Fight Facts: PFL 4 2019 Regular Season
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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.
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TOTAL NUMBER OF PFL FIGHTS: 523
TOTAL NUMBER OF PFL EVENTS: 53
The
Professional Fighters League wrapped up the opening round of
the welterweight and women's lightweight tournaments in Atlantic
City, New Jersey. The event featured a huge number of first-round
finishes, one of the biggest betting favorites in company history
and the fastest finish in PFL women's divisional history.
FIVE FOR FIGHTING: Five fights ended in the first round at PFL 4 2019, the most on a card since the 2018 playoffs. This event tied six other events for the third-most first-round finishes at a single event in company history. Only WSOF 1 and PFL 7 2018 had more, with 6 each.
OCEAN CASINO BALLROOM BLITZ: The first five bouts on the card all ended by stoppage -- an event that has not occurred since WSOF 32 in 2016.
I HEARD SHE EVEN HAS A GOLD MEDAL: Kayla Harrison closed as a monumental -4000 favorite against +1600 underdog Morgan Frier. Harrison dominated her opponent and did not even allow Frier to land a single strike before finishing her.
GIVING TYSON-DOUGLAS A RUN FOR ITS MONEY: A -4000 favorite, Harrison is the second-largest recorded betting favorite in promotional history, trailing only Andre Harrison as a -4500 favorite against Jumabieke Tuerxun at PFL 2018 1. Harrison also won, by dominant decision.
LOCK HER UP? WAIT? Harrison pulled off the first keylock submission in promotional history when she tapped Frier. Previously, Jordan Rinaldi performed an inverted triangle version of the keylock against Soslan Abanokov at WSOF 17 in 2015, but no fighter had used a standard keylock until this event.
ONE HAPPY HARRISON: The win for Harrison extended her record among all female WSOF-PFL fighters with the most victories (five), appearances (five) and finishes (four).
NOT QUITE GONNA CUT IT: Taking the fight on short notice to replace Gamzat Khiramagomedov, Joao Zeferino won a decision but did not score enough points to qualify for the playoffs. He would have had to finish Bojan Velickovic in order to advance in the tournament, due to tiebreaker provisions working against him.
BUMMER FOR BOJAN: Losing to Zeferino, Velickovic tied nine other fighters for the second-most losses in company history with 4. Only Mike Kyle (6) has lost more times in the WSOF-PFL cage.
TALE OF TWO FIGHTERS: Ray Cooper III suffered a knockout to John Howard, and all but one of his 24 career bouts have ended before the final bell. In contrast, Howard has reached the scorecards 21 times.
SWITCHING TO GLAICO COULD SAVE YOU 15 PERCENT OR MORE: By stopping Sadibou Sy with 31 seconds left in the final round, Glaico Franca picked up the fourth-latest stoppage in a non-title fight in organizational history. It is also the second-latest stoppage at welterweight, with only Steve Carl's fourth-round triangle choke of Joshua Burkman at WSOF 6 in 2013 coming later.
LARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL: Forcing Bobbi Jo Dalziel to tap due to an armbar, all 12 of Larissa Pacheco's career victories have come by stoppage.
FABIOSO FINISH: Genah Fabian scored the fastest finish of any female fighter in company history when she finished Moriel Charneski in 102 seconds with strikes.
WHEN KEEPING IT MORIEL GOES WRONG: In her third outing inside the PFL cage, Charneski lost for the third time. She now holds the most losses of any female WSOF/PFL fighter.
GET OFF MY PLANE: Two additional bouts were scheduled for this card and scuttled when Zane Kamaka and Roberta Samad missed weight for their respective welterweight and women's lightweight matchups. As this was Kamaka's second weight miss as a PFL fighter, he was ejected from the tournament altogether.
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into PFL 4 2019, no event had ever featured three stoppages from female fighters, Dalziel had never been defeated (five fights) and Cooper III had never been knocked out (23 fights).
Contributing editor Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the "Eminem Curse" in 2012, and penning 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.
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