Fight Facts: UFC Fight Night 244 ‘Royval vs. Taira’

Fight Facts is a breakdown of all of 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.

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TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC FIGHTS: 7,882
TOTAL NUMBER OF UFC EVENTS: 708

The Ultimate Fighting Championship attempted to do some more roster cleaning with a fight card where about half the fighters came in off losses. With multiple losing streaks continued at night’s end, the promotional will continue to make more space for new athletes while adding new names at a frightening clip. UFC Fight Night 244, also known as UFC Vegas 98, featured a pair of slick grapplers putting on a show, a middleweight that huffed and puffed his way to the top of the leaderboard and an angry 155er who loves his wife dearly.

Checks Are Cool but He Wants Gold: Brandon Royval sprang the upset to stave off unbeaten Japanese contender via split decision. The two pocketed “Fight of the Night” checks for their effort, giving Royval his fifth at 125 pounds. Three fighters in divisional history have earned more bonuses: Kai Kara-France (six), Brandon Moreno (seven) and Demetrious Johnson (nine).

Trap Fight Achieved: Royval settled for his fourth career win on the scorecards to get past Taira. Three of Royval’s decisions have taken place within his last five victories.

Royval Flushing: Over the course of five competitive rounds, Royval outstruck his foe 124 to 42. That significant strike gap is among the five greatest in the history of the weight class, with Demetrious Johnson’s 97-strike differential drubbing of Ali Bagautinov the widest.

Counting Turtle: Jun Yong Park outhustled Brad Tavares en route to a split decision victory. The win on the scorecards was the South Korean’s seventh, who also celebrates six via submission and five knockouts. Having reached the fourth split decision of his career, “The Iron Turtle” has suffered three losses on the scorecards, two by sub and just one knockout.

Do It to It, Brad: Entering into his 25th UFC bout as a middleweight, Tavares took sole possession of the lead in that weight class. He breaks a tie with Michael Bisping, while also passing Bisping in total fight time for the top spot.

No Bang Bang: Since relocating to 170 pounds, Chidi Njokuani has need the full time allotment to secure a victory. With decisions over Rhys McKee and Jared Gooden, it is the first time that Njokuani has heard the final bell in consecutive matches since his Bellator MMA debut in 2015.

Bouncing Quarters: Crushing Rafa Garcia with ruthless ground-and-pound, Grant Dawson put himself on another win streak. “KGD” has now finished his foe in 82% of his triumphs.

Dec-Rod: Daniel Rodriguez started his career with stoppages in his first eight wins. Since then, “D-Rod” has seen all six of his decisions as a pro take place in the major leagues of Dana White's Contender Series or the UFC following his close win over Alex Morono.

Fuzzy Regional Record: Running through C.J. Vergara, Ramazonbek Temirov dropped him three times in less than three minutes of combat. The Uzbekistan native becomes the fifth flyweight to amass three knockdowns in a UFC fight, joining John Lineker (twice), Matheus Nicolau, Bruno Silva and Deiveson Figueiredo.

Pat from Philly: Pat Sabatini needed to land only three significant strikes before hitting the rear-naked choke on Jonathan Pearce. He is now one of a relatively small group of competitors in the UFC who have earned multiple wins after connecting five times or fewer. Demian Maia presumably holds the lead in that category, with seven such performances.

Junior, Not Justin: Surviving a tough early going to come back and drum out Sean Sharaf, Junior Tafa kept his 100% knockout rate intact. It marked the second time he had needed to go beyond the five-minute mark to secure a win.

Sharaf Don’t Like It: Early into his burgeoning career, Sharaf’s first four appearances all ended by first-round knockout. While suffering his first pro loss, he also heard the end-of-round bell for the first time.

Split as Split Can Be: So far into 2024, 21 UFC fights have closed with even odds between two competitors. Julia Polastri vs. Cory McKenna is just the second among women to be deadlocked by bettors, with the first Veronica Hardy vs. J.J. Aldrich in May. Including Polastri’s, the last three overall have ended by split decision.

Thought He Haddem: Debuting Cody Hadden pummeled but could not put a heavy Dan Argueta away after three hard-fought rounds. The Aussie had to settle for the first decision win as a pro, with the lone previous occasion he had gone the distance, he lost to Steve Erceg on the regional scene.

Call Him ‘The Guida’: Following Clayton Carpenter putting Lucas Rocha to sleep with a rear-naked choke, 10 different flyweight matches in company history have ended by technical submission. With Carpenter snagging an extra $50K for his handiwork, nine of those victors have claimed post-fight bonus money.

Never Say Never Again: Coming into UFC Vegas 98, Taira had never been defeated (16 fights), Garcia had never been finished (19 fights) and Rocha had never been submitted (18 fights).

Everyone’s Flying: With Park selecting “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti, the famed song from the “Rocky” soundtrack remains firmly in the lead as the most used entrance music in organizational history. It is also the winningest.

Getting Cross: Shifting away from a metal cover of “Hellfire” from the “Hunchback of Notre Dame” soundtrack, Dawson walked out to “Mary on a Cross” by infamous Swedish rock outfit Ghost. He is the first to select a song from this group, and he prevailed.