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Events · UFC 197: Jones vs Saint Preux · Carla Esparza vs Juliana Lima
From the tape · 23 Apr 2016

Carla Esparza vs Juliana Lima

UFC 197: Jones vs Saint Preux · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Carla Esparza beat Juliana Lima

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
Women's StrawweightMain 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.

Red corner CarlaEsparza“Cookie Monster”Team Oyama · Redondo Beach, California
VSOn the tape
JL
Blue corner JulianaLima“Ju Thai”Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Women's Strawweight3 rounds23 Apr 2016
The story going in
  • Averages 1.6 more takedowns per 15 minutes than Lima.
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Carries 23 points more takedown defence than Esparza.
20-8
Record
9-5
−6 yr28
Age
34
5' 1"
Height
+4″5' 5"
63″
Reach
+2″65″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
2
UFC bouts
+13
1/1100% of wins
Finishes
0/20% of wins
Redondo Beach, California
From
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
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
Carla Esparza7 sig landed
HEAD71%5 of 10BODY29%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Juliana Lima10 sig landed
HEAD70%7 of 12BODY30%3 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
7 of 13
Sig.
strikes
10 of 15
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 2
3:20
Control
0:26
Distance 1Clinch 1Ground 5
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 4Ground 3
Judges · this round · Esparza firstDerek Cleary10–9Junichiro Kamijo10–9Jeff Mullen10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Carla Esparza5 sig landed
HEAD60%3 of 8BODY40%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Juliana Lima8 sig landed
HEAD75%6 of 13BODY25%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
5 of 11
Sig.
strikes
8 of 16
1 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 1
3:28
Control
0:28
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 4
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 4
Judges · this round · Esparza firstDerek Cleary10–9Junichiro Kamijo10–9Jeff Mullen10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Carla Esparza16 sig landed
HEAD44%7 of 9BODY56%9 of 9LEGS0%0 landed
Juliana Lima8 sig landed
HEAD62%5 of 9BODY25%2 of 2LEGS12%1 of 1
16 of 18
Sig.
strikes
8 of 12
3 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:47
Control
1:21
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 13
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 7
Judges · this round · Esparza firstDerek Cleary10–9Junichiro Kamijo10–9Jeff Mullen10–9

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 · John McCarthy
Carla EsparzaJuliana Lima
Official totals — Carla Esparza first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide30–27
Junichiro Kamijo2.0 avg spread · 43% wide30–27
Jeff Mullen2.1 avg spread · 42% 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 — 24 scored, Carla Esparza first · unofficial

Rob Young CombatPress.com30–27
Dave Meltzer Wrestling Observer30–27
Patrick Stumberg MMAMania.com30–27
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com30–27
TJ DeSantis Sherdog.com30–27
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27
Craig Amos BleacherReport.com30–27
Diego Peixoto MMABrasil.com.br30–27
Severe MMA.com30–27
Youngs TheMMACorner.com30–27
Jason Floyd TheMMAReport.com30–27
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com30–27
Patrick Wyman BleacherReport.com30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Dana Becker FightLine.com30–27
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com30–27
Steven Kelliher Tapology.com30–28
Nick Baldwin BloodyElbow.com29–28
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Jim Edwards MMALatestNews.com29–28
Danny Segura MMAFighting.com29–28
Dallas Winston BloodyElbow.com29–28
John Pollock Fight Network29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Esparza · 64%29-28 Lima · 15%30-27 Lima · 6%29-28 Esparza · 6%30-28 Esparza · 6%

33 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.

Carla Esparza

3.28takedowns / 15 min
3.28 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.72 / 15m
9.11 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
5.55 / 15m
36%
ACCURACY
31%
0.30 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Juliana Lima

1.72takedowns / 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 (4.04 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Women's Strawweight

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.

Carla Esparza↓ −7.5pp
open 71.0%close 63.5%
Juliana Lima↑ +7.5pp
open 29.0%close 36.5%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Carla Esparza opened at 71.0% and closed at 63.5% (−7.5pp), with Juliana Lima 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
Carla Esparza-305-19071.0%63.5%−7.5pp
Juliana Lima22516529.0%36.5%+7.5pp
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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