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Events · UFC 276: Adesanya vs. Cannonier · Brad Tavares vs Dricus Du Plessis
From the tape · 2 Jul 2022

Brad Tavares vs Dricus Du Plessis

UFC 276: Adesanya vs. Cannonier · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Dricus Du Plessis beat Brad Tavares

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightMain 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 BradTavaresKailua, Hawaii
VSOn the tape
Blue corner Dricus DuPlessis“Stillknocks”Team CIT · Pretoria, Gauteng
Middleweight3 rounds2 Jul 2022
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 2 of 14 UFC wins.
  • Lands 1.8 more significant strikes a minute than Tavares.
21-13
Record
24-3
34
Age
−6 yr28
6' 1"
Height
6' 1"
74″
Reach
+2″76″
Orthodox
Stance
Switch
+1820
UFC bouts
2
2/1414% of wins
Finishes
2/2100% of wins
Kailua, Hawaii
From
Pretoria, Gauteng
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
Brad Tavares10 sig landed
HEAD80%8 of 10BODY20%2 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
Dricus Du Plessis14 sig landed
HEAD71%10 of 19BODY14%2 of 3LEGS14%2 of 4
10 of 13
Sig.
strikes
14 of 26
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 6
1:58
Control
1:18
Distance 6Clinch 3Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 3Ground 2
Judges · this round · Tavares firstMichael Bell10–9Ron McCarthy10–9Tony Weeks10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Brad Tavares33 sig landed
HEAD58%19 of 41BODY30%10 of 14LEGS12%4 of 4
Dricus Du Plessis39 sig landed
HEAD72%28 of 61BODY13%5 of 6LEGS15%6 of 8
33 of 59
Sig.
strikes
39 of 75
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:03
Control
0:00
Distance 28Clinch 5Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 33Clinch 6Ground 0
Judges · this round · Tavares firstMichael Bell9–10Ron McCarthy9–10Tony Weeks9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Brad Tavares39 sig landed
HEAD72%28 of 62BODY23%9 of 14LEGS5%2 of 2
Dricus Du Plessis60 sig landed
HEAD68%41 of 89BODY17%10 of 12LEGS15%9 of 10
39 of 78
Sig.
strikes
60 of 111
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 35Clinch 4Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 55Clinch 5Ground 0
Judges · this round · Tavares firstMichael Bell9–10Ron McCarthy9–10Tony 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 · Mark Smith
Brad TavaresDricus Du Plessis
Official totals — Brad Tavares first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell28–29
Ron McCarthy2.0 avg spread · 41% wide28–29
Tony Weeks2.1 avg spread · 49% 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 — 20 scored, Brad Tavares first · unofficial

Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com28–29
Plessis Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com28–29
Plessis Mike Sloan Sherdog.com28–29
Plessis Jay Pettry Sherdog.com28–29
Plessis MMAMania.com28–29
Plessis MMAJunkie.com28–29
Plessis Seán Sheehan SevereMMA.com28–29
Plessis Marcel Dorff Eurosport Nederland28–29
Plessis Drake Riggs MMAMania.com28–29
Plessis Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com28–29
Plessis Joe McDonagh Cageside Press28–29
Plessis Keith Shillan Sherdog.com28–29
Plessis Greg Rosenstein The Athletic28–29
Plessis Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com28–29
Plessis Jillian DeCoursey28–29
Plessis Steve Duncan mma.uno28–29
Plessis CombatPress.com28–29
Plessis Rob Tatum CombatPress.com28–29
Plessis Eric Kowal MyMMANews.com28–29
Plessis Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Du Plessis · 86%29-28 Tavares · 7%29-27 Du Plessis · 4%30-27 Du Plessis · 2%30-27 Tavares · 1%

112 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.

Brad Tavares

0.70takedowns / 15 min
0.70 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.22 / 15m
2.69 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
4.35 / 15m
26%
ACCURACY
51%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.70 / 15m

Dricus Du Plessis

2.22takedowns / 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 (6.86 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Middleweight

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.

Brad Tavares↓ −15.1pp
open 54.3%close 39.2%
Dricus Du Plessis↑ +15.1pp
open 45.7%close 60.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Brad Tavares opened at 54.3% and closed at 39.2% (−15.1pp), with Dricus Du Plessis 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
Brad Tavares-13014454.3%39.2%−15.1pp
Dricus Du Plessis110-17545.7%60.8%+15.1pp
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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