We are now over halfway through the calendar year, and 10 Nordic fighters have competed in the UFC in 2018 so far with plenty more to come. Now that we have the first major PPV of the second half of the year in the books and Nordic fighters are getting ready for UFC Hamburg, I’m going to have a look back and see what the stats have been like for the Nordic fighters.
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Although ten fighters have competed, however, only one of those fighters has managed to compete on two occasions. Hat tip to Denmark’s Mads Burnell who’s been competed twice so far with possibly more the come in the next half of the year.
Burnell has gone 1-1 in those two bouts but was unlucky the loss, getting caught in a submission after dominating most of the fight. He has certainly proven himself as a legit prospect from his performances.
Sweden boasts the most talent to fight in the UFC in 2018. 6 fighters have from the country have fought so far in 2018. Four of those fighters have come out with their hands raised. Only two of those Swedish fighters are ranked in the top 15, Ilir Latifi (#4) and Lina Lansberg (#11). They are also the sole two ranked fighters to fight this past year.
No Icelandic fighter has competed in the UFC in 2018 yet, Gunnar Nelson was scheduled to fight, however, was forced to withdraw due to injury.
| Fighter | Country | Number of fights | Record |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mads Burnell | Denmark | 2 | 1-1 |
| Emil Meek | Norway | 1 | 0-1 |
| Damir Hadzovic | Denmark | 1 | 0-1 |
| Ilir Latifi | Sweden | 1 | 1-0 |
| Oliver Enkamp | Sweden | 1 | 0-1 |
| Jack Hermansson | Sweden/Norway | 1 | 1-0 |
| Lina Lansberg | Sweden | 1 | 1-0 |
| Makwan Amirkhani | Finland | 1 | 1-0 |
| David Teymur | Sweden | 1 | 1-0 |
| Daniel Teymur | Sweden | 1 | 0-1 |
Striking
In terms of striking the stats have been interesting there’s been a high volume of overall strikes and significant strike,s but not much finishes and knockdowns.
Unfortunately for Sweden’s Oliver Enkamp, he is the sole Nordic fighter to lose via KO/TKO so far.
Latifi is the only one to score a knockdown out of the 10 fighters, his dominant performance in February saw him knock OSP down prior to getting a slick submission win.
Jack Hermansson’s miraculous comeback comes in as the sole TKO/KO win for Nordic fighters. Hermansson looked to be down and out in his bout in Brazil, however, he overcame injury and some heavy damage to pull off a rocky-esque stoppage over Thales Leites.
A huge mention goes to David Teymur who’s kickboxing background paid dividend in his win at UFC Utica. Of Teymur’s strikes landed in the bout, 93% of those were counted as significant strike the most landed by any Nordic fighter.
| Fighter | Country | Strikes landed | Significant strikes landed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mads Burnell | Denmark | 170 | 40 |
| Emil Meek | Norway | 86 | 30 |
| Lina Lansberg | Sweden | 81 | 40 |
| David Teymur | Sweden | 72 | 67 |
| Damir Hadzovic | Denmark | 67 | 20 |
| Jack Hermansson | Sweden/Norway | 49 | 35 |
| Daniel Teymur | Sweden | 39 | 37 |
| Makwan Amirkhani | Finland | 32 | 27 |
| Ilir Latifi | Sweden | 27 | 25 |
| Oliver Enkamp | Sweden | 8 | 8 |
Wrestling
Takedowns weren’t the highlight of the fighters to say the least, according to the stats only 4 fighters managed to secure takedowns. Mads Burnell leads the pack again with the most takedowns scored overall and in one bout. He has successfully completed 9 takedowns, 6 of those being in his most recent bout against Arnold Allen.
Jack Hermansson who was injured still managed to take down the massive Thales Leites on 3 occasions in their bout. Amirkhani matches this as he went back to his roots when needed and took down Jason night the same amount of times at UFC Liverpool. Lansberg was successful on one single occasion in her bout.
No other fighter managed to complete a takedown. Emil Meek probably had the worst experiences with takedowns being at the receiving end of 8 during his bout with Usman. The American wrestler actually attempted 19 takedowns in total so Meek also proved to have the best takedown defence.
| Fighter | Country | Takedowns landed |
|---|---|---|
| Mads Burnell | Denmark | 9 |
| Jack Hermansson | Sweden/Norway | 3 |
| Makwan Amirkhani | Finland | 3 |
| Lina Lansberg | Sweden | 1 |
Grappling
Looking at solely the submission side of grappling now. 2 fighters were submitted, matching the same amount that lost via decision. The 2 that were submitted were Mads Burnell and Daniel Teymur. Both fighters were looking to get the better of striking and arguably the wrestling but fell short and were forced to tap.
Credit to Emil Meek here as he attempted the most submissions in his fight with 2 attempts. Despite Usman heavily implementing his wrestling game, Meek still attempted to submit his opponent who didn’t attempt a single submission.
Hermansson, Damir Hadzovic and Burnell all attempted a submission each but failed to finish from it. Latifi was the sole Nordic fighter to finish off a submission attempt with his only attempt coming out successful when he finished stopped OSP with a Guillotine choke.
| Fighter | Country | Submission attempts | Submission victories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ilir Latifi | Sweden | 1 | 1 |
| Emil Meek | Norway | 2 | 0 |
| Mads Burnell | Denmark | 1 | 0 |
| Damir Hadzovic | Denmark | 1 | 0 |
| Jack Hermansson | Sweden/Norway | 1 | 0 |
That concludes the stats for the first half of 2018 in the UFC for Nordic fighters. I’d like to mention that stats don’t tell us the whole story of a fight, but they are nice to look back on and give a different perspective of fights and how they played out in different areas. All stats used were from www.fightmetric.com.
