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.
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