Fight Facts: Bellator 206

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.

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TOTAL NUMBER OF BELLATOR FIGHTS: 2,145
TOTAL NUMBER OF BELLATOR EVENTS: 206

As Bellator MMA’s first event on the DAZN streaming service, Bellator 206 went off with a bang on Saturday at the SAP Center in San Jose, California. It featured one of the latest stoppages in company history, the incredibly rare occurrence of two fighters facing each other in three separate promotions and a thrilling slam knockout the likes of which we have not seen since the days of Strikeforce.

WORTH HIS WEIGHT IN GOLD: Middleweight champ Gegard Mousasi made the first defense of his belt by demolishing Rory MacDonald in a second-round TKO. All 38 of Mousasi’s career stoppage victories -- 26 by knockout and 12 by submission -- have occurred within two rounds, although many of his earlier career bouts lasted just two rounds.

TOUGHER THAN IT LOOKS: Attempting to be the first Bellator fighter to ever simultaneously hold two belts, current welterweight champ MacDonald was unable to achieve the feat when he was finished by the much larger Mousasi.

WITH AN EL-BOW HERE AND AN EL-BOW THERE: By smashing MacDonald with elbows, Mousasi became the second fighter in Bellator history to win a title bout with elbow strikes, as previous middleweight king Rafael Carvalho knocked out Alessio Sakara with one in 2017.

IF I HAVEN’T SEEN IT, IT’S NEW TO ME: After meeting twice in Pride Fighting Championships and a third time in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the fourth confrontation between Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva marked one of the only times in MMA history that two fighters have competed against each other in three major promotions.

POWER IS THE LAST THING TO GO: Scoring his first knockout since 2014, Jackson has now knocked out his opponent in exactly half of his wins, with 19 knockouts in 38 victories. With his knockout of Silva, he broke a streak of five consecutive decisions -- the longest in his 50-fight career.

BLUNTED AXE: The winningest fighter in Pride history with 22 victories, Silva has only competed 11 times since the organization folded. He has lost seven of those, including both of his bouts in Bellator.

FINISH THE JOB: Douglas Lima’s fifth-round rear-naked choke of Andrey Koreshkov at 3:04 took the spot for the third-latest stoppage in Bellator history, trailing only Pat Curran’s rear-naked choke of Daniel Straus (4:46, Round 5) in 2014 and Ilima-Lei Macfarlane’s (3:42, Round 5) triangle armbar of Emily Ducote in 2017.

NECK AND NECK: By earning his 11th victory in Bellator at welterweight, Lima tied Koreshkov for the most wins in divisional history. Lima and Koreshkov each competed in a single Bellator catchweight bout, with Lima facing Jacob Ortiz in 2012 and Koreshkov tackling Chidi Njokuani in 2017.

THE PRODIDY … THE PROGIDY … THE PRODIGY: With a first-round knockout of Leandro Higo, Aaron Pico has now KO’d his past four Bellator opponents in the first round, becoming the second fighter -- Rich Hale was the first -- in promotional history to score four straight first-round knockouts.

NO ONE HITS LIKE GASTON, MATCHES WITS LIKE GASTON: After scoring a second-round knockout over Ysidro Gutierrez, Gaston Bolanos has earned all of his wins by knockout, with this victory being his first beyond Round 1.

CHANNELING HER INNER ‘RAMPAGE’: By knocking out Amber Leibrock in the third round with a slam and follow-up punches, Arlene Blencowe earned the second slam-related victory in Bellator history. Mike Kimbel performed the first slam knockout in the promotion over Geoffrey Then at Bellator 194 on Feb. 16. It was the first slam knockout by a female fighter in a major promotion since Sarah Kaufman knocked out Roxanne Modafferi with a slam at Strikeforce Challengers 9 in 2010.

FREQUENT FEATHERS: Appearing for the seventh time in Bellator, Blencowe tied Macfarlane for the second-most fights under the Bellator banner, trailing only Ducote with eight.

EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY DESTROYER: Jeremiah Labiano knocked out Justin Smitley in the first round, and in doing so, he now has won four fights by knockout, four by submission and four by decision.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into Bellator 206, Koreshkov had never been submitted (23 fights), Higo had never been stopped with strikes (22 fights) and no female fighter had ever won with a slam in Bellator (Blencowe).

WEAK LINK: On the main card, both MacDonald and Gutierrez walked out to songs by Linkin Park, with MacDonald choosing “The Catalyst” and Gutierrez selecting “Bleed It Out.” Both suffered knockout losses.

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.