This Saturday Hooker vs Parnasse · Accor Arena Paris France See this week's picks →
History · 2009 · UFC 98: Evans vs Machida · Chael Sonnen vs Dan Miller
From the tape · 23 May 2009

Chael Sonnen vs Dan Miller

UFC 98: Evans vs Machida · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Chael Sonnen beat Dan Miller

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightMain cardReferee · Yves Lavigne

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.

CS
Red corner ChaelSonnenTeam Quest · West Linn, Oregon
VSOn the tape
DM
Blue corner DanMillerSussex County MMA · Sparta, New Jersey
Middleweight3 rounds23 May 2009
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • Averages 2.1 more takedowns per 15 minutes than Miller.
  • Has finished 2 of 3 UFC wins.
29-15-1
Record
14-8
32
Age
−5 yr27
6' 1"
Height
6' 1"
73″
Reach
+1″74″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
+14
UFC bouts
3
0/10% of wins
Finishes
2/367% of wins
Team Quest
Gym
Sussex County MMA
West Linn, Oregon
From
Sparta, New Jersey
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 — the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them, and how the three judges scored that round.

UFCStats · per round

3 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action1 sub attempt
Chael Sonnen20 sig landed
HEAD85%17 of 25BODY5%1 of 1LEGS10%2 of 2
Dan Miller2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 3BODY0%0 landedLEGS50%1 of 1
20 of 28
Sig.
strikes
2 of 4
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:41
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 18
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sonnen firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Lester Griffin10–9Roy Silbert10–9
Round 25:00 of action1 sub attempt
Chael Sonnen7 sig landed
HEAD57%4 of 12BODY0%0 landedLEGS43%3 of 3
Dan Miller3 sig landed
HEAD67%2 of 4BODY33%1 of 2LEGS0%0 of 1
7 of 15
Sig.
strikes
3 of 7
1 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:34
Control
0:01
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 4
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 2Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sonnen firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Lester Griffin10–9Roy Silbert10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Chael Sonnen9 sig landed
HEAD56%5 of 14BODY11%1 of 1LEGS33%3 of 3
Dan Miller4 sig landed
HEAD75%3 of 9BODY25%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
9 of 18
Sig.
strikes
4 of 10
1 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:36
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 6
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sonnen firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Lester Griffin10–9Roy Silbert10–9

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.

The cards, totalled

The judges’ final totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score. Their round-by-round 10–9s are with the rounds above.

Official card

Unanimous Decision

Referee · Yves Lavigne
Chael SonnenDan Miller
Official totals — Chael Sonnen first
JudgeTotal
Adalaide Byrd2.0 avg spread · 45% wide30–27
Lester Griffin2.0 avg spread · 47% wide30–27
Roy Silbert2.0 avg spread · 44% wide30–27

Each judge’s round-by-round scores sit with the round they belong to, in the round-by-round section above — switch a round there and the three cards for it change with the stats.

Media cards — 5 scored, Chael Sonnen first · unofficial

MM AJunkie.com30–27
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com30–27
TJ DeSantis Sherdog.com30–27
Mike Fridley Sherdog.com30–27
MM AWeekly.com30–27

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Sonnen · 100%

4 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.

Chael Sonnen

3.81takedowns / 15 min
3.81 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.67 / 15m
6.46 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
3.09 / 15m
59%
ACCURACY
54%
0.40 / 15m
SUB ATT
1.80 / 15m

Dan Miller

1.67takedowns / 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

Where the price started and where it finished — the sportsbook consensus, with the vig removed. We captured no price series for this bout, so there is no chart to draw.

Chael Sonnen↓ −6.7pp
open 41.2%close 34.5%
Dan Miller↑ +6.7pp
open 58.8%close 65.5%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Chael Sonnen opened at 41.2% and closed at 34.5% (−6.7pp), with Dan Miller moving the other way by the same amount — the two are one de-vigged pair, so they always sum to 100%. There is no line between those two points because nobody recorded one: we hold the open and the close for this bout, not the days in between.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
Chael Sonnen13518541.2%34.5%−6.7pp
Dan Miller-155-20058.8%65.5%+6.7pp
Opening and closing moneylines from BestFightOdds (data/refs/bfo_fighter_moneylines.csv), one row per fighter per bout, de-vigged pairwise so the two corners sum to 100% · scraped 2026-06-10. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
← Every fighter on the record