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History · 2020 · UFC 248: Adesanya vs. Romero · Israel Adesanya vs Yoel Romero
From the tape · 7 Mar 2020

Israel Adesanya vs Yoel Romero

UFC 248: Adesanya vs. Romero · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Israel Adesanya beat Yoel Romero

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
Middleweight TitleTitle fightMainReferee · Dan Miragliotta

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 IsraelAdesanya“The Last Stylebender”City Kickboxing · Lagos
VSOn the tape
YR
Blue corner YoelRomero“Soldier of God”American Top Team · Miami, Florida
Middleweight Title5 rounds7 Mar 2020
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 7-fight win streak.
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Has finished 3 of 7 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 7 of 9 UFC wins.
24-6
Record
13-5
−12 yr30
Age
42
+4″6' 4"
Height
6' 0"
+7″80″
Reach
73″
Switch
Stance
Southpaw
7
UFC bouts
+512
3/743% of wins
Finishes
+35%7/978% of wins
City Kickboxing
Gym
American Top Team
Lagos
From
Miami, Florida
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

5 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Israel Adesanya2 sig landed
HEAD0%0 of 7BODY0%0 landedLEGS100%2 of 4
Yoel Romero4 sig landed
HEAD25%1 of 2BODY25%1 of 1LEGS50%2 of 3
2 of 11
Sig.
strikes
4 of 6
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 4Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstSal D'Amato9–10Chris Lee9–10Ron McCarthy9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Israel Adesanya11 sig landed
HEAD27%3 of 18BODY27%3 of 5LEGS45%5 of 6
Yoel Romero7 sig landed
HEAD71%5 of 11BODY0%0 landedLEGS29%2 of 3
11 of 29
Sig.
strikes
7 of 14
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 11Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 4Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstSal D'Amato9–10Chris Lee10–9Ron McCarthy9–10
Round 35:00 of action
Israel Adesanya12 sig landed
HEAD25%3 of 18BODY33%4 of 7LEGS42%5 of 5
Yoel Romero9 sig landed
HEAD22%2 of 5BODY22%2 of 3LEGS56%5 of 6
12 of 30
Sig.
strikes
9 of 14
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 12Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Ron McCarthy10–9
Round 45:00 of action
Israel Adesanya11 sig landed
HEAD36%4 of 22BODY9%1 of 4LEGS55%6 of 7
Yoel Romero6 sig landed
HEAD67%4 of 15BODY17%1 of 5LEGS17%1 of 2
11 of 33
Sig.
strikes
6 of 22
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 2
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 11Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 5Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Ron McCarthy10–9
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Israel Adesanya12 sig landed
HEAD33%4 of 16BODY8%1 of 6LEGS58%7 of 7
Yoel Romero14 sig landed
HEAD57%8 of 25BODY21%3 of 4LEGS21%3 of 4
12 of 29
Sig.
strikes
14 of 33
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 12Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 14Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Adesanya firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Ron McCarthy10–9

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 · Dan Miragliotta
Israel AdesanyaYoel Romero
Official totals — Israel Adesanya first
JudgeTotal
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide48–47
Chris Lee2.0 avg spread · 44% wide49–46
Ron McCarthy2.0 avg spread · 41% wide48–47

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 — 21 scored, Israel Adesanya first · unofficial

Jay Pettry Sherdog.com49–48
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com48–47
MM AMania.com48–47
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com48–47
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com48–47
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com48–47
Matthew Wells FanSided.com48–47
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com48–47
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com48–47
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com48–47
Jim Edwards MMALatestNews.com48–47
Dominik Durniat Polsat Sport48–47
Phil Murphy ESPN48–48
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com48–48
Drake Riggs TheBodyLockMMA.com47–48
Nick Baldwin theScore47–48
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com47–48
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com47–48
MM AJunkie.com47–48
John Pollock POST Wrestling47–48
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com47–48

Fan vote · unofficial

48-47 Romero · 53%48-47 Adesanya · 22%49-46 Adesanya · 8%49-46 Romero · 3%

2,121 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.

Israel Adesanya

0.05takedowns / 15 min
0.05 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.57 / 15m
0.56 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
5.23 / 15m
9%
ACCURACY
30%
0.10 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Yoel Romero

1.57takedowns / 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 (6.86 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Middleweight

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.

Israel Adesanya↑ +9.8pp
open 61.4%close 71.2%
Yoel Romero↓ −9.8pp
open 38.6%close 28.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Israel Adesanya opened at 61.4% and closed at 71.2% (+9.8pp), with Yoel Romero 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
Israel Adesanya-185-28361.4%71.2%+9.8pp
Yoel Romero14523538.6%28.8%−9.8pp
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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