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History · 2019 · UFC Fight Night: Thompson vs. Pettis · Curtis Blaydes vs Justin Willis
From the tape · 23 Mar 2019

Curtis Blaydes vs Justin Willis

UFC Fight Night: Thompson vs. Pettis · Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Result

Curtis Blaydes beat Justin Willis

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
HeavyweightCo-MainReferee · Keith Peterson

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 CurtisBlaydes“Razor”Elevation Fight Team · Naperville, Illinois
VSOn the tape
JW
Blue corner JustinWillis“Big Pretty”American Kickboxing Academy · San Jose, California
Heavyweight3 rounds23 Mar 2019
The story going in
  • Has finished 3 of 5 UFC wins.
  • Comes in on a 4-fight win streak.
  • 8 UFC bouts deep — 4 more than Willis.
19-6
Record
8-2
−3 yr28
Age
31
+3″6' 4"
Height
6' 1"
+2″80″
Reach
78″
Orthodox
Stance
Southpaw
+48
UFC bouts
4
+35%3/560% of wins
Finishes
1/425% of wins
Elevation Fight Team
Gym
American Kickboxing Academy
Naperville, Illinois
From
San Jose, 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 — 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
Curtis Blaydes10 sig landed
HEAD50%5 of 8BODY10%1 of 2LEGS40%4 of 4
Justin Willis0 sig landed
HEAD0%0 landedBODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed

No significant strikes landed

10 of 14
Sig.
strikes
0 of 0
4 of 5
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:25
Control
0:00
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 6
Where it
happened
Distance 0Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Blaydes firstDerek Cleary10–8Brian Puccillo10–9Rick Winter10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Curtis Blaydes8 sig landed
HEAD38%3 of 4BODY0%0 landedLEGS62%5 of 5
Justin Willis0 sig landed
HEAD0%0 landedBODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed

No significant strikes landed

8 of 9
Sig.
strikes
0 of 0
2 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
4:39
Control
0:00
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 6
Where it
happened
Distance 0Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Blaydes firstDerek Cleary10–8Brian Puccillo10–8Rick Winter10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Curtis Blaydes4 sig landed
HEAD50%2 of 7BODY0%0 of 1LEGS50%2 of 2
Justin Willis2 sig landed
HEAD100%2 of 9BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
4 of 10
Sig.
strikes
2 of 9
1 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:40
Control
0:00
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Blaydes firstDerek Cleary10–9Brian Puccillo10–9Rick Winter10–9

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 · Keith Peterson
Curtis BlaydesJustin Willis
Official totals — Curtis Blaydes first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide30–25
Brian Puccillo1.8 avg spread · 36% wide30–26
Rick Winter2.1 avg spread · 51% 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 — 12 scored, Curtis Blaydes first · unofficial

Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com30–25
Sheehan SevereMMA.com30–25
Drake Riggs BJPenn.com30–25
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–25
Combat Press.com30–25
Matthew Wells FanSided.com30–25
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com30–25
MM ABrasil.com.br30–26
Steve Duncan mma.uno30–26
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com30–26
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com30–26
Mike Straus MMAJA30–27

Fan vote · unofficial

30-25 Blaydes · 64%30-26 Blaydes · 29%30-24 Blaydes · 3%30-27 Blaydes · 3%

31 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.

Curtis Blaydes

5.12takedowns / 15 min
5.12 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.96 / 15m
10.89 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
1.45 / 15m
47%
ACCURACY
66%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Justin Willis

0.96takedowns / 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 (5.77 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Heavyweight

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.

Curtis Blaydes↑ +3.5pp
open 66.1%close 69.6%
Justin Willis↓ −3.5pp
open 33.9%close 30.4%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Curtis Blaydes opened at 66.1% and closed at 69.6% (+3.5pp), with Justin Willis 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
Curtis Blaydes-245-26266.1%69.6%+3.5pp
Justin Willis17521733.9%30.4%−3.5pp
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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