How have Strikeforce fighters fared in the UFC over the past year?

By Tim Burke@TB_Money on Jan 13 2014, 2:00p http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2014/1/13/5302128/strikeforce-ufc-stats-one-year-lawler-green

It's been a full year since the last Strikeforce show. Tim B. takes a look at how their fighters have done in the UFC since the merger.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the death of Strikeforce. The last show the promotion ran was on January 12th, 2012 in Oklahoma City. In the last fight in Strikeforce history, Tarec Saffiedine defeated Nate Marquardt for the promotion's welterweight championship. Oddly enough, the last UFC fight written before this very article featured a five-round Saffiedine win as well, his first in the promotion. I guess times haven't changed that much after all.

Either way, SF fighters have had a whole year to fight in the octagon, and the results have been mixed. Back in May and June, I looked at how fighters from Scott Coker's promotion had been faring in the UFC up to that point and while they started off decently, they had tailed off a bit by the halfway point. Over the second half of the year, they were up and down as well. At one point they won a bunch of fights in a row, but it petered out down the stretch and brought them back close to .500.

Without further ado, here are the stats. As with the other posts, I'll describe my criteria for selection (which you may disagree with, but that's on you). For these purposes, we're leaving out the heavyweights that came over in 2012 (except Cormier, Barnett, and Guelmino) and guys like Nick Diaz. who came over well before the closure of the promotion. If they had stayed in Strikeforce, they would have still been able to fight under the Strikeforce banner. But the guys/girls that were still on the roster the day of the closure is what I'm looking at. The "forced crossovers", as it were.

Note - There will probably be some debate about a few WMMA fighters since they competed in Invicta in their last bouts before moving to the UFC while under contract to Strikeforce. I included anyone who actually fought in Strikeforce but left out the one fighter that never actually got an SF fight - Sara McMann.

Overall Strikeforce fighter record since closure through UFC Fight Night 34: 49-48, 2 NC

Strikeforce fighter vs. established UFC fighter record: 36-36, 2 NC

SF fighter record by division:

HW: 3-2
LHW 5-2
MW: 9-5
WW: 13-14*
LW: 11-12, 2 NC
FW : 0-5
Women: 8-8

* - Nah-Shon Burrell vs. Yuri Villefort was technically a catchweight fight, but I've included it at 170

Fights between two Strikeforce fighters - 10

Method of victory/defeat for Strikeforce fighters:

Wins by KO/TKO - 20
Wins by Submission - 9
Wins by Decision - 20
Losses by KO/TKO - 16
Losses by Submission - 5
Losses by Decision - 27

Number of Strikeforce fighters officially cut from the UFC - 10 (Hirota, Burrell, A. Smith, Fodor, Spang, Holobaugh, Gracie, Couture, Villefort, Guelmino)

Number of Strikeforce fighters that retired - 3 (Melancon, Kedzie, Mulhern)

The fighters that have fared the best since the crossover are Robbie Lawler, Bobby Green, Ronda Rousey, and Daniel Cormier. Lawler and Green went 3-0 in 2013, with Lawler securing a welterweight title shot. Rousey defended her title twice, and Cormier went 2-0 and is now moving to light heavyweight. A couple of others, such as Ronaldo Souza, also won two fights in 2013. Of the non-released fighters, Pat Healy had a pretty bad year goiing 0-2 with his win over Jim Miller getting flipped to an NC. Bobby Voelker went 0-3 in the UFC, but will be sticking around as per Dana White.