Fight Facts: LFA 74

Fight Facts is a breakdown of all 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 LFA FIGHTS: 642
TOTAL NUMBER OF LFA EVENTS: 75

The Legacy Fighting Alliance on Friday in Riverside, California, held its 75th event in a little over two and a half years, and it demonstrated all sorts of exciting and unusual finishes. LFA 74 featured an elusive spinning backfist knockout, an equally rare kneebar and the tallest fight in company history.

AS MANY EVENTS AS THERE ARE BINGO BALLS: The LFA chose California for its 75th event, reaching that total because of LFA Fight Night 1 in 2017. It was the eighth event in the organization’s history to be held in The Golden State and the first in the city of Riverside.

BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY: The main event featured two massive heavyweights in Renan Ferreira and Jared Vanderaa, who combined for the tallest fight in LFA history. They measured 13 feet, two inches.

I CAN GO TWICE AS HIGH: Ferreira became the second heavyweight in organizational history to ever pull off a triangle choke when he submitted Vanderaa. The first was by Maurice Greene over Jermaine McDermott at LFA 19 in 2017.

EQUILATERAL END: After 75 LFA events, Ferreira is the first fighter to ever pull off a triangle choke in a headliner.

MOUNTAINS OUT OF MOLEHILLS: As he has dropped all three of his LFA appearances, Vanderaa holds the unfortunate distinction of being the fighter with the most losses in LFA heavyweight history. Only “The Mountain” and Patrick Martin have suffered more than one defeat with the promotion.

ROTA RAMPAGE: Lucas Rota annihilated Moses Murrietta in 24 seconds with a nearly 30-punch combination, scoring the fourth-fastest knockout ever in the LFA’s middleweight division.

BARRING ANY EXCEPTIONS: Leandro Gomes secured a first-round kneebar of Anthony Jimenez, picking up the third in company history and the first at a division beneath lightweight.

A FITTING CONCLUSION: Jimenez missed the bantamweight limit by three pounds and was forced to tap by Gomes. Each of the last five LFA fighters to miss weight have lost.

SPIN SPIKEY SPIN: To open up the main card, lightweight Spike Carlyle dispatched Matthew Colquhoun with a spinning backfist. It was the third spinning backfist knockout in promotional history and the first from any fighter below middleweight.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Coming into LFA 74, Ferreira had never won by tapout (five wins), Jimenez had never been defeated (five fights) and Vince Cachero had never lost on the scorecards (seven fights).

Sherdog contributing editor Jay Pettry is an attorney and a statistician. Writing about MMA since he started studying the “Eminem Curse” in 2012 and working 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.