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History · 2020 · UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Till · Carla Esparza vs Marina Rodriguez
From the tape · 25 Jul 2020

Carla Esparza vs Marina Rodriguez

UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs. Till · Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Result

Carla Esparza beat Marina Rodriguez

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

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
Blue corner MarinaRodriguezThai Brasil · Bage, Rio Grande do Sul
Women's Strawweight3 rounds25 Jul 2020
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • Lands 2.3 more significant strikes a minute than Esparza.
  • 11 UFC bouts deep — 7 more than Rodriguez.
20-8
Record
17-6-2
−1 yr32
Age
33
5' 1"
Height
+5″5' 6"
63″
Reach
+2″65″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+711
UFC bouts
4
1/714% of wins
Finishes
0/20% of wins
Team Oyama
Gym
Thai Brasil
Redondo Beach, California
From
Bage, Rio Grande do Sul
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 Esparza8 sig landed
HEAD100%8 of 12BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
Marina Rodriguez20 sig landed
HEAD100%20 of 33BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
8 of 12
Sig.
strikes
20 of 33
1 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
3:21
Control
0:50
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 0Clinch 0Ground 8
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 18
Judges · this round · Esparza firstBen Cartlidge10–9Anders Ohlsson9–10Clemens Werner10–9
Round 25:00 of action1 sub attempt
Carla Esparza7 sig landed
HEAD86%6 of 18BODY14%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Marina Rodriguez14 sig landed
HEAD64%9 of 24BODY0%0 landedLEGS36%5 of 5
7 of 19
Sig.
strikes
14 of 29
1 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:28
Control
0:14
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 6
Where it
happened
Distance 8Clinch 0Ground 6
Judges · this round · Esparza firstBen Cartlidge9–10Anders Ohlsson9–10Clemens Werner10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Carla Esparza18 sig landed
HEAD83%15 of 26BODY11%2 of 2LEGS6%1 of 1
Marina Rodriguez6 sig landed
HEAD83%5 of 13BODY0%0 landedLEGS17%1 of 1
18 of 29
Sig.
strikes
6 of 14
3 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
3:05
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 14
Where it
happened
Distance 5Clinch 0Ground 1
Judges · this round · Esparza firstBen Cartlidge10–9Anders Ohlsson10–9Clemens Werner10–9

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 · Rich Mitchell
Carla EsparzaMarina Rodriguez
Official totals — Carla Esparza first
JudgeTotal
Ben Cartlidge2.1 avg spread · 45% wide29–28
Anders Ohlsson1.9 avg spread · 42% wide28–29
Clemens Werner2.1 avg spread · 50% 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 — 18 scored, Carla Esparza first · unofficial

MM ABrasil.com.br30–27
MM AMania.com30–27
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com29–28
Shawn Bitter Cageside Press29–28
Greg Rosenstein The Athletic29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
Marcel Dorff mmadna.nl29–28
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com28–29
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com28–29
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com28–29
Sheehan SevereMMA.com28–29
Eric Kowal MyMMANews.com28–29
Joe McDonagh Cageside Press28–29
Scott Fontana Couchside Judges28–29
Drake Riggs TheBodyLockMMA.com28–29
Matthew Wells FanSided.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Rodriguez · 52%29-28 Esparza · 29%30-27 Esparza · 10%30-27 Rodriguez · 3%

225 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
0.27 / 15m
9.11 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
0.54 / 15m
36%
ACCURACY
50%
0.30 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.30 / 15m

Marina Rodriguez

0.27takedowns / 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↓ −7.7pp
open 43.8%close 36.1%
Marina Rodriguez↑ +7.7pp
open 56.2%close 63.9%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Carla Esparza opened at 43.8% and closed at 36.1% (−7.7pp), with Marina Rodriguez 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 Esparza12016743.8%36.1%−7.7pp
Marina Rodriguez-140-19656.2%63.9%+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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