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Events · UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Daukaus · Stephen Thompson vs Belal Muhammad
From the tape · 18 Dec 2021

Stephen Thompson vs Belal Muhammad

UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Daukaus · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Belal Muhammad beat Stephen Thompson

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightCo-MainReferee · Herb Dean

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.

ST
Red corner StephenThompson“Wonderboy”Simpsonville, South Carolina
VSOn the tape
Blue corner BelalMuhammad“Remember the Name”Roufusport · Chicago, Illinois
Welterweight3 rounds18 Dec 2021
The story going in
  • Has finished 5 of 11 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 2 of 10 UFC wins.
  • Carries 27 points more takedown defence than Thompson.
17-9-1
Record
24-6
38
Age
−5 yr33
+1″6' 0"
Height
5' 11"
+3″75″
Reach
72″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+317
UFC bouts
14
+25%5/1145% of wins
Finishes
2/1020% of wins
Simpsonville, South Carolina
From
Chicago, Illinois
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
Stephen Thompson10 sig landed
HEAD80%8 of 14BODY20%2 of 2LEGS0%0 landed
Belal Muhammad44 sig landed
HEAD95%42 of 69BODY2%1 of 1LEGS2%1 of 2
10 of 16
Sig.
strikes
44 of 72
0 of 0
Take-
downs
3 of 4
0:45
Control
3:07
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 8Clinch 1Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 1Ground 41
Judges · this round · Thompson firstMichael Bell8–10Douglas Crosby8–10Sal D'Amato9–10
Round 25:00 of action1 sub attempt
Stephen Thompson7 sig landed
HEAD71%5 of 9BODY29%2 of 2LEGS0%0 landed
Belal Muhammad10 sig landed
HEAD100%10 of 16BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
7 of 11
Sig.
strikes
10 of 16
0 of 0
Take-
downs
2 of 2
0:00
Control
4:11
0
Sub
attempts
1
Distance 7Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 0Clinch 0Ground 10
Judges · this round · Thompson firstMichael Bell9–10Douglas Crosby9–10Sal D'Amato9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Stephen Thompson2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 4BODY50%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Belal Muhammad4 sig landed
HEAD100%4 of 7BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
2 of 5
Sig.
strikes
4 of 7
0 of 1
Take-
downs
2 of 3
0:07
Control
4:39
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 0Clinch 0Ground 4
Judges · this round · Thompson firstMichael Bell8–10Douglas Crosby9–10Sal D'Amato8–10

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 · Herb Dean
Stephen ThompsonBelal Muhammad
Official totals — Stephen Thompson first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell25–30
Douglas Crosby26–30
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide26–30

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 — 14 scored, Stephen Thompson first · unofficial

Drake Riggs SCMP MMA25–30
Nick Baldwin theScore26–30
Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com26–30
Jillian DeCoursey26–30
MM AMania.com26–30
MM AJunkie.com26–30
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com26–30
Daniel Yanofsky Fightful.com27–30
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com27–30
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com27–30
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com27–30
Brian Knapp tr27–30
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com27–30
Eddie Mercado BloodyElbow.com27–30

Fan vote · unofficial

30-26 Muhammad · 32%30-25 Muhammad · 30%30-24 Muhammad · 22%30-27 Muhammad · 10%30-26 Thompson · 2%

120 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.

Stephen Thompson

0.23takedowns / 15 min
0.23 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.14 / 15m
0.66 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
5.94 / 15m
35%
ACCURACY
36%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.10 / 15m

Belal Muhammad

2.14takedowns / 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.

Stephen Thompson↓ −2.6pp
open 68.9%close 66.3%
Belal Muhammad↑ +2.6pp
open 31.1%close 33.7%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Stephen Thompson opened at 68.9% and closed at 66.3% (−2.6pp), with Belal Muhammad 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
Stephen Thompson-250-22468.9%66.3%−2.6pp
Belal Muhammad21018531.1%33.7%+2.6pp
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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