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Events · UFC 39: The Warriors Return · BJ Penn vs Matt Serra
From the tape · 27 Sep 2002

BJ Penn vs Matt Serra

UFC 39: The Warriors Return · Uncasville, Connecticut, USA
Result

BJ Penn beat Matt Serra

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
LightweightMain cardReferee · 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.

BP
Red corner BJPenn“The Prodigy”
VSOn the tape
MS
Blue corner MattSerra“The Terra”Serra-Longo Fight Team · Long Island, New York
Lightweight3 rounds27 Sep 2002
The story going in
  • Every one of Penn’s 4 UFC wins came inside the distance.
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Carries 36 points more takedown defence than Serra.
16-14-2
Record
11-7
−5 yr23
Age
28
+3″5' 9"
Height
5' 6"
+2″70″
Reach
68″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+25
UFC bouts
3
4/4100% of wins
Finishes
1/250% 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

3 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
BJ Penn14 sig landed
HEAD36%5 of 11BODY50%7 of 7LEGS14%2 of 2
Matt Serra1 sig landed
HEAD0%0 of 9BODY100%1 of 1LEGS0%0 of 1
14 of 20
Sig.
strikes
1 of 11
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 5
0:10
Control
1:55
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 2Clinch 10Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 0Clinch 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
BJ Penn5 sig landed
HEAD40%2 of 5BODY20%1 of 2LEGS40%2 of 2
Matt Serra5 sig landed
HEAD60%3 of 12BODY20%1 of 1LEGS20%1 of 1
5 of 9
Sig.
strikes
5 of 14
1 of 1
Take-
downs
1 of 5
0:43
Control
2:20
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 2Clinch 3Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 4Ground 0
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
BJ Penn13 sig landed
HEAD38%5 of 15BODY15%2 of 2LEGS46%6 of 6
Matt Serra2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 21BODY0%0 landedLEGS50%1 of 3
13 of 23
Sig.
strikes
2 of 24
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 7
0:02
Control
0:04
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 8Clinch 4Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 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

Unanimous Decision

Referee · John McCarthy
Official totals — BJ Penn first
JudgeTotal
Cecil Peoples2.2 avg spread · 53% wide29–28
Jeff Mullen2.1 avg spread · 42% wide29–28
Doug Crosby2.3 avg spread · 51% wide29–28

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.

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Penn · 41%29-28 Serra · 33%30-27 Penn · 15%30-28 Penn · 3%

39 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.

BJ Penn

1.19takedowns / 15 min
1.19 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.05 / 15m
2.16 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
10.25 / 15m
55%
ACCURACY
20%
0.50 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.90 / 15m

Matt Serra

2.05takedowns / 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 (5.32 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked roster-wide

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.

BJ Penn vs Matt Serra.

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