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Events · UFC Fight Night: Edwards vs. Muhammad · Manel Kape vs Matheus Nicolau
From the tape · 13 Mar 2021

Manel Kape vs Matheus Nicolau

UFC Fight Night: Edwards vs. Muhammad · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Matheus Nicolau beat Manel Kape

Method
Decision - Split
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
FlyweightMain cardReferee · Mark Smith

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 ManelKape“StarBoy”Xtreme Couture · Luanda
VSOn the tape
Blue corner MatheusNicolauNova Uniao · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Flyweight3 rounds13 Mar 2021
The story going in
  • Lands 1.7 more significant strikes a minute than Nicolau.
  • Carries 8 points more striking defence than Kape.
23-7
Record
19-6-1
−1 yr27
Age
28
5' 5"
Height
+1″5' 6"
+2″68″
Reach
66″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
1
UFC bouts
+34
Xtreme Couture
Gym
Nova Uniao
Luanda
From
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
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 action1 sub attempt
Manel Kape2 sig landed
HEAD0%0 of 7BODY50%1 of 2LEGS50%1 of 1
Matheus Nicolau7 sig landed
HEAD43%3 of 8BODY14%1 of 2LEGS43%3 of 3
2 of 10
Sig.
strikes
7 of 13
0 of 0
Take-
downs
2 of 3
0:02
Control
2:24
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 4Clinch 0Ground 3
Judges · this round · Kape firstDave Hagen9–10Chris Lee9–10Bryan Miner9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Manel Kape28 sig landed
HEAD68%19 of 57BODY21%6 of 9LEGS11%3 of 3
Matheus Nicolau21 sig landed
HEAD48%10 of 26BODY48%10 of 11LEGS5%1 of 1
28 of 69
Sig.
strikes
21 of 38
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 3
0:04
Control
0:03
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 27Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 20Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Kape firstDave Hagen10–9Chris Lee10–9Bryan Miner10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Manel Kape31 sig landed
HEAD58%18 of 56BODY10%3 of 5LEGS32%10 of 10
Matheus Nicolau27 sig landed
HEAD52%14 of 32BODY37%10 of 13LEGS11%3 of 6
31 of 71
Sig.
strikes
27 of 51
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 3
0:32
Control
0:04
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 29Clinch 0Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 26Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Kape firstDave Hagen10–9Chris Lee9–10Bryan Miner9–10

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

Split Decision

Referee · Mark Smith
Manel KapeMatheus Nicolau
Official totals — Manel Kape first
JudgeTotal
Dave Hagen2.0 avg spread · 45% wide29–28
Chris Lee2.0 avg spread · 44% wide28–29
Bryan Miner2.0 avg spread · 42% wide28–29

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 — 22 scored, Manel Kape first · unofficial

Shawn Bitter Cageside Press29–28
E. Casey Leydon29–28
Josh Gross Sherdog.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
MM AMania.com29–28
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com29–28
Lev Pisarsky Sherdog.com29–28
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com29–28
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com29–28
Nick Baldwin theScore29–28
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com29–28
Phil Murphy ESPN29–28
Joe McDonagh Cageside Press29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28
Shakiel Mahjouri Fightful.com29–28
Jillian DeCoursey CombatPress.com29–28
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com29–28
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Drake Riggs TheBodyLockMMA.com29–28
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com29–28
Matthew Wells TheBodyLockMMA.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Kape · 79%29-28 Nicolau · 16%30-27 Kape · 1%29-27 Kape · 1%

555 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.

Manel Kape

0.40takedowns / 15 min
0.40 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.22 / 15m
1.33 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
2.84 / 15m
30%
ACCURACY
43%
0.30 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.80 / 15m

Matheus Nicolau

1.22takedowns / 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.

Manel Kape↑ +4.8pp
open 50.0%close 54.8%
Matheus Nicolau↓ −4.8pp
open 50.0%close 45.2%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Manel Kape opened at 50.0% and closed at 54.8% (+4.8pp), with Matheus Nicolau 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
Manel Kape-115-13550.0%54.8%+4.8pp
Matheus Nicolau-11511150.0%45.2%−4.8pp
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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