Fight Facts: UFC 245

The ordering process for Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-views has changed: UFC 245 is only available on ESPN+ in the U.S.

Fight Facts is a breakdown of all the interesting information and Octagon oddities 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 UFC FIGHTS: 5,456
TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC EVENTS: 504

The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday brought a title tripleheader to Las Vegas with a card that practically had everything but submissions. UFC 245 featured one of the latest finishes in company history, a dominant female champion adding to her legacy and a longtime veteran who is now one knockout shy of the all-time record.

FIVE BY THREE: With three belts on the line atop the card, UFC 245 is the fifth event where this has taken place in promotional history and the first since UFC 217 in 2017.

REFRAIN OF THE ODE TO THE HEAD KICK: Like the pay-per-view event before it, this card featured multiple head kick knockouts. Petr Yan and Geoff Neal stopped opponents Urijah Faber and Mike Perry with these strikes. UFC 245 is now the seventh card where this took place.

A NIGERIAN NIGHTMARE: With 50 seconds remaining in the fifth round, Kamaru Usman scored a stoppage with a flurry of punches on Colby Covington. The finish for “The Nigerian Nightmare” is the latest in UFC welterweight history. Only four such finishes have come later across all divisions.

USMONSTER: Usman improved his winning streak inside the Octagon to 11 fights, tying Royce Gracie for the eighth-longest stretch of its kind in company history. The only fighters who currently hold longer such streaks are Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson, who will come to blows in April.

NOTHING HAD TO GIVE: Despite combining for 100 takedowns landed between them, neither Usman nor Covington attempted a single takedown in an encounter that lasted over 24 minutes.

THE GREAT ERA BEGINS: In taking a decision over Max Holloway, Alexander Volkanovski became the new featherweight champion and the first 145-pound fighter to defeat Holloway dating back to 2013. In that span, Holloway won 13 bouts in the featherweight division, as well as one catchweight bout after Clay Collard came in three pounds heavy for their 2014 clash.

GOING DOWN IN A HAIL OF PUNCHES: After landing a total of 134 significant strikes on Volkanovski, Holloway extended his record for the most successful significant strikes in UFC history with 2,071. He is now 500 strikes above the next closest fighter—Michael Bisping—and the first to crack the 2,000 mark.

A STRIKER’S STRIKER: Although he lost a decision, Holloway once again scored more than 100 significant strikes, making this the sixth consecutive bout that he has done so.

AMANDA NUKE: Amanda Nunes captured a decision over Germaine de Randamie and extended her winning streak to 10 fights. She is the first female fighter in UFC history to ever win 10 straight fights.

A DOMINATING DOZEN: The victory for Nunes was her 12th under the UFC banner, breaking a tie with former strawweight queen Jessica Andrade for the most of any female fighter.

SUPER CHAMPION TERRITORY: Nunes defended her bantamweight strap for the fifth time, becoming the 10th fighter to ever register five consecutive title defenses. She is the third female fighter to do so, joining Ronda Rousey and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

I PREFER NOCAUTE: The 25-minute decision win over de Randamie was only Nunes’ third career victory on the scorecards. The only other fighter to make it the distance and lose to the Brazilian was Valentina Shevchenko, who did so twice. Early in Nunes’ career, Sarah D'Alelio captured a decision over Nunes at Invicta Fighting Championships 4.

SLOW RIDE: At 43 seconds into Round 3, Yan dispatched Faber with a head kick. The stoppage was the third-latest involving a head kick in the bantamweight division, with the two coming later authored by T.J. Dillashaw, first against Renan Barao and later against Joe Soto.

JUST A KID FROM CALIFORNIA: The now 40-year-old Urijah Faber made his MMA debut in November 2003, tapping Jay Valencia with his patented guillotine choke at a Gladiator Challenge event. At that time, fellow UFC 245 participant Chase Hooper was 4.

GOODNIGHT IRENE: Irene Aldana knocked out Ketlen Vieira with a left hook in the first round and in doing so earned the sixth clean knockout in UFC women’s bantamweight history. Across all knockouts in the UFC’s women’s divisions, Aldana’s was the fifth to take place in the opening round.

ME, MYSELF AND IRENE: Aldana earned a “Performance of the Night” bonus for her work against Vieira. Throughout all of the knockout finishes among female UFC fighters, 83.3 percent of the winners have taken home post-fight bonus money.

RARIFIED SMASHING AIR: Matt Brown demolished Ben Saunders to earn the 11th knockout of his UFC career. With his finish, he ties Anthony Johnson and Thiago Santos for the third-most knockouts in company history. Only Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort hold more, with 12 each.

IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE: With the stoppage coming from elbows and punches, “The Immortal” clocked his third finish due to elbow strikes inside the Octagon. He ties five other fighters, including Nunes, for the most in organizational history.

HEY KID, CATCH: Hooper made his successful UFC debut at 20 years of age with a first-round drubbing of Daniel Teymur. Hooper remains unbeaten as a professional, with “The Teenage Dream” now sporting a record of 9-0-1, which includes seven finishes within two rounds.

IT’S TIME FOR STORY TIME: In advancing his undefeated record to 7-0 with a quick knockout of Oskar Piechota, Punahele Soriano made an emphatic debut. Six of the seven wins for “Story Time” have come by first-round stoppage.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into UFC 245, Covington (16 fights), Perry (18 fights), Teymur (10 fights) and Piechota (14 fights) had never been knocked out, Vieira had never been defeated (10 fights) and Viviane Araujo had never lost on the scorecards (nine fights).

BETTER THAN THE SHOW’S ENDING: All eight of Volkanovski’s trips to the Octagon have featured his making his walk with a violin and rock cover of the Game of Thrones theme performed by Jason Yang and Roger Lima. Volkanovski has yet to taste defeat as a UFC fighter.

BACK OFF, DRAKE: Jessica Eye made her walk to the cage accompanied by “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish and captured a decision over Araujo. It was the first time in UFC history a fighter utilized a track from the 17-year-old Eilish.