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History · 2011 · UFC 129: St-Pierre vs Shields · Nate Diaz vs Rory MacDonald
From the tape · 30 Apr 2011

Nate Diaz vs Rory MacDonald

UFC 129: St-Pierre vs Shields · Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Result

Rory MacDonald beat Nate Diaz

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightMain 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.

ND
Red corner NateDiazCesar Gracie Fight Team · Stockton, California
VSOn the tape
RM
Blue corner RoryMacDonald“Red King”Tristar Gym · Kelowna, British Columbia
Welterweight3 rounds30 Apr 2011
The story going in
  • Has finished 7 of 8 UFC wins.
  • Carries 47 points more takedown defence than Diaz.
  • 12 UFC bouts deep — 10 more than MacDonald.
22-13
Record
19-4
26
Age
−5 yr21
6' 0"
Height
6' 0"
76″
Reach
76″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
+1012
UFC bouts
2
7/888% of wins
Finishes
1/1100% of wins
Cesar Gracie Fight Team
Gym
Tristar Gym
Stockton, California
From
Kelowna, British Columbia
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
Nate Diaz7 sig landed
HEAD14%1 of 10BODY57%4 of 7LEGS29%2 of 5
Rory MacDonald14 sig landed
HEAD14%2 of 20BODY21%3 of 7LEGS64%9 of 11
7 of 22
Sig.
strikes
14 of 38
0 of 2
Take-
downs
1 of 1
0:57
Control
0:46
Distance 0Clinch 7Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 11Clinch 3Ground 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 action
Nate Diaz14 sig landed
HEAD57%8 of 21BODY7%1 of 3LEGS36%5 of 8
Rory MacDonald14 sig landed
HEAD50%7 of 17BODY21%3 of 6LEGS29%4 of 4
14 of 32
Sig.
strikes
14 of 27
0 of 1
Take-
downs
2 of 5
0:58
Control
1:00
Distance 7Clinch 7Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 3Ground 1
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
Nate Diaz5 sig landed
HEAD20%1 of 2BODY20%1 of 2LEGS60%3 of 4
Rory MacDonald14 sig landed
HEAD93%13 of 29BODY0%0 of 4LEGS7%1 of 1
5 of 8
Sig.
strikes
14 of 34
0 of 4
Take-
downs
4 of 4
0:34
Control
3:27
Distance 1Clinch 4Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 13
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 — Nate Diaz first
JudgeTotal
Doug Crosby2.3 avg spread · 51% wide26–30
Sal D'amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide27–30
Claude Paquette26–30

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 — 5 scored, Nate Diaz first · unofficial

Chris Nelson Sherdog.com26–30
MM AWeekly.com26–30
Mike Whitman Sherdog.com27–30
MM AJunkie.com27–30
Tony Loiseleur Sherdog.com28–30

Fan vote · unofficial

30-26 MacDonald · 52%30-27 MacDonald · 21%29-28 MacDonald · 10%30-25 MacDonald · 4%

48 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.

Nate Diaz

1.05takedowns / 15 min
1.05 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.77 / 15m
3.50 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
3.77 / 15m
30%
ACCURACY
47%
1.30 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.40 / 15m

Rory MacDonald

1.77takedowns / 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 (4.97 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Welterweight

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.

Nate Diaz↓ −14.3pp
open 57.5%close 43.2%
Rory MacDonald↑ +14.3pp
open 42.5%close 56.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Nate Diaz opened at 57.5% and closed at 43.2% (−14.3pp), with Rory MacDonald 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
Nate Diaz-16012757.5%43.2%−14.3pp
Rory MacDonald120-13742.5%56.8%+14.3pp
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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