UFC 268 facts and stats and stuff

- UFC 268 is the promotion's fifth event at Madison Square Garden since New York legalized mixed martial arts in March 2016. In the first four events -- UFC 205, UFC 217, UFC 230 and UFC 244 -- there have been 46 fights, with seven of those being title fights. Four new UFC champions have been crowned at MSG, plus one BMF "champion."

- UFC 268 will be the 12th UFC bout for Rose Namajunas, and her sixth championship fight, when she defends the strawweight title against Zhang Weili. That 50% rate for "Thug Rose" is especially impressive considering she lost two of those title fights.

- Colby Covington holds the record for most significant strikes landed in a UFC fight with 515. He set that record against Robbie Lawler at UFC on ESPN 5 on Aug. 3, 2019. That’s an average of 103 strikes landed per round, or 20.6 per minute, or one every three seconds. But those are just numbers. Consider it this way: in the time it took you to read this paragraph, you would have been punched in the face approximately six times.

- Fighters retire and unretire all the time. But Chris Curtis holds the record for shortest retirement. In October 2019, he lost a PFL quarterfinal bout and announced his retirement afterward. But in the PFL playoffs then, there were two fights in a night to reach the championship. When Magomed Magomedkerimov was deemed ineligible to compete in the semifinals that same night, Curtis took his spot and lost to Ray Cooper III. Curtis retired again after fight, only to unretire several months later. His welterweight bout against Phil Hawes on Saturday will be Curtis' sixth since his second unretirement, and first in the UFC. "He is just here to get his fight kit," Hawes said Wednesday.

- This will be the ninth fight in the UFC for Justin Gaethje and only the second scheduled for three rounds.

- Early in his MMA career, Gian Villante worked as a bodyguard for Mel Gibson and Jonah Hill when they were on movie sets in New York.

- Al Iaquinta and Bobby Green were scheduled to fight each other in July 2015, but Green withdrew because of an injury. "Raging Al" said he kicked a stationary bike and broke a picnic table leg when he got that news. Green was replaced by Gilbert Melendez, who was suspended a week before the fight after testing positive for PEDs. Iaquinta was pulled from the card and didn't fight again until April 2017.

- A win for Kamaru Usman on Saturday would give him five consecutive UFC welterweight title defenses, tying him with Matt Hughes for second on that list behind Georges St-Pierre.

- When Monroe's Shane Burgos enters the octagon to face Ransomville's Billy Quarantillo in a featherweight bout, it will tie Burgos with Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson for the most UFC fights in Madison Square Garden with three. Burgos is 2-0 at MSG -- and 5-0 in UFC events in his home state of New York. Thompson is 1-1-1 at MSG.

By Mark La Monica

mark.lamonica@newsday.comLaMonicaMark

Mark La Monica is a deputy sports editor at Newsday. He also covers mixed martial arts.