Strikeforce Fighters in UFC: What's Their Record?

Since that previous article a mere four months ago, there have been 24 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fights involving fighters of the now-defunct Strikeforce promotion (SF). The vast majority of them have come against fighters already enrolled in the UFC ranks, and... well, it hasn't fared all that great for what was once the second biggest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion in the world.

There are differing arguments on when you want to count the crossover, but for the purpose of both articles, I'm counting fighters that only came over in the final purge of the company. There's a decent enough argument to include other previous purges, including most of the heavyweight division, Cung Le, Nick Diaz and others.

I will present those stats at the conclusion of the base.

SF combatants were 16-18 with one "No Contest" at the time that article was published back on May 20 after UFC on FX 8. Since then, SF fighters have entered the Octagon 28 times on 24 separate occasions (there were four matches between two former SF hires), and they've gone a combined total of 8-18 (1 NC).

That has dropped their overall record since closure to 24-36 (2 NC).

Here is the list of fights that have happened since that original article (* indicates SF fighter).

Donald Cerrone vs K.J. Noons *
Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Abel Trujillo *
Stephen Thompson vs Nah-Shon Burrell *
Jeremy Stephens vs Estevan Payan *
Antonio Braga Neto vs Anthony Smith *
Rodrigo Damm vs Mizuto Hirota *
Erick Silva vs Jason High *
Thiago Silva vs Rafael Cavalcante *
Jake Shields vs Tyron Woodley *
Tim Kennedy * vs Roger Gracie *
Robbie Lawler * vs Bobby Voelker *
Jorge Masvidal * vs Michael Chiesa
Ed Herman vs Trevor Smith *
Germaine de Randamie * vs Julie Kedzie *
Viscardi Andrade vs Bristol Marunde *
Ovince St. Preux * vs Cody Donovan
Jason High * vs James Head
Roger Bowling * vs Abel Trujillo *
Josh Barnett * vs Frank Mir
Al Iaquinta vs Ryan Couture *
Ronaldo Souza * vs Yushin Okami
Sean Spencer vs Yuri Villefort *
Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Pat Healy *
Daniel Omielańczuk vs Nandor Guelmino *

You will note that the winner of the fight is the first person named (Bowling vs. Trujillo was the No Contest). Here are some other numbers to noodle on before I get to the other possible entries to the field.

Fights between two Strikeforce fighters: 7 (Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche, Adlan Amagov vs. Chris Spang, Burrell vs. Villefort, Kennedy vs. Gracie, Lawler vs. Voelker, de Randamie vs. Kedzie, Bowling vs Trujillo).

Method of victory and defeat for SF:

Wins by KO/TKO: 9
Wins by Submission: 6
Wins by Decision: 9
Losses by KO/TKO: 12
Losses by Submission: 3
Losses by Decision: 21

SF fighter record by division:

Heavyweight: 2-1
Light Heavyweight: 3-2
Middleweight: 5-4
Welterweight: 7-13*
Lightweight: 5-9** (2 NC)
Featherweight: 0-4
Female Bantamweight: 2-3

*Nah-Shon Burrell vs. Yuri Villefort was technically a catchweight fight, but for the sake of argument, it will be included at 170 pounds.

**Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Abel Trujillo was also a catchweight, but will count for 155.

SF vs. debuting non-SF UFC fighter record: 1-4 (Gegard Mousasi def. Ilir Latifi, Cat Zingano def. Miesha Tate, Antonio Braga Neto def. Anthony Smith, Viscardi Andrade def. Bristol Marunde, Daniel Omielańczuk def. Nandor Guelmino).

Now that we've got the meat and potatoes out of the way, there's one more point of debate to address.

Namely, why I didn't include previous fighters that were brought over before the closure of Strikeforce, either through the heavyweight purge or through previous acquisition. Simply put, that wasn't the intent of Tim's original article, nor was it mine.

However, for the sake of being thorough, here are the additions to the list at the time of the May article:

Jason Miller 0-2
Nick Diaz 1-2
Dan Henderson 1-1
Alistair Overeem 1-1
Cung Le 2-1
Lavar Johnson 2-2
Shawn Jordan 2-1
Antonio Silva 2-1
Shane Del Rosario 0-2
Chad Griggs 0-2
Fabricio Werdum 2-0
Jake Shields 2-2 (1 NC)

A few of them have fought since May. Here's how they fared:

*Shawn Jordan def. Pat Barry - KO
Cain Velasquez def. * Antonio Silva - KO
Travis Browne def. * Alistair Overeem - KO
Rashad Evans def. * Dan Henderson - Decision
*Jake Shields vs Tyron Woodley (Since we counted Woodley in SF, the decision was already factored into the KO/Submission/Decision area up above while the loss counted. We'll add Jake's win as well).

So the previous total of 24-36 (2 NC) now becomes 41-56 (3 NC).

Surprised?