This article is part of our Fight Stat Wrap series.
The UFC returned to Fox on Saturday night with a card from Long Island, N.Y. In the main event, former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman got back on track with a third-round submission victory over TUF winner Kelvin Gastelum. The following is a by-the-numbers recap that highlights the stats and milestones that stood out on the main card, with stats courtesy of FightMetric.com.
Chris Weidman dominates on the ground against Kelvin Gastelum
After dropping three straight fights, Weidman went back to his wrestling roots against Gastelum. He landed seven of his 13 takedown attempts and clearly made a concerted effort to at least mix in his takedowns. With that being said, the former middleweight champion still landed 24 of his 36 significant strikes at distance, that is standing and not in the clinch, before scoring the win via submission. This was an impressive performance that showed all aspects of Weidman's game.
Despite only scoring a third-round finish, Weidman still up an impressive 113 DraftKings points. He padded his score with points for seven takedowns and five passes on the ground.
Darren Elkins does enough to edge Dennis Bermudez
This was a close fight. Elkins ended up with the slight edge on significant strikes. He outlanded Bermudez by only one significant strike, 70 to 69. His best round was the second, in which Elkins outlanded Bermudez 27 to 19. Despite whatever you think about the decision, it is impressive that "The Damage" found a way to win when he landed only three of his 10 takedown attempts.
Elkins finished with 86 DraftKings points. In addition to the 30-point decision victory bonus, he also scored points for landing 70 significant strikes, two passes and three takedowns.
Patrick Cummins survives a tough first round against Gian Villante
There seems to be a pattern to Cummins' fights. In his victories, he survives an early onslaught before coming back to win. That happened again on Saturday night. In the first round, he absorbed 23 significant strikes from Villante, while landing only 17. In the next two rounds, Cummins turned it around an outlanded Villante 69 to 49. The problem is that this might not be a sustainable strategy. In his 10-fight UFC career, Cummins has absorbed 305 significant strikes and been knocked out four times. Taking that amount of damage will likely catch up to him.
Cummins scored 78 DraftKings points. The score was composed of 43 points for 86 significant strikes, five points for one takedown and the 30-point decision victory bonus. He normally scores more points on takedowns, but Villante forced him to go one for 11 on his takedown attempts.
Jimmie Rivera rides strong first round to decision over Thomas Almeida
After coming off the biggest win of his career over Urijah Faber, Rivera returned and padded his resume once again. He came into this fight against Almeida, and it showed early in the fight. In the first round, he scored two knockdowns, which pretty much set the tone for the fight. Almeida fought back and ended up outlanding Rivera 72 to 70, but it was too little too late.
Rivera earned 95 points for DraftKings players. 20 of those points came directly from the pair of knockdowns landed in the first round.
