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Events · UFC 259: Blachowicz vs. Adesanya · Joseph Benavidez vs Askar Askarov
From the tape · 6 Mar 2021

Joseph Benavidez vs Askar Askarov

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

Askar Askarov beat Joseph Benavidez

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
FlyweightMain 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.

JB
Red corner JosephBenavidezXtreme Couture · Sacramento, California
VSOn the tape
AA
Blue corner AskarAskarov“Bullet”Fighting Eagle · Khasavyurt, Dagestan
Flyweight3 rounds6 Mar 2021
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 6 of 15 UFC wins.
  • Is 20 points more accurate striking than Benavidez.
28-8
Record
14-1-1
36
Age
−8 yr28
5' 4"
Height
+2″5' 6"
65″
Reach
+2″67″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
+1720
UFC bouts
3
6/1540% of wins
Finishes
0/20% of wins
Xtreme Couture
Gym
Fighting Eagle
Sacramento, California
From
Khasavyurt, Dagestan
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
Joseph Benavidez18 sig landed
HEAD28%5 of 23BODY44%8 of 23LEGS28%5 of 8
Askar Askarov21 sig landed
HEAD62%13 of 17BODY33%7 of 8LEGS5%1 of 1
18 of 54
Sig.
strikes
21 of 26
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 2
0:00
Control
0:54
Distance 16Clinch 2Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 20Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Benavidez firstDerek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato9–10Tony Weeks9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Joseph Benavidez11 sig landed
HEAD45%5 of 13BODY36%4 of 4LEGS18%2 of 2
Askar Askarov17 sig landed
HEAD71%12 of 19BODY12%2 of 2LEGS18%3 of 3
11 of 19
Sig.
strikes
17 of 24
0 of 0
Take-
downs
4 of 4
0:00
Control
4:06
Distance 8Clinch 2Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 3Ground 4
Judges · this round · Benavidez firstDerek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato8–10Tony Weeks9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Joseph Benavidez17 sig landed
HEAD18%3 of 21BODY53%9 of 14LEGS29%5 of 6
Askar Askarov20 sig landed
HEAD70%14 of 29BODY25%5 of 8LEGS5%1 of 1
17 of 41
Sig.
strikes
20 of 38
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 17Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Benavidez firstDerek Cleary9–10Sal D'Amato9–10Tony Weeks9–10

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 · Jason Herzog
Joseph BenavidezAskar Askarov
Official totals — Joseph Benavidez first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide27–30
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide26–30
Tony Weeks2.1 avg spread · 49% 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 — 19 scored, Joseph Benavidez first · unofficial

Steve Duncan mma.uno26–30
Sheehan SevereMMA.com26–30
Joe McDonagh Cageside Press26–30
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com26–30
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com26–30
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com26–30
MM AJunkie.com26–30
Nick Baldwin theScore26–30
Marcel Dorff mmadna.nl26–30
John Pollock POST Wrestling26–30
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com26–30
Mookie Alexander BloodyElbow.com27–30
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com27–30
MM AMania.com27–30
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com27–30
Scott Fontana Couchside Judges27–30
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com27–30
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com27–30
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Askarov · 45%30-26 Askarov · 33%29-28 Askarov · 12%29-28 Benavidez · 4%29-27 Askarov · 4%

67 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.

Joseph Benavidez

1.41takedowns / 15 min
1.41 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.60 / 15m
4.70 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
10.83 / 15m
30%
ACCURACY
24%
0.60 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.40 / 15m

Askar Askarov

2.60takedowns / 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 (5.00 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Flyweight

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.

Joseph Benavidez↓ −14.2pp
open 58.0%close 43.8%
Askar Askarov↑ +14.2pp
open 42.0%close 56.2%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Joseph Benavidez opened at 58.0% and closed at 43.8% (−14.2pp), with Askar Askarov 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
Joseph Benavidez-15011758.0%43.8%−14.2pp
Askar Askarov130-14542.0%56.2%+14.2pp
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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