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History · 2022 · UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall · Gunnar Nelson vs Takashi Sato
From the tape · 19 Mar 2022

Gunnar Nelson vs Takashi Sato

UFC Fight Night: Volkov vs. Aspinall · London, England, United Kingdom
Result

Gunnar Nelson beat Takashi Sato

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightMain cardReferee · Rich Mitchell

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 GunnarNelson“Gunni”Reykjavik
VSOn the tape
TS
Blue corner TakashiSato“Ten”Kill Cliff FC · Shinjuku, Tokyo
Welterweight3 rounds19 Mar 2022
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Has finished 7 of 8 UFC wins.
19-6-1
Record
16-7
33
Age
−2 yr31
+1″5' 11"
Height
5' 10"
72″
Reach
+1″73″
Switch
Stance
Southpaw
+913
UFC bouts
4
7/888% of wins
Finishes
2/2100% of wins
Reykjavik
From
Shinjuku, Tokyo
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
Gunnar Nelson24 sig landed
HEAD88%21 of 26BODY8%2 of 2LEGS4%1 of 1
Takashi Sato4 sig landed
HEAD50%2 of 8BODY0%0 of 2LEGS50%2 of 2
24 of 29
Sig.
strikes
4 of 12
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:05
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 4Clinch 0Ground 20
Where it
happened
Distance 4Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Nelson firstDavid Lethaby10–9Anders Ohlsson10–9Paul Sutherland10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Gunnar Nelson12 sig landed
HEAD75%9 of 13BODY25%3 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Takashi Sato3 sig landed
HEAD33%1 of 2BODY33%1 of 1LEGS33%1 of 1
12 of 16
Sig.
strikes
3 of 4
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:36
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 5Clinch 0Ground 7
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Nelson firstDavid Lethaby10–9Anders Ohlsson10–9Paul Sutherland10–9
Round 35:00 of action1 sub attemptEnded 5:00
Gunnar Nelson8 sig landed
HEAD75%6 of 8BODY25%2 of 2LEGS0%0 landed
Takashi Sato2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 6BODY50%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
8 of 10
Sig.
strikes
2 of 7
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
3:28
Control
0:00
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 1Clinch 1Ground 6
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Nelson firstDavid Lethaby10–8Anders Ohlsson10–8Paul Sutherland10–8

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 · Rich Mitchell
Gunnar NelsonTakashi Sato
Official totals — Gunnar Nelson first
JudgeTotal
David Lethaby2.1 avg spread · 44% wide30–26
Anders Ohlsson1.9 avg spread · 42% wide30–26
Paul Sutherland2.2 avg spread · 52% wide30–26

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 — 16 scored, Gunnar Nelson first · unofficial

Dan Urban Couchside Judges30–26
Nick Baldwin theScore30–26
Combat Press.com30–26
Drake Riggs MMAMania.com30–26
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com30–26
MM AMania.com30–26
Steve Duncan mma.uno30–26
Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News30–27
Sheehan SevereMMA.com30–27
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com30–27
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com30–27
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com30–27
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27

Fan vote · unofficial

30-26 Nelson · 49%30-25 Nelson · 22%30-27 Nelson · 20%30-24 Nelson · 7%30-23 Nelson · 2%

41 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.

Gunnar Nelson

2.00takedowns / 15 min
2.00 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.76 / 15m
3.85 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
2.05 / 15m
52%
ACCURACY
37%
1.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Takashi Sato

0.76takedowns / 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.

Gunnar Nelson↑ +9.4pp
open 72.4%close 81.8%
Takashi Sato↓ −9.4pp
open 27.6%close 18.2%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Gunnar Nelson opened at 72.4% and closed at 81.8% (+9.4pp), with Takashi Sato 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
Gunnar Nelson-300-62072.4%81.8%+9.4pp
Takashi Sato25042127.6%18.2%−9.4pp
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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