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Events · UFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero 2 · Claudia Gadelha vs Carla Esparza
From the tape · 9 Jun 2018

Claudia Gadelha vs Carla Esparza

UFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero 2 · Chicago, Illinois, USA
Result

Claudia Gadelha beat Carla Esparza

Method
Decision - Split
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
Women's StrawweightMain cardReferee · Robert Madrigal

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.

CG
Red corner ClaudiaGadelha“Claudinha”Mossoro, Rio Grande do Norte
VSOn the tape
Blue corner CarlaEsparza“Cookie Monster”Team Oyama · Redondo Beach, California
Women's Strawweight3 rounds9 Jun 2018
The story going in
  • Lands 1.1 more significant strikes a minute than Esparza.
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
18-5
Record
20-8
−1 yr29
Age
30
+3″5' 4"
Height
5' 1"
63″
Reach
63″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+17
UFC bouts
6
1/425% of wins
Finishes
1/425% of wins
Mossoro, Rio Grande do Norte
From
Redondo Beach, California
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 action1 sub attempt
Claudia Gadelha13 sig landed
HEAD92%12 of 27BODY8%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Carla Esparza13 sig landed
HEAD62%8 of 30BODY0%0 landedLEGS38%5 of 6
13 of 28
Sig.
strikes
13 of 36
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 2
0:59
Control
1:14
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 10Clinch 1Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 11Clinch 2Ground 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
Claudia Gadelha4 sig landed
HEAD100%4 of 14BODY0%0 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Carla Esparza14 sig landed
HEAD86%12 of 23BODY7%1 of 1LEGS7%1 of 3
4 of 15
Sig.
strikes
14 of 27
2 of 3
Take-
downs
1 of 1
2:44
Control
1:16
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 6Clinch 4Ground 4
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
Claudia Gadelha9 sig landed
HEAD78%7 of 18BODY22%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Carla Esparza16 sig landed
HEAD81%13 of 36BODY12%2 of 2LEGS6%1 of 2
9 of 21
Sig.
strikes
16 of 40
1 of 1
Take-
downs
1 of 1
1:17
Control
1:06
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 9Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 11Clinch 1Ground 4
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

Split Decision

Referee · Robert Madrigal
Official totals — Claudia Gadelha first
JudgeTotal
Brian Puccillo1.8 avg spread · 36% wide29–28
Kelvin Caldwell28–29
Mike Bell1.9 avg spread · 37% wide29–28

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 — 24 scored, Claudia Gadelha first · unofficial

Nathan McCarter BleacherReport.com29–28
Mike Straus MMAJA29–28
Alexander K. Lee MMAFighting.com29–28
MM AMania.com29–28
Steven Rondina BleacherReport.com29–28
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com29–28
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com29–28
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
Sheehan SevereMMA.com29–28
Chris Connor The Fight City29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Steve Duncan mma.uno29–28
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com29–28
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com29–28
John Pollock POST Wrestling29–28
MM ABrasil.com.br29–28
Phil Murphy ESPN29–28
Nick Baldwin BloodyElbow.com29–28
Drake Riggs BJPenn.com29–29
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com28–29
Nolan King MMA- Today.com28–29
Kendrick Johnson The Ring28–29
Matthew Wells FanSided.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Gadelha · 56%29-28 Esparza · 32%30-27 Esparza · 3%30-27 Gadelha · 2%

192 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.

Claudia Gadelha

3.03takedowns / 15 min
3.03 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
3.28 / 15m
7.21 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
9.11 / 15m
42%
ACCURACY
36%
0.70 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.30 / 15m

Carla Esparza

3.28takedowns / 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.

Claudia Gadelha↓ −5.0pp
open 75.2%close 70.2%
Carla Esparza↑ +5.0pp
open 24.8%close 29.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Claudia Gadelha opened at 75.2% and closed at 70.2% (−5.0pp), with Carla Esparza 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
Claudia Gadelha-400-26575.2%70.2%−5.0pp
Carla Esparza28022524.8%29.8%+5.0pp
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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