Chan
Sung Jung has been here before.
“The Korean Zombie” will get another crack at the
Ultimate Fighting Championship featherweight crown—seven-plus
years after he failed in his first attempt against the great
Jose
Aldo—when he butts heads with incumbent titleholder
Alexander
Volkanovski in the
UFC 273 headliner on Saturday at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
in Jacksonville, Florida. Jung has rattled off three victories
across his past four outings. He last competed at UFC on ESPN 25,
where he laid claim to a five-round unanimous decision over
Dan Ige
in their June 19 main event. Volkanovski, meanwhile, enters the
cage on the strength of an incredible 20-fight winning streak. He
last fought on Sept. 25, when he was awarded a unanimous verdict
over
Brian
Ortega at UFC 266.
As Volkanovski and Jung make final adjustments ahead of their
forthcoming encounter at 145 pounds, a look at some of the numbers
that have accompanied them to this point:
33: Years of age for Volkanovski, who was born on Sept. 29, 1988 in
Warilla, Australia.
11: Volkanovski wins by knockout or technical knockout, accounting
for 48% of his career total (23). His list of UFC victims:
Chad Mendes,
Jeremy
Kennedy and Yasuke Kasuya. Volkanovski owns three other wins by
submission and nine more by decision.
917: Significant strikes landed by Volkanovski as a UFC
featherweight, placing him fifth on the promotion’s all-time list
at 145 pounds. Only
Max
Holloway (2,543),
Cub Swanson
(1,319),
Shane
Burgos (998) and
Darren
Elkins (995) have connected with more.
47: Rounds completed by Volkanovski as a professional mixed martial
artist. He has gone the distance on nine different occasions and
carries a perfect 9-0 record in those bouts.
1: Loss on the Volkanovski resume. He succumbed to a third-round
head kick and follow-up punches from
Corey
Nelson at Australian Fighting Championship 5 on May 10,
2013—more than 3,200 days ago.