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History · 2017 · UFC Fight Night: Swanson vs. Ortega · Frankie Saenz vs Merab Dvalishvili
From the tape · 9 Dec 2017

Frankie Saenz vs Merab Dvalishvili

UFC Fight Night: Swanson vs. Ortega · Fresno, California, USA
Result

Frankie Saenz beat Merab Dvalishvili

Method
Decision - Split
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
BantamweightMain cardReferee · Frank Trigg

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.

FS
Red corner FrankieSaenzFight Ready · Scottsdale, Arizona
VSOn the tape
Blue corner MerabDvalishvili“The Machine”Serra-Longo Fight Team · Tbilisi
Bantamweight3 rounds9 Dec 2017
The story going in
  • Has dropped 3 straight in the UFC.
  • Averages 4.2 more takedowns per 15 minutes than Saenz.
13-7
Record
21-5
37
Age
−11 yr26
5' 6"
Height
5' 6"
66″
Reach
+2″68″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
Fight Ready
Gym
Serra-Longo Fight Team
Scottsdale, Arizona
From
Tbilisi
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
Frankie Saenz24 sig landed
HEAD21%5 of 8BODY71%17 of 18LEGS8%2 of 2
Merab Dvalishvili7 sig landed
HEAD29%2 of 27BODY57%4 of 6LEGS14%1 of 1
24 of 28
Sig.
strikes
7 of 34
0 of 1
Take-
downs
2 of 9
0:00
Control
3:10
Distance 7Clinch 16Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 0Clinch 5Ground 2
Judges · this round · Saenz firstDerek Cleary9–10Ron McCarthy10–9Marcos Rosales10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Frankie Saenz17 sig landed
HEAD41%7 of 24BODY47%8 of 11LEGS12%2 of 3
Merab Dvalishvili29 sig landed
HEAD79%23 of 49BODY14%4 of 6LEGS7%2 of 3
17 of 38
Sig.
strikes
29 of 58
0 of 2
Take-
downs
4 of 5
0:05
Control
2:24
Distance 7Clinch 10Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 17Clinch 12Ground 0
Judges · this round · Saenz firstDerek Cleary9–10Ron McCarthy9–10Marcos Rosales9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Frankie Saenz17 sig landed
HEAD59%10 of 31BODY35%6 of 8LEGS6%1 of 1
Merab Dvalishvili11 sig landed
HEAD82%9 of 22BODY18%2 of 4LEGS0%0 landed
17 of 40
Sig.
strikes
11 of 26
0 of 0
Take-
downs
5 of 9
0:14
Control
2:12
Distance 8Clinch 8Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 7Clinch 4Ground 0
Judges · this round · Saenz firstDerek Cleary10–9Ron McCarthy10–9Marcos Rosales10–9

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

Split Decision

Referee · Frank Trigg
Frankie SaenzMerab Dvalishvili
Official totals — Frankie Saenz first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide28–29
Ron McCarthy2.0 avg spread · 41% wide29–28
Marcos Rosales2.2 avg spread · 51% wide29–28

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 — 14 scored, Frankie Saenz first · unofficial

Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com30–27
Wesley Riddle MMASucka.com29–28
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com29–28
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com29–28
Combat Press.com28–29
Matthew Wells FanSided.com28–29
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com28–29
Dominik Durniat Extreme Sports Channel28–29
MM AJunkie.com28–29
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com28–29
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com27–30
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com27–30
Craig Amos BleacherReport.com27–30
MM AMania.com27–30

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Dvalishvili · 45%30-27 Dvalishvili · 26%29-28 Saenz · 15%30-27 Saenz · 7%30-28 Saenz · 1%

139 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.

Frankie Saenz

1.74takedowns / 15 min
1.74 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
5.97 / 15m
5.61 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
17.06 / 15m
31%
ACCURACY
35%
0.10 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.30 / 15m

Merab Dvalishvili

5.97takedowns / 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 (5.45 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Bantamweight

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.

Frankie Saenz↓ −7.7pp
open 44.2%close 36.5%
Merab Dvalishvili↑ +7.7pp
open 55.8%close 63.5%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Frankie Saenz opened at 44.2% and closed at 36.5% (−7.7pp), with Merab Dvalishvili 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
Frankie Saenz11016544.2%36.5%−7.7pp
Merab Dvalishvili-150-19055.8%63.5%+7.7pp
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.
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