werdum is the 18th UFC heavyweight champion, and that the heavyweight belt "gets passed around more than any other by far."
Not person, but reign. And he was absolutely right. But there's a little more to the story. This marks the 18th title reign, but Werdum is only the 14th person to hold the lineal belt, as Velasquez, Randy Couture and Tim Sylvia all enjoyed multiple stints with the strap.
Either way, it is the most well-traveled of the belts. But how about a closer look?
Feast your eyes on what lies below. This, apparently, is called a "table." It's the first time I'm using one. See what technology can do for you? Watch out, Ice Cream Cone Valley, or whatever. I'm coming for you.
| Heavyweight championship | 18 (14 fighters) |
| Light heavyweight championship | 13 (12 fighters) |
| Middleweight championship | 6 |
| Welterweight championship | 10 (8 fighters) |
| Lightweight championship | 7 |
| Featherweight championship | 1 |
| Bantamweight championship | 3 |
| Flyweight championship | 1 |
| Women's bantamweight championship | 1 |
| Women's strawweight championship | 2 |
Strikeforce Champions: Middling Along in the UFC
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It was a disappointing performance from Gilbert Melendez. After breaking Eddie Alvarez's nose early and indirectly causing Alvarez's left eye to swell completely shut, he couldn't close the deal, gassing down the stretch and dropping a close split decision.
Melendez was the lightweight champion of Strikeforce when the promotion dissolved in 2013. Since moving to the UFC, he's 1-3.
How about the other fighters who were the last to wear gold for Strikeforce in their respective divisions?
At heavyweight, the last lineal champion was Alistair Overeem. (Daniel Cormier won the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix but did not become the promotional champion.) Overeem is 4-3 in the UFC.
The light heavyweight champ was Dan Henderson. In his latest UFC stint, he's 3-5.
Middleweight champ Luke Rockhold is 4-1.
Welterweight champ Tarec Saffiedine is 1-1.
So collectively, the men's side is a fairly mediocre 13-13.
But Strikeforce has a secret weapon up its sleeve: A one Ms. Ronda Rousey.
The company's last women's bantamweight champ is only 5-0 since making the jump. That brings every champion to a 18-13 total. Not too shabby. Still, though, as a group the men have left a little something to be desired, and Melendez's UFC 188 loss was just the latest case in point.
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Patrick Williams: 23 Seconds to History
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You can tell it was a wild night when a dude scores a guillotine chokeout in 54 seconds but still doesn't get a performance bonus.
That's what happened to Efrain Escudero, though. And it happened to Werdum, too, by the way. So many guillotines, so little time.
But the best man got the spoils in this case. That's Patrick Williams, who set a UFC bantamweight record for the fastest submission when he guillotined Alejandro Perez to the land of wind and ghosts in a hippie-commune-minimal 23 seconds.
“Finishing him was amazing,” Williams told MMA Junkie. “It was even better hearing from Dana White himself that that’s the fastest (submission) win in bantamweight history.”
Olympians Getting Stuffed
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It was a decision win for Henry Cejudo, but in those three rounds with Chico Camus, the Olympic wrestling gold medalist only converted one of his 15 takedown attempts, according to FightMetric.
That's not very good, especially for an Olympian. So we wondered: How did this fare among other Olympians who moved to the UFC? Here's a list. It turns out that, when the going gets statistically significant, Cejudo himself set a record for poorness.
Here is another one of those "tables," and this one shows the worst takedown performance for every UFC fighter who: (1) made the Olympic team and (2) finished a bout that consisted of three five-minute rounds. The first number is takedowns converted and the second number is takedowns attempted.
Statistically significant figures only, which I will go ahead and define as five takedown attempts. So 0-1, for example, doesn't qualify, as that makes it an apples-to-oranges situation. If the fighter doesn't try five takedowns in a 15-minute fight, it's fair to say takedowns were not, for whatever reason, the overriding goal.
If you post a comment demanding why Ronda Rousey isn't here, you're not going to look good. I and the readers who read this will know that.
With that in mind, here we go:
| Henry Cejudo | 1-15 |
| Randy Couture | 1-10 |
| Mike Van Arsdale | 1-9 |
| Dan Henderson | 1-4 |
| Matt Lindland | 4-13 |
| Yoel Romero | 7-12 |
| Mark Coleman | 2-2 |
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