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Events · UFC 35: Throwdown · Jens Pulver vs BJ Penn
From the tape · 11 Jan 2002

Jens Pulver vs BJ Penn

UFC 35: Throwdown · Uncasville, Connecticut, USA
Result

Jens Pulver beat BJ Penn

Method
Decision - Majority
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
Lightweight TitleTitle fightMainReferee · John McCarthy

We published no prediction for this bout. Everything on this page is the official record and the tape it was fought on — the result, the round-by-round counts, the judges’ cards where they exist and the sportsbook line where one was published. Our graded calls start in 2026 and live on the public record.

JP
Red corner JensPulver“Little Evil”Team Extreme · Crystal Lake, Illinois
VSOn the tape
BP
Blue corner BJPenn“The Prodigy”
Lightweight Title5 rounds11 Jan 2002
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 5-fight win streak.
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 2 of 5 UFC wins.
  • Every one of Penn’s 3 UFC wins came inside the distance.
27-19-1
Record
16-14-2
27
Age
−4 yr23
5' 7"
Height
+2″5' 9"
70″
Reach
70″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
+36
UFC bouts
3
2/540% of wins
Finishes
+60%3/3100% of wins
Vitals, record, nickname and camp come from the public UFC fighter register and are current, not a snapshot of fight night. UFC bouts, finish rate and every storyline line are counted off the official UFC fight record. A tick marks the side holding the raw edge in that row — longer reach, taller, younger, more bouts, a higher finish rate. It is a fact about the tape, not a prediction, and rows with no clean comparison (record, stance, gym, hometown) carry no tick at all. Any row we cannot fill on both sides is left out rather than half-drawn. Streaks, bout counts and finish rates are as they stood going into this fight — this bout and everything after it is excluded from the count.

Round by round

Every round the fight went, shaded by where the significant strikes actually landed — and the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them.

UFCStats · per round

5 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action1 sub attempt
Jens Pulver2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 7BODY50%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
BJ Penn4 sig landed
HEAD75%3 of 6BODY25%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
2 of 8
Sig.
strikes
4 of 7
1 of 1
Take-
downs
1 of 2
2:39
Control
1:13
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 0
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 25:00 of action1 sub attempt
Jens Pulver3 sig landed
HEAD33%1 of 2BODY33%1 of 1LEGS33%1 of 1
BJ Penn11 sig landed
HEAD91%10 of 15BODY0%0 of 1LEGS9%1 of 2
3 of 4
Sig.
strikes
11 of 18
0 of 0
Take-
downs
2 of 3
0:00
Control
4:10
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 1Clinch 1Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 7
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 35:00 of action
Jens Pulver10 sig landed
HEAD80%8 of 18BODY0%0 landedLEGS20%2 of 2
BJ Penn3 sig landed
HEAD33%1 of 3BODY0%0 landedLEGS67%2 of 2
10 of 20
Sig.
strikes
3 of 5
0 of 0
Take-
downs
2 of 2
3:29
Control
0:30
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 8
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 0
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 45:00 of action
Jens Pulver7 sig landed
HEAD71%5 of 15BODY29%2 of 2LEGS0%0 landed
BJ Penn11 sig landed
HEAD91%10 of 17BODY9%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
7 of 17
Sig.
strikes
11 of 18
0 of 0
Take-
downs
2 of 3
2:13
Control
0:30
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 2Clinch 1Ground 4
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 1Ground 0
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Jens Pulver16 sig landed
HEAD81%13 of 46BODY6%1 of 1LEGS12%2 of 2
BJ Penn20 sig landed
HEAD55%11 of 35BODY15%3 of 4LEGS30%6 of 6
16 of 49
Sig.
strikes
20 of 45
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 15Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.

Significant strikes, takedowns, control time, knockdowns and submission attempts exactly as UFCStats recorded them for this bout, round by round. Zone percentages are that round’s landed head, body and leg counts over their own total — raw arithmetic, nothing modelled or smoothed. A round in which a fighter landed nothing shades empty and reads zero; it is never filled in from the round before.

Judges’ scorecards

The judges’ totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score.

Official card

Majority Decision

Referee · John McCarthy
Official totals — Jens Pulver first
JudgeTotal
Doug Crosby2.3 avg spread · 51% wide48–45
Tony Mullinax48–47
Jeff Mullen2.1 avg spread · 42% wide47–47

There is no per-round card for this bout in our decisions source, so the judges’ totals are all we can show. This one is inside the window our source covers — it is a gap in the record, not a scrape we are waiting on, and nothing here is estimated to fill it.

Media cards — 1 scored, Jens Pulver first · unofficial

Fight Metric.com47–48

Fan vote · unofficial

49-46 Pulver · 30%48-47 Pulver · 16%48-47 Penn · 14%49-47 Pulver · 7%

43 fan cards submitted to MMA Decisions.

Official cards come from the UFCStats fight record and MMA Decisions. Media cards and the fan vote are MMA Decisions’ own collection and are not official. Judge tendency figures are that judge’s whole recorded history, not this bout — they are context for how a card was scored, never a claim that it was scored wrongly.

Takedowns

Takedowns

The level change — head to head

Career UFC takedown rates. Red corner left, blue corner right.

Jens Pulver

0.22takedowns / 15 min
0.22 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.19 / 15m
0.67 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
2.16 / 15m
33%
ACCURACY
55%
0.30 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.50 / 15m

BJ Penn

1.19takedowns / 15 min

Career UFC takedown rates exactly as UFCStats publishes them: takedowns landed per 15 minutes, completion rate, submission attempts per 15 minutes, and the share of takedowns tried on them that they stuffed. Attempts per 15 is the one derived figure — landed ÷ completion rate — and it is omitted wherever either input is missing. UFCStats writes 0% where no attempt was recorded at all, so a percentage of exactly zero reads “n/a” here rather than as a measured rate. “Field” is the average fighter in that weight class, or across every division where a class is too small to average. Rate bars run to the population’s 95th percentile (5.22 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Lightweight

The market story

What the market did on the way to the cage — the price, not our model. This bout is settled; the window below is closed.

We hold no market price for this bout — no captured price series, and no opening or closing line in the sportsbook record we fall back on. So there is nothing to show, and we would rather show nothing than draw a line that was never there.

Jens Pulver vs BJ Penn.

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