Fight Facts: LFA 71

Fight Facts is a breakdown of all of the interesting information and cage curiosities on every card, with some puns, references and portmanteaus to keep things fun. These deep stat dives delve into the numbers, providing historical context and telling the stories behind those numbers.

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TOTAL NUMBER OF LFA FIGHTS: 619
TOTAL NUMBER OF LFA EVENTS: 72

The Legacy Fighting Alliance on Friday added one more state to the list by heading to the Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta. LFA 71 featured a slew of changes the day before the show, the most decisions in company history and the first time a Legacy Fighting Alliance bantamweight has ever put an opponent to sleep with a choke.

WELCOME TO HOTLANTA: The promotion held its first event in the state of Georgia with LFA 71, planting its flag in the 19th state across its over two and a half-year history.

TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH: This event broke the record for the most decisions at a single card with eight, besting the previous record set by LFA 9, LFA 53 and LFA 61, all with seven.

JUDGES GETTING IN THEIR REPS: Since eight of the 10 bouts on the card ended by decision, this event sits with the third-lowest finish rate (20 percent) of any LFA card in company history. Only LFA 9 (11.1 percent) and LFA 61 (12.5 percent) had lower rates.

SPLIT ENDS: LFA 71 became only the second LFA event to conclude with two split decisions, joining LFA 55, where both title fights resulted in split verdicts.

CAN’T YOU AGREE ON ANYTHING?: With three bouts in total ending with split judges’ scorecards, this event tied LFA 20 for the most such results at a single event in promotional history.

WELTERWEARY: After Jason Jackson went the distance with Hemerson de Souza, each of the last three LFA welterweight title fights has ended in the hands of the judges, dating back to 2017. Of all divisions that have held more than one championship matchup, welterweight has the lowest finish rate in those five-round affairs (25 percent).

YOU WANT TO HUG IT OUT?: Ary Farias put Devante Sewell to sleep with a rear-naked choke in the first round of their bantamweight battle. His technical submission was the first to occur inside the 135-pound weight class in promotional history.

SOUR AS VINAGRE: Tyler Ray handed Pedro Paulino Vinagre the first loss of his professional career by beating him on the scorecards. Paulino took the fight on about a day’s notice after the card was restructured and Ray’s previous opponent, Hugh Pulley, was shifted to the co-main event.

BREEZY FOR BROWN: Christopher Brown dispatched Yemi Oduwole with a head kick and became the first LFA fighter scheduled at a non-standard weight class -- 160-pound catchweight -- to stop an opponent in this fashion. It was also Brown’s first stoppage due to strikes in his career.

GROSSLY OVERREPRESENTED: Featherweights (17 misses) and lightweights (16 misses) account for exactly half of all weight misses in promotional history. Those two divisions only account for about 30 percent of all LFA fights.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into LFA 71, de Souza (11 fights), Farias (nine fights) and Vinagre (seven fights) had never competed in the United States, Oduwole had never been finished (six fights) and Sewell had never been submitted (10 fights).

Sherdog contributing editor Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the “Eminem Curse” in 2012 and working for Vice Sports and Combat Docket along the way, he put together many fight result and entrance music databases to better study the sport. You can find him on twitter at @jaypettry.