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History · 2023 · UFC 286: Edwards vs. Usman 3 · Leon Edwards vs Kamaru Usman
From the tape · 18 Mar 2023

Leon Edwards vs Kamaru Usman

UFC 286: Edwards vs. Usman 3 · London, England, United Kingdom
Result

Leon Edwards beat Kamaru Usman

Method
Decision - Majority
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
Welterweight TitleTitle fightMainReferee · 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.

Red corner LeonEdwards“Rocky”Team Renegade · Erdington, West Midlands
VSOn the tape
Blue corner KamaruUsman“The Nigerian Nightmare”Kill Cliff FC · Auchi, Edo
Welterweight Title5 rounds18 Mar 2023
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 5 of 15 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 4 of 12 UFC wins.
  • Carries 26 points more takedown defence than Edwards.
22-6
Record
21-5
−4 yr31
Age
35
+2″6' 2"
Height
6' 0"
74″
Reach
+2″76″
Southpaw
Stance
Switch
15
UFC bouts
+116
4/1233% of wins
Finishes
5/1533% of wins
Team Renegade
Gym
Kill Cliff FC
Erdington, West Midlands
From
Auchi, Edo
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

5 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Leon Edwards20 sig landed
HEAD25%5 of 11BODY30%6 of 6LEGS45%9 of 9
Kamaru Usman12 sig landed
HEAD42%5 of 32BODY50%6 of 8LEGS8%1 of 2
20 of 26
Sig.
strikes
12 of 42
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 2
0:00
Control
0:19
Distance 20Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 12Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Edwards firstBen Cartlidge10–9Chris Lee10–9David Lethaby10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Leon Edwards23 sig landed
HEAD39%9 of 11BODY26%6 of 6LEGS35%8 of 9
Kamaru Usman24 sig landed
HEAD79%19 of 42BODY17%4 of 7LEGS4%1 of 1
23 of 26
Sig.
strikes
24 of 50
0 of 1
Take-
downs
1 of 1
0:00
Control
0:45
Distance 22Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 12Clinch 11Ground 1
Judges · this round · Edwards firstBen Cartlidge10–9Chris Lee10–9David Lethaby9–10
Round 35:00 of action
Leon Edwards24 sig landed
HEAD8%2 of 9BODY33%8 of 8LEGS58%14 of 15
Kamaru Usman17 sig landed
HEAD53%9 of 21BODY24%4 of 7LEGS24%4 of 4
24 of 32
Sig.
strikes
17 of 32
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 2
0:00
Control
1:06
Distance 24Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 14Clinch 3Ground 0
Judges · this round · Edwards firstBen Cartlidge9–9Chris Lee8–10David Lethaby8–10
Round 45:00 of action
Leon Edwards25 sig landed
HEAD36%9 of 22BODY16%4 of 6LEGS48%12 of 13
Kamaru Usman14 sig landed
HEAD50%7 of 28BODY50%7 of 8LEGS0%0 of 1
25 of 41
Sig.
strikes
14 of 37
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 4
0:00
Control
0:51
Distance 25Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 14Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Edwards firstBen Cartlidge9–10Chris Lee10–9David Lethaby10–9
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Leon Edwards28 sig landed
HEAD32%9 of 16BODY43%12 of 13LEGS25%7 of 7
Kamaru Usman20 sig landed
HEAD85%17 of 40BODY15%3 of 4LEGS0%0 landed
28 of 36
Sig.
strikes
20 of 44
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 6
0:00
Control
2:02
Distance 20Clinch 8Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 13Clinch 7Ground 0
Judges · this round · Edwards firstBen Cartlidge10–9Chris Lee10–9David Lethaby10–9

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

Majority Decision

Referee · Herb Dean
Leon EdwardsKamaru Usman
Official totals — Leon Edwards first
JudgeTotal
Ben Cartlidge2.1 avg spread · 45% wide48–46
Chris Lee2.0 avg spread · 44% wide48–46
David Lethaby2.1 avg spread · 44% wide47–47

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 — 32 scored, Leon Edwards first · unofficial

Nick Baldwin theScore48–46
MM AMania.com48–46
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com48–46
MM AJunkie.com48–46
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com48–46
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com48–46
Dan Levi Best Fight Picks48–46
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News48–46
John Pollock POST Wrestling48–46
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com48–46
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com48–46
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com48–46
Phil Murphy ESPN48–46
Severe MMA.com48–46
Drake Riggs MMAMania.com48–46
Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com48–46
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com48–46
Alex Behunin MMA Mania48–46
Shakiel Mahjouri CBS Sports48–46
Nolan King MMAJunkie.com47–47
Combat Press.com47–47
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com47–47
Jake Noecker BetQL47–47
Steve Duncan mma.uno47–47
Scott Fontana New York Post47–47
Sheehan SevereMMA.com47–47
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com47–47
Jillian DeCoursey47–47
Shane Clifford Sherdog.com47–47
Bloody Elbow.com47–47
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com46–48
Kendrick Johnson The Sports Daily46–48

Fan vote · unofficial

48-46 Edwards · 42%49-45 Edwards · 10%48-46 Usman · 10%48-47 Edwards · 3%

1,756 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.

Leon Edwards

1.25takedowns / 15 min
1.25 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.79 / 15m
3.38 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
6.34 / 15m
37%
ACCURACY
44%
0.40 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.10 / 15m

Kamaru Usman

2.79takedowns / 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 (5.32 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked roster-wide

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.

Leon Edwardsclose only
no opening line on recordclose 30.8%
Kamaru Usmanclose only
no opening line on recordclose 69.2%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

We hold the closing consensus for this bout but no opening line, so the strip marks the close alone: Leon Edwards 30.8%, Kamaru Usman 69.2%, vig removed.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
Leon Edwards28521230.8%
Kamaru Usman-25669.2%
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 · BestFightOdds has no fighter page scraped for Kamaru Usman, so that corner’s CLOSE is read from the opponent’s row, which names it explicitly. No opening line exists for that corner and none is shown.. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
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