Fight Facts: The Octagon Oddities and Interesting Info from UFC Fight Night Fresno

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If you’re not familiar with the Fight Facts series, I wrote for Vice Sports with a similar series titled “Cage Captions” for a while. This new project is currently a collaboration with the team at Combat Docket! It's a per-card distillation and breakdown of all the Interesting Info and Octagon Oddities on every card, with a sprinkling of puns, winks, and portmanteaus to keep it fresh. The name may have changed, and some of the stylistic features from Cage Captions have been altered, but it’s the same great information presented in a slightly different format. (Fightland forever!)

While UFC Fight Night Fresno had a little less to offer overall, it had some interesting chokes, several Perez’, and the return of Josh Rosenthal, for starters. Let's dig into the details.


UFC Fight Night Fresno
12/10/17

Total number of UFC Fights: 4458
Total number of UFC Events: 422


Ref Life
Making his return to the UFC for the first card since UFC on Fuel 1 in February 2012, referee Josh Rosenthal drew two bout assignments at this card. Rosenthal finished serving a short sentence in federal prison for his involvement with an illicit multi-million dollar marijuana growing operation.

Former two-time UFC title challenger Frank Trigg also made his UFC refereeing debut, over seven years and ten months after his final UFC fight appearance at UFC 109, drawing three assignments of his own on the card.


Main Money
With two post-fight bonuses awarded to the main event, there have now been 29 post-fight bonuses given to main event fighters in 37 cards this year, with 73% of main events getting at least one post-fight bonus this year (27 of 37).


Doubled
Winning “Fight of the Night” AND “Performance of the Night” for his second round submission of Cub Swanson, Brian Ortega became just the SECOND fighter in 2017 to earn double bonuses for his win, and the FOURTH featherweight to ever win double bonuses.

Going into the second round before getting the stoppage, 41% of all double bonus-winning performances have ended in the second round, more than any other round.


Choking Necks and Cashing Checks
The last FIVE fighters to finish Cub Swanson inside the UFC or WEC have ALL earned a post-fight bonus for stopping him.


Usually the Other Way Around
Cub Swanson, winner of EIGHT “Fight of the Night” bonuses throughout his UFC and WEC career, was on the winning end of ALL seven of his previous “Fight of the Night”-winning bouts, before losing his first “Fight of the Night” bout to Brian Ortega.


How Snake-like I Can Be
By submitting Carls John de Tomas by anaconda choke, Alex Perez became the FIRST bantamweight in UFC history to pull off that submission. His anaconda choke is just the 15th in UFC history, and the SECOND of 2017.

This year is just the FOURTH year in UFC history to feature more than one anaconda choke.


What’s in a Name?
UFC Fight Night 123 was the FIRST card since 2014 to feature THREE fighters with the same surname, with Alejandro Perez, Alex Perez, and Markus Perez all competing on this card.

Most recently, the surname Silva appeared three times at UFC Fight Night 56, where Claudio, Leandro, and Wagner all competed on that card.


Catching Z’s
SIX different fighters with surnames ending in the letter “Z” fought on this fight card, to overwhelming success, racking up five wins with one sole defeat.


Never Say Never Again
Coming into this event, Aljamain Sterling had never been finished (16 fights), Luke Sanders and Antonio Braga Neto had never been knocked out (12 fights each), Markus Perez had never been defeated (9 fights), and Jason Knight had never lost consecutive fights (23 fights).


The X that Keeps on Giving
When recorded fighters have walked out to DMX’s “X Gon’ Give It to Ya” from the Cradle 2 the Grave soundtrack, they have NEVER lost (5-0, 1 NC). Brian Ortega now sits at 4-0 (1 NC) with the track, with the other recorded win from Georges St-Pierre at UFC 52.

Ortega’s one other song choice was Jump Around” by House of Pain at UFC 195, where he was also victorious.


Eminope
Although it is the first recorded Eminem track to accompany at least ten wins in UFC history, Till I Collapse maintains a losing record of 11-13-1, but Davi Ramos managed to have a successful debut by submitting Chris Gruetzemacher after using the song.
 
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crowbar

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Jan 27, 2015
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Trigg has been a ref in California for awhile now.This was just his first show under the UFC banner. ^^^^^
 
C

Ceiling Fan

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Yep, Trigg has been a ref before in other smaller promotions, this was just his first shot at the big league. I think I saw him at Tachi not too long ago.
 
C

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I`ve seen him a couple of times in San Jose under the Bellator banner.
Yeah, there too. I remember the first time I saw him, before they pointed him out, I loudly said to my buddy next to me "is that...Frank Trigg?" It sure was. I hope more ex-fighters jump into the ref game, I saw Ricardo Almeida reffing a while back as well.
 

Tuc Ouiner

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May 19, 2016
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anybody think a ufc in fairbanks, alaska with Paul the polar bear Varelans could generate any interest-- at least for being a unique destination in the winter time?
 

crowbar

First 200
Jan 27, 2015
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You sure that he is in Alaska? He might be in the Silicon Valley.
 
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anybody think a ufc in fairbanks, alaska with Paul the polar bear Varelans could generate any interest-- at least for being a unique destination in the winter time?
AFC

Not many fighters from Alaska. Varelans is 48 but the first as far as I know, and we've had Sam Hoger, Cody McKenzie was born there, and Terrence Mitchell was on TUF.

We also have good regional guys on the way up like Collin Reuter, Nic Herron-Webb, and Nick Novelli.
 

Tuc Ouiner

Posting Machine
May 19, 2016
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I think having a ufc in fairbanks with collin reuter getting a shot (kinda like rocky did) with paul varelans as a guest commentator would be a unique experience since rogan seems to have an alaskan fixation. maybe show some of the fighters doing some unique alaskan stuff.
 
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I think having a ufc in fairbanks with collin reuter getting a shot (kinda like rocky did) with paul varelans as a guest commentator would be a unique experience since rogan seems to have an alaskan fixation. maybe show some of the fighters doing some unique alaskan stuff.
Since you seem to like Varelans so much (or are him, and if that's the case, hey Paul, you can debunk this if it's not right), here's a look back at some of his post-UFC adventures.

Paul Varelans Brings UFC Fighting To ECW In 1996
 

Onetrickpony

Stay gold
Nov 21, 2016
14,042
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I wonder if Chris leben will get a shot at the UFC in the coming years. It's nice to see old faces back in there even when it's in a different capacity.