One of the young lions of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight division now stands
before
Alexander
Volkov.
The former
Bellator
MMA and
M-1 Global
titleholder will confront
Tom
Aspinall in the
UFC Fight Night 204 main event on Saturday at the O2 Arena in
London. Volkov enters the cage having won 10 of his past 13 bouts.
The 6-foot-7 Russian last competed at UFC 267, where he laid claim
to a three-round unanimous decision over
Marcin
Tybura on Oct. 30. Aspinall, meanwhile, finds himself on a
seven-fight winning streak. He last appeared on Sept. 5, when he
put away
Sergey
Spivak with an elbow strike and follow-up punches in the first
round of their UFC Fight Night 191 encounter.
As Volkov and Aspinall approach their high-stakes showdown, a look
at some of the numbers that have accompanied them to this
point:
33: Years of age for Volkov, who was born on Oct. 24, 1988 in
Moscow.
22: Volkov victories by knockout or technical knockout, accounting
for 65% of his career total (35). His list of UFC victims:
Alistair
Overeem,
Walt Harris,
Fabricio
Werdum and
Stefan
Struve. Volkov owns three other victories by submission and
nine more by decision.
5.21: Strikes landed by Volkov per minute of UFC competition,
placing him sixth on the promotion’s all-time list for
heavyweights. He trails only
Chris
Daukaus (7.71),
Cain
Velasquez (6.48),
Chase
Sherman (6.19),
Todd Duffee
(5.93) and
Daniel
Cormier (5.39).
13: Consecutive calendar years in which Volkov has fought at least
once. He went 5-1 in 2009, 4-2 in 2010, 5-0 in 2011, 5-0 in 2012,
0-1 in 2013, 4-0 in 2014, 1-2 in 2015, 3-0 in 2016, 2-0 in 2017,
1-1 in 2018, 1-0 in 2019, 1-1 in 2020 and 2-1 in 2021.
.761: Cumulative winning percentage between the nine men—
Ciryl Gane,
Curtis
Blaydes,
Derrick
Lewis,
Cheick
Kongo,
Tony
Johnson ,
Vitaly
Minakov,
Pat Bennett,
Maxim
Grishin and
Akhmed
Sultanov—who have defeated Volkov. They sport a combined record
of 169-48-5.
28: Years of age for Aspinall, who was born in Salford, England, on
April 11, 1993.
9: Aspinall wins by knockout or technical knockout, accounting for
82% of his career total (11). His list of UFC victims: Spivak,
Alan
Baudot and
Jake
Collier. Aspinall holds two other wins by submission.
150,000: Dollars in post-fight bonuses banked by Aspinall across
his four UFC appearances. He has been awarded “Performance of the
Night” honors on three different occasions.
5: Sub-minute stoppage victories on the Aspinall resume. His
nine-second technical knockout of
Satisch
Jhamai under the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts
banner on March 28, 2015 remains the fastest finish of his 13-fight
career.
53: Significant strikes by which Aspinall has outlanded his four
UFC opponents. He has connected on 79 such strikes while absorbing
only 26 in return against Spivak, Collier, Baudot and
Andrei
Arlovski.