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Events · UFC 252: Miocic vs. Cormier 3 · John Dodson vs Merab Dvalishvili
From the tape · 15 Aug 2020

John Dodson vs Merab Dvalishvili

UFC 252: Miocic vs. Cormier 3 · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Merab Dvalishvili beat John Dodson

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
BantamweightMain cardReferee · Chris Tognoni

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.

JD
Red corner JohnDodson“The Magician”Jackson-Wink MMA · Albuquerque, New Mexico
VSOn the tape
Blue corner MerabDvalishvili“The Machine”Serra-Longo Fight Team · Tbilisi
Bantamweight3 rounds15 Aug 2020
The story going in
  • Has finished 6 of 10 UFC wins.
  • Comes in on a 4-fight win streak.
  • 16 UFC bouts deep — 10 more than Dvalishvili.
  • Averages 5.3 more takedowns per 15 minutes than Dodson.
22-12
Record
21-5
35
Age
−6 yr29
5' 3"
Height
+3″5' 6"
66″
Reach
+2″68″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+1016
UFC bouts
6
+60%6/1060% of wins
Finishes
0/40% of wins
Jackson-Wink MMA
Gym
Serra-Longo Fight Team
Albuquerque, New Mexico
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
John Dodson5 sig landed
HEAD20%1 of 12BODY60%3 of 3LEGS20%1 of 1
Merab Dvalishvili26 sig landed
HEAD4%1 of 12BODY4%1 of 2LEGS92%24 of 24
5 of 16
Sig.
strikes
26 of 38
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 7
0:00
Control
1:55
Distance 5Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 24Ground 0
Judges · this round · Dodson firstDerek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato9–10Rick Winter9–10
Round 25:00 of action
John Dodson12 sig landed
HEAD42%5 of 25BODY33%4 of 7LEGS25%3 of 3
Merab Dvalishvili9 sig landed
HEAD56%5 of 32BODY22%2 of 3LEGS22%2 of 2
12 of 35
Sig.
strikes
9 of 37
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 8
0:04
Control
0:50
Distance 11Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 8Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Dodson firstDerek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato9–10Rick Winter9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
John Dodson10 sig landed
HEAD50%5 of 26BODY20%2 of 6LEGS30%3 of 3
Merab Dvalishvili15 sig landed
HEAD67%10 of 50BODY7%1 of 4LEGS27%4 of 4
10 of 35
Sig.
strikes
15 of 58
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 5
0:00
Control
0:59
Distance 10Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 15Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Dodson firstDerek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato9–10Rick Winter9–10

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 · Chris Tognoni
John DodsonMerab Dvalishvili
Official totals — John Dodson first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide27–30
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide27–30
Rick Winter2.1 avg spread · 51% wide27–30

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 — 25 scored, John Dodson first · unofficial

Sheehan SevereMMA.com27–30
MM AJunkie.com27–30
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com27–30
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com27–30
MM ABrasil.com.br27–30
MM AMania.com27–30
Eric Kowal MyMMANews.com27–30
Scott Fontana Couchside Judges27–30
John Pollock POST Wrestling27–30
Joe McDonagh Cageside Press27–30
Matthew Wells FanSided.com27–30
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com27–30
Phil Murphy ESPN27–30
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com27–30
Drake Riggs TheBodyLockMMA.com27–30
Nick Baldwin theScore27–30
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com27–30
Greg Rosenstein The Athletic27–30
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com27–30
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com27–30
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com27–30
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com27–30
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com27–30
Dominik Durniat Polsat Sport27–30
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Dvalishvili · 80%29-28 Dvalishvili · 6%30-26 Dvalishvili · 5%29-28 Dodson · 5%30-28 Dvalishvili · 1%

77 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.

John Dodson

0.71takedowns / 15 min
0.71 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
5.97 / 15m
2.54 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
17.06 / 15m
28%
ACCURACY
35%
0.00 / 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.

John Dodson↓ −10.3pp
open 39.3%close 29.1%
Merab Dvalishvili↑ +10.3pp
open 60.7%close 70.9%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

John Dodson opened at 39.3% and closed at 29.1% (−10.3pp), 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
John Dodson14523239.3%29.1%−10.3pp
Merab Dvalishvili-170-27760.7%70.9%+10.3pp
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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