Fight Facts: PFL 9 2018 Playoffs 2

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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. * * * TOTAL NUMBER OF PFL FIGHTS: 464
TOTAL NUMBER OF PFL EVENTS: 47

The Professional Fighters League brought the lightweight and light heavyweight semifinals to Long Beach, California, with PFL 9 on Saturday at the Long Beach Arena. It featured a submission never before seen under the company’s lights, a semifinalist suffering the same fate he suffered in his last tournament appearance and a finalist scoring the most first-round finishes in World Series of Fighting-PFL history.

BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST: PFL 9 held the most fights on a single WSOF-PFL card with 14, including two alternate bouts, eight quarterfinals and four semifinals.

LONG NIGHT: Nine fights went the distance at PFL 9, tying PFL “Everett” in 2017 for the most fights to reach the scorecards at an event in company history.

ARE YOU WATCHING CLOSELY?: The night started off with seven consecutive judges’ decisions including all six preliminary bouts, marking that seven fight streak the longest in promotional history.

ENOUGH WITH THE DRAWING BOARD: Due to the quarterfinals lasting only two rounds, PFL 9 had a record three draws in eight quarterfinal bouts, the most at any event held by the organization.

ALL’S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD: PFL 3 featured two fights where fighters closing as betting favorites above -1000 lost, and since that event, six fighters have entered their bouts as monumental favorites above -1000 and have all won. Islam Mamedov closed as a -1370 favorite over Thiago Tavares and won a decision.

ON THE ONE HAND …: In the lightweight division, the number one seed Natan Schulte survived a draw by winning the first round to advance and then survived a very close split decision to Chris Wade to advance to the finals. Facing him in the finals will be the seventh seed Rashid Magomedov who also advanced on a draw and then stopped replacement Tavares to earn his spot in the finals.

… AND ON THE OTHER: Although not quite as shocking as an eight seed making it to the finals, at light heavyweight, six seed and part-time play-by-play commentator Sean O’Connell won a decision and then knocked out Smealinho Rama to secure his place in the finals. His opponent will be the number one seed Vinny Magalhaes, who has stormed through the tournament with four stoppages within two minutes, including two quick submissions at this event.

PAID BY THE SECOND: By submitting both of his opponents in the first round, Magalhaes now holds the most first round stoppages of any fighter to ever compete under the WSOF-PFL banner. He tied and then surpassed Marlon Moraes at this event.

HE’D FLY THROUGH THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE: Jumping guard to secure a miraculous flying triangle kimura submission, Magalhaes scored the only submission of its kind in company history.

THAT DARING YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE: Across the Zuffa properties of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, World Extreme Cagefighting, Strikeforce and Pride Fighting Championships, only six flying submissions have ever been performed in almost combined 6,600 combined bouts, with the most recent of its kind by Pablo Garza over Yves Jabouin at UFC 129 in 2011. In other major promotions Bellator MMA and Invicta Fighting Championships, three flying submissions have been performed since 2011.

THERE ARE SOME WHO CALL ME … ‘KIM’: Throughout WSOF-PFL history, only one kimura submission had ever been performed prior to PFL 9, when Rousimar Palhares tapped Jake Shields with one at WSOF 22 in 2015. Magalhaes pulled off this type of submission, not once but twice, at this event.

AND MANY MORE!: The lightweight semifinal bout between Magomedov and Tavares marked the 100th bout to take place in the PFL 2018 tournament.

NOT AGAIN: Mamedov competed in the lightweight tournament held at WSOF 25 in 2015, and after winning a decision he had to pull out of the tournament due to injury. History repeated itself at PFL 8, when Mamedov won a decision to advance in this tournament but was again forced to withdraw from competing in the semifinals.

WE CAN’T RUN OUT OF SECOND CHANCES: Initially losing a decision to Mamedov in the quarterfinals, Tavares made it into the semifinals when Mamedov was medically unable to continue. Losing that second fight by knockout, Tavares became the second fighter in WSOF-PFL history to lose twice in a single night, joining Jorge Patino who dropped two at WSOF 25.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into PFL 9, no event had ever featured two straight majority decisions, Ronny Markes had never lost a decision (24 fights) and Ataev had never been submitted (21 fights).

Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the “Eminem Curse” in 2012, and writing 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.