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History · 2021 · UFC 259: Blachowicz vs. Adesanya · Dominick Cruz vs Casey Kenney
From the tape · 6 Mar 2021

Dominick Cruz vs Casey Kenney

UFC 259: Blachowicz vs. Adesanya · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Dominick Cruz beat Casey Kenney

Method
Decision - Split
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
BantamweightMain cardReferee · Jason Herzog

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.

DC
Red corner DominickCruz“The Dominator”Alliance MMA · San Diego, California
VSOn the tape
CK
Blue corner CaseyKenneyRise Combat Sports · Tuscon, Arizona
Bantamweight3 rounds6 Mar 2021
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • Carries 22 points more takedown defence than Kenney.
  • Is 9 points more accurate striking than Cruz.
24-4
Record
16-4-1
35
Age
−6 yr29
+1″5' 8"
Height
5' 7"
68″
Reach
68″
Orthodox
Stance
Southpaw
+17
UFC bouts
6
1/520% of wins
Finishes
1/520% of wins
Alliance MMA
Gym
Rise Combat Sports
San Diego, California
From
Tuscon, Arizona
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
Dominick Cruz26 sig landed
HEAD38%10 of 29BODY27%7 of 16LEGS35%9 of 11
Casey Kenney23 sig landed
HEAD39%9 of 46BODY26%6 of 7LEGS35%8 of 10
26 of 56
Sig.
strikes
23 of 63
0 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:17
Distance 26Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 22Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Cruz firstMichael Bell9–10Derek Cleary10–9Sal D'Amato10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Dominick Cruz36 sig landed
HEAD67%24 of 70BODY22%8 of 8LEGS11%4 of 4
Casey Kenney33 sig landed
HEAD64%21 of 55BODY3%1 of 6LEGS33%11 of 12
36 of 82
Sig.
strikes
33 of 73
0 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:09
Distance 36Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 33Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Cruz firstMichael Bell9–10Derek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Dominick Cruz27 sig landed
HEAD63%17 of 52BODY33%9 of 11LEGS4%1 of 1
Casey Kenney18 sig landed
HEAD61%11 of 47BODY17%3 of 6LEGS22%4 of 4
27 of 64
Sig.
strikes
18 of 57
2 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 2
2:07
Control
0:00
Distance 23Clinch 4Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 17Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Cruz firstMichael Bell10–9Derek Cleary10–9Sal D'Amato10–9

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 · Jason Herzog
Dominick CruzCasey Kenney
Official totals — Dominick Cruz first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell28–29
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide29–28
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% 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 — 24 scored, Dominick Cruz first · unofficial

Sheehan SevereMMA.com30–27
MM AMania.com30–27
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com30–27
John Pollock POST Wrestling30–27
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com30–27
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com30–27
Drake Riggs TheBodyLockMMA.com30–27
Nick Baldwin theScore30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Shawn Bitter Cageside Press29–28
Mookie Alexander BloodyElbow.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com29–28
Hadi Mohamed Ali albiladpress.com29–28
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com29–28
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com29–28
Scott Fontana Couchside Judges29–28
Phil Murphy ESPN29–28
Joe McDonagh Cageside Press29–28
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com29–28
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com29–28
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28
Shakiel Mahjouri Fightful.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Cruz · 47%29-28 Cruz · 43%29-28 Kenney · 5%30-28 Cruz · 2%30-27 Kenney · 1%

276 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.

Dominick Cruz

2.82takedowns / 15 min
2.82 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.09 / 15m
6.71 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
3.11 / 15m
42%
ACCURACY
35%
0.10 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.40 / 15m

Casey Kenney

1.09takedowns / 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.

Dominick Cruz↓ −5.9pp
open 51.1%close 45.2%
Casey Kenney↑ +5.9pp
open 48.9%close 54.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Dominick Cruz opened at 51.1% and closed at 45.2% (−5.9pp), with Casey Kenney 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
Dominick Cruz-11511051.1%45.2%−5.9pp
Casey Kenney-105-13748.9%54.8%+5.9pp
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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