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. The Ultimate Fighting Championship set sail for Paris, where it once more planted its flag and the locals ended up with fistfuls of treasure. As all but one French fighter prevailed against a foreigner in front of a raucous Parisian crowd, it was practically a party from start to finish. UFC Fight Night 226 featured a heavyweight sniper king, the return of a man that took many years away to train and a debuting 145er that plans on becoming king of the pirates.
French Fighters’ Performance
When not including the match pitting two countrymen against one another, French fighters performed extremely well at night’s end. The local combatants won six of their seven outings against foreign adversaries, with the lone losing fighter Zarah Fairn. Late into the second round, Benoit St. Denis drummed out Thiago Moises with strikes. “God of War” retained his 100% finish rate with the stoppage, having rattled off four straight finishes in the Octagon since 2022.
Notable Achievements and Statistics
In eight minutes and 44 seconds, Ciryl Gane connected on Sergey Spivak with 109 significant strikes while absorbing back about 10% of that amount. With a current total of 856, just six men in the history of the UFC’s heavyweight division have landed more. Andrei Arlovski’s 1,453 stand far above the pack. As a pro, France’s Gane has now authored 75% of his wins inside the distance. He now sports half of his victories via knockout, but has only earned one in the first round.
After three rounds of combat, Manon Fiorot emerged the victor over Rose Namajunas. This marks her sixth win as a UFC flyweight, tying her with four other women, including Erin Blanchfield for the sixth-most in divisional history. Despite receiving one of the loudest pops of the night, UFC Fight Night 226 marked the first time that the Nice-born Fiorot had ever competed in MMA in front of a home-country crowd.
To boost his growing record to 11-0, Farid Basharat strangled Kleydson Rodrigues in the first round with an arm-triangle choke. Even with a majority of his wins coming by stoppage, “Ferocious Farid” has notched just three finishes in the opening frame. In the curtain-jerker, Fairn ended up as the lone competitor from L’Hexagone to come up short. The Frenchwoman lost a clear-cut decision to Jacqueline Cavalcanti, and as a result suffered her fourth loss with the promotion. Her four defeats at 140 pounds or higher are the most of any female fighter in UFC history.