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Events · UFC 99: The Comeback · Cain Velasquez vs Cheick Kongo
From the tape · 13 Jun 2009

Cain Velasquez vs Cheick Kongo

UFC 99: The Comeback · Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Result

Cain Velasquez beat Cheick Kongo

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
HeavyweightCo-MainReferee · Dan Miragliotta

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.

CV
Red corner CainVelasquezAmerican Kickboxing Academy · Salinas, California
VSOn the tape
CK
Blue corner CheickKongoKongo Smashin' Club · Paris
Heavyweight3 rounds13 Jun 2009
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • Every one of Velasquez’s 3 UFC wins came inside the distance.
  • Has finished 5 of 7 UFC wins.
14-3
Record
27-10-2
−8 yr26
Age
34
6' 1"
Height
+3″6' 4"
77″
Reach
+5″82″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
3
UFC bouts
+69
+29%3/3100% of wins
Finishes
5/771% of wins
American Kickboxing Academy
Gym
Kongo Smashin' Club
Salinas, California
From
Paris
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 action2 sub attempts
Cain Velasquez8 sig landed
HEAD100%8 of 13BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
Cheick Kongo5 sig landed
HEAD80%4 of 6BODY20%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
8 of 13
Sig.
strikes
5 of 7
4 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:29
Control
0:14
2
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 0Clinch 0Ground 8
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 1
Judges · this round · Velasquez firstDouglas Crosby10–9Howard Hughes10–9Chris Watts10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Cain Velasquez12 sig landed
HEAD58%7 of 12BODY42%5 of 6LEGS0%0 landed
Cheick Kongo9 sig landed
HEAD44%4 of 9BODY33%3 of 3LEGS22%2 of 2
12 of 18
Sig.
strikes
9 of 14
2 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:13
Control
0:25
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 10
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 3Ground 3
Judges · this round · Velasquez firstDouglas Crosby10–9Howard Hughes10–9Chris Watts10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Cain Velasquez9 sig landed
HEAD89%8 of 21BODY11%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Cheick Kongo7 sig landed
HEAD43%3 of 9BODY57%4 of 4LEGS0%0 landed
9 of 22
Sig.
strikes
7 of 13
1 of 3
Take-
downs
1 of 3
4:16
Control
0:12
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 0Clinch 1Ground 8
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 5Ground 0
Judges · this round · Velasquez firstDouglas Crosby10–9Howard Hughes10–9Chris Watts10–9

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 · Dan Miragliotta
Cain VelasquezCheick Kongo
Official totals — Cain Velasquez first
JudgeTotal
Douglas Crosby30–27
Howard Hughes2.0 avg spread · 43% wide30–27
Chris Watts1.9 avg spread · 46% 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 — 6 scored, Cain Velasquez first · unofficial

Mike Fridley Sherdog.com30–25
MM AJunkie.com30–26
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com30–26
MM AWeekly.com30–26
TJ DeSantis Sherdog.com30–27
Fight Metric.com30–27

Fan vote · unofficial

30-26 Velasquez · 36%29-28 Kongo · 18%30-27 Velasquez · 16%30-25 Velasquez · 16%30-24 Velasquez · 7%

44 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.

Cain Velasquez

5.13takedowns / 15 min
5.13 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.30 / 15m
11.40 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
4.11 / 15m
45%
ACCURACY
56%
0.40 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.20 / 15m

Cheick Kongo

2.30takedowns / 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 (5.77 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Heavyweight

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.

Cain Velasquez↑ +19.6pp
open 42.2%close 61.9%
Cheick Kongo↓ −19.6pp
open 57.8%close 38.1%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Cain Velasquez opened at 42.2% and closed at 61.9% (+19.6pp), with Cheick Kongo 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
Cain Velasquez125-17542.2%61.9%+19.6pp
Cheick Kongo-15515557.8%38.1%−19.6pp
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.
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