Rob
Font
has grown accustomed to difficult assignments. Life in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division requires
as much.
The former
CES MMA champion will attempt to right his ship at the expense
of
Adrian
Yanez in a three-round
UFC 287 showcase on Saturday at Miami-Dade Arena in Miami. Font
enters the cage on the heels of back-to-back losses. He last
competed at UFC on ESPN 35, where he dropped a unanimous decision
to
Marlon Vera
in their April 30 main event. Yanez, meanwhile, finds himself on a
nine-fight winning streak that includes seven finishes. He last
fought on June 18, when he buried
Tony Kelley
with punches in the first round of their UFC on ESPN 37
pairing.
As Font and Yanez move ever closer to their looming battle at 135
pounds, a look at some of the numbers that have accompanied them to
this point:
35: Years of age for Font, who was born on June 25, 1987, in
Leominster, Massachusetts.
4: Font wins by submission, accounting for 21% of his career total
(19). His methods of choice: two guillotine chokes, one rear-naked
choke and one brabo choke. Font holds eight other wins by knockout
or technical knockout (42%) and seven more by decision (37%).
1,217: Total strikes landed by Font as a UFC bantamweight, placing
him fifth on the promotion’s all-time list at 135 pounds. Only
Merab
Dvalishvili (1,569),
T.J.
Dillashaw (1,522),
Aljamain
Sterling (1,460) and
Petr Yan
(1,309) have connected with more.
47: Rounds completed by Font as a professional mixed martial
artist. He has gone the distance on 12 different occasions and
carries a 7-5 record in those bouts.
157: Combined victories between the six opponents—Vera,
Jose Aldo,
Raphael
Assuncao,
Pedro
Munhoz,
John
Lineker and
Desmond
Green—who have beaten Font. They boast a .754 cumulative
winning percentage at 157-51-1.
29: Years of age for Yanez, who was born in La Porte, Texas, on
Nov. 29, 1993.
10: Yanez victories by knockout or technical knockout, accounting
for 62% of his career total (16). His list of UFC victims: Kelley,
Randy
Costa,
Gustavo
Lopez and
Victor
Rodriguez.
39: Seconds needed for Yanez to dispose of
Brady Huang
with punches during Week 2 of
Dana White’s Contender Series on Aug. 11, 2020. More than two
years later, it remains his fastest finish to date.
250,000: Dollars in post-fight bonuses banked by Yanez across his
five appearances in the UFC. He has been awarded “Performance of
the Night” four times and “Fight of the Night” once.
.804: Cumulative winning percentage between the three
opponents—
Miles
Johns,
Domingo
Pilarte and
Levi
Mowles—who have defeated Yanez. They sport a combined record of
37-9.