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Events · UFC on FOX: Henderson vs Diaz · BJ Penn vs Rory MacDonald
From the tape · 8 Dec 2012

BJ Penn vs Rory MacDonald

UFC on FOX: Henderson vs Diaz · Seattle, Washington, USA
Result

Rory MacDonald beat BJ Penn

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightMain cardReferee · Herb Dean

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
RM
Blue corner RoryMacDonald“Red King”Tristar Gym · Kelowna, British Columbia
Welterweight3 rounds8 Dec 2012
The story going in
  • Has finished 11 of 12 UFC wins.
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • 21 UFC bouts deep — 16 more than MacDonald.
  • Has finished 3 of 4 UFC wins.
16-14-2
Record
19-4
33
Age
−10 yr23
5' 9"
Height
+3″6' 0"
70″
Reach
+6″76″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+1621
UFC bouts
5
+17%11/1292% of wins
Finishes
3/475% 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 — 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 action
BJ Penn10 sig landed
HEAD80%8 of 23BODY20%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Rory MacDonald33 sig landed
HEAD61%20 of 41BODY21%7 of 12LEGS18%6 of 8
10 of 26
Sig.
strikes
33 of 61
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:34
Control
0:46
Distance 8Clinch 2Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 29Clinch 4Ground 0
Judges · this round · Penn firstSal D'Amato9–10Lester Griffin9–10Marcos Rosales9–10
Round 25:00 of action
BJ Penn6 sig landed
HEAD100%6 of 29BODY0%0 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Rory MacDonald57 sig landed
HEAD68%39 of 67BODY28%16 of 20LEGS4%2 of 5
6 of 30
Sig.
strikes
57 of 92
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 1
0:00
Control
0:38
Distance 6Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 52Clinch 4Ground 1
Judges · this round · Penn firstSal D'Amato8–10Lester Griffin8–10Marcos Rosales9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
BJ Penn8 sig landed
HEAD75%6 of 30BODY25%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Rory MacDonald26 sig landed
HEAD73%19 of 40BODY23%6 of 9LEGS4%1 of 1
8 of 33
Sig.
strikes
26 of 50
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:22
Control
1:08
Distance 7Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 24Clinch 2Ground 0
Judges · this round · Penn firstSal D'Amato9–10Lester Griffin9–10Marcos Rosales9–10

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 · Herb Dean
BJ PennRory MacDonald
Official totals — BJ Penn first
JudgeTotal
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide26–30
Lester Griffin2.0 avg spread · 47% wide26–30
Marcos Rosales2.2 avg spread · 51% wide27–30

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 — 10 scored, BJ Penn first · unofficial

Adam Martin Sportsnet.ca25–30
MM AJunkie.com26–30
MM AWeekly.com26–30
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com26–30
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com26–30
TJ DeSantis Sherdog.com27–30
Matthew Roth BleacherReport.com27–30
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com27–30
Dave Doyle MMAFighting.com27–30
Nathan McCarter BleacherReport.com27–30

Fan vote · unofficial

30-26 MacDonald · 75%30-27 MacDonald · 9%30-24 MacDonald · 7%30-25 MacDonald · 4%29-28 Penn · 2%

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.

BJ Penn

1.19takedowns / 15 min
1.19 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.77 / 15m
2.16 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
3.77 / 15m
55%
ACCURACY
47%
0.50 / 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 (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.

BJ Pennclose only
no opening line on recordclose 25.8%
Rory MacDonaldclose only
no opening line on recordclose 74.2%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

We hold the closing consensus for this bout but no opening line, so the strip marks the close alone: BJ Penn 25.8%, Rory MacDonald 74.2%, vig removed.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
BJ Penn27525.8%
Rory MacDonald-285-33274.2%
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 · BestFightOdds has no fighter page scraped for B.J. Penn, so that corner’s CLOSE is read from the opponent’s row, which names it explicitly. No opening line exists for that corner and none is shown.. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
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