As you can see, Sanchez has actually been outstruck in four of his nine decision victories. This does happen with limited regularity. It mostly only occurs in fights that end via submission or have prolonged periods of ground control. Obviously striking is not the only criteria for judging an MMA contest under the unified rules. However, the rules do state, “if the mixed martial artists spent a majority of a round standing, then effective striking is weighed first.” Plus, all four of these fights were almost entirely contested on the feet.

All four of these fights were three round fights. It is possible that Sanchez did enough to take two out of three rounds on the judges’ cards while still losing the overall striking battle from a StrikeScore perspective, but that is clearly not the case. The following chart is a breakdown of Sanchez’s StrikeScore performance by round for all four bouts. As you can see, he was outstruck in 11 out of the possible 12 rounds. His only superior performance came with a minuscule four point margin.