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History · 2021 · UFC 269: Oliveira vs. Poirier · Geoff Neal vs Santiago Ponzinibbio
From the tape · 11 Dec 2021

Geoff Neal vs Santiago Ponzinibbio

UFC 269: Oliveira vs. Poirier · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Geoff Neal beat Santiago Ponzinibbio

Method
Decision - Split
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightMain 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 GeoffNeal“Handz of Steel”Harker Heights, Texas
VSOn the tape
Blue corner SantiagoPonzinibbio“Argentine Dagger”
Welterweight3 rounds11 Dec 2021
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Has finished 5 of 10 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 4 of 5 UFC wins.
  • 13 UFC bouts deep — 6 more than Neal.
16-8
Record
31-10
−4 yr31
Age
35
5' 11"
Height
+1″6' 0"
+2″75″
Reach
73″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
7
UFC bouts
+613
+30%4/580% of wins
Finishes
5/1050% of wins
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
Geoff Neal20 sig landed
HEAD65%13 of 33BODY10%2 of 3LEGS25%5 of 5
Santiago Ponzinibbio26 sig landed
HEAD65%17 of 54BODY19%5 of 5LEGS15%4 of 4
20 of 41
Sig.
strikes
26 of 63
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 25Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Neal firstDerek Cleary10–9Douglas Crosby9–10Sal D'Amato10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Geoff Neal19 sig landed
HEAD84%16 of 41BODY11%2 of 5LEGS5%1 of 1
Santiago Ponzinibbio26 sig landed
HEAD58%15 of 61BODY15%4 of 5LEGS27%7 of 7
19 of 47
Sig.
strikes
26 of 73
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 4
0:03
Control
0:23
Distance 19Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 26Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Neal firstDerek Cleary10–9Douglas Crosby9–10Sal D'Amato9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Geoff Neal46 sig landed
HEAD96%44 of 71BODY2%1 of 1LEGS2%1 of 1
Santiago Ponzinibbio39 sig landed
HEAD77%30 of 80BODY8%3 of 7LEGS15%6 of 6
46 of 73
Sig.
strikes
39 of 93
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 46Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 39Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Neal firstDerek Cleary10–9Douglas Crosby10–9Sal 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 · Mark Smith
Geoff NealSantiago Ponzinibbio
Official totals — Geoff Neal first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide30–27
Douglas Crosby28–29
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide29–28

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 — 14 scored, Geoff Neal first · unofficial

Sheehan SevereMMA.com30–27
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com30–27
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com29–28
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com29–28
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com29–28
Joe McDonagh Cageside Press28–29
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com28–29
Steven Marrocco MMAFighting.com28–29
MM AMania.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Neal · 45%29-28 Ponzinibbio · 40%30-27 Neal · 11%30-27 Ponzinibbio · 2%

162 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.

Geoff Neal

0.54takedowns / 15 min
0.54 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.60 / 15m
1.20 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
2.22 / 15m
45%
ACCURACY
27%
0.10 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Santiago Ponzinibbio

0.60takedowns / 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 (4.97 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Welterweight

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.

Geoff Neal↓ −4.6pp
open 51.1%close 46.5%
Santiago Ponzinibbio↑ +4.6pp
open 48.9%close 53.5%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Geoff Neal opened at 51.1% and closed at 46.5% (−4.6pp), with Santiago Ponzinibbio 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
Geoff Neal-11510451.1%46.5%−4.6pp
Santiago Ponzinibbio-105-12948.9%53.5%+4.6pp
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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