Cub Swanson: By The Numbers

Cub Swanson has fought champions, but he has never fought for a championship.

Continuing his pursuit of an elusive Ultimate Fighting Championship title shot, the longtime Jackson-Wink MMA featherweight will carry a four-fight winning streak into his critical five-round clash with the unbeaten Brian Ortega in the UFC Fight Night 123 headliner on Saturday at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California. Swanson has been a mainstay of the 145-pound weight class for years, testing his skills and mettle against some of the division’s most accomplished fighters. He last competed at UFC Fight Night 108 on April 22, when he took a unanimous decision from SBG Ireland export Artem Lobov and escaped a high-risk, low-reward showdown with his faculties intact. Swanson has compiled a 10-3 record in the UFC, his only losses coming to Max Holloway, Frankie Edgar and Ricardo Lamas.

As Swanson makes final preparations for his battle with Ortega, here are some of the numbers that have come to define him:

1: Defeat by knockout. Jose Aldo was the perpetrator, as he cut down Swanson with a flying knee just eight seconds into their June 2009 encounter in World Extreme Cagefighting.

5: Losses by submission. Swanson has tapped to two guillotine chokes, a neck crank, an arm-triangle choke and a rear-naked choke.

6: Post-fight bonuses earned since he joined the Ultimate Fighting Championship roster in 2011. Swanson’s four “Fight of the Night” awards and two “Knockout of the Night” awards have netted him $315,000.

7: Organizations in which he has competed as a professional mixed martial artist. They are the UFC, World Extreme Cagefighting, the International Fighting and Boxing League, Beatdown in Bakersfield, King of the Cage and Total Combat.

10: UFC victories on his resume. Lobov, Doo Ho Choi, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Hacran Dias, Jeremy Stephens, Dennis Siver, Dustin Poirier, Charles Oliveira, Ross Pearson and George Roop were the victims.

15: Finishes to his credit. They account for 60 percent of his career win total.

34: Years of age. When Swanson was born on Nov. 2, 1983 in Palm Springs, California, the top five movies at the domestic box office were “Richard Pryor: Here and Now,” “Never Say Never Again,” “The Dead Zone,” “The Big Chill” and “All the Right Moves.”

144: Combined victories between the seven men -- Aldo, Holloway, Edgar, Lamas, Chad Mendes, Jens Pulver and Shannon Gugerty -- who have defeated Swanson.

859: Significant strikes landed in Ultimate Fighting Championship competition, according to FightMetric. That number is good second on the promotion’s all-time list for featherweights, trailing only Holloway (1,213).

1,039: Total strikes landed in the UFC. Swanson ranks fourth all-time in the category at 145 pounds. Only Darren Elkins (1,511), Holloway (1,329) and Dennis Bermudez (1,058) have connected with more.