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Events · UFC 288: Sterling vs. Cejudo · Aljamain Sterling vs Henry Cejudo
From the tape · 6 May 2023

Aljamain Sterling vs Henry Cejudo

UFC 288: Sterling vs. Cejudo · Newark, New Jersey, USA
Result

Aljamain Sterling beat Henry Cejudo

Method
Decision - Split
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
Bantamweight 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 AljamainSterling“Funk Master”Serra-Longo Fight Team · Cortland, New York
VSOn the tape
HC
Blue corner HenryCejudo“Triple C”Fight Ready · Phoenix, Arizona
Bantamweight Title5 rounds6 May 2023
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 8-fight win streak.
  • Comes in on a 6-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 6 of 14 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 4 of 10 UFC wins.
26-5
Record
16-6
−3 yr33
Age
36
+3″5' 7"
Height
5' 4"
+7″71″
Reach
64″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+517
UFC bouts
12
+3%6/1443% of wins
Finishes
4/1040% of wins
Serra-Longo Fight Team
Gym
Fight Ready
Cortland, New York
From
Phoenix, Arizona
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
Aljamain Sterling20 sig landed
HEAD25%5 of 15BODY50%10 of 12LEGS25%5 of 7
Henry Cejudo7 sig landed
HEAD43%3 of 13BODY14%1 of 1LEGS43%3 of 4
20 of 34
Sig.
strikes
7 of 18
2 of 3
Take-
downs
1 of 1
1:37
Control
1:47
Distance 12Clinch 3Ground 5
Where it
happened
Distance 7Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sterling firstMichael Bell10–9Derek Cleary10–9Eric Colón10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Aljamain Sterling29 sig landed
HEAD34%10 of 33BODY38%11 of 14LEGS28%8 of 8
Henry Cejudo31 sig landed
HEAD32%10 of 26BODY23%7 of 11LEGS45%14 of 16
29 of 55
Sig.
strikes
31 of 53
0 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 2
0:00
Control
0:02
Distance 28Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 29Clinch 2Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sterling firstMichael Bell9–10Derek Cleary9–10Eric Colón10–9
Round 35:00 of action
Aljamain Sterling26 sig landed
HEAD46%12 of 15BODY42%11 of 11LEGS12%3 of 3
Henry Cejudo15 sig landed
HEAD47%7 of 19BODY33%5 of 6LEGS20%3 of 4
26 of 29
Sig.
strikes
15 of 29
1 of 6
Take-
downs
1 of 1
1:30
Control
1:43
Distance 17Clinch 7Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 4Ground 1
Judges · this round · Sterling firstMichael Bell9–10Derek Cleary9–10Eric Colón9–10
Round 45:00 of action
Aljamain Sterling36 sig landed
HEAD31%11 of 25BODY36%13 of 14LEGS33%12 of 13
Henry Cejudo19 sig landed
HEAD37%7 of 20BODY26%5 of 6LEGS37%7 of 7
36 of 52
Sig.
strikes
19 of 33
1 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 2
0:38
Control
0:46
Distance 27Clinch 8Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 16Clinch 3Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sterling firstMichael Bell10–9Derek Cleary10–9Eric Colón10–9
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Aljamain Sterling24 sig landed
HEAD54%13 of 24BODY21%5 of 9LEGS25%6 of 7
Henry Cejudo27 sig landed
HEAD30%8 of 21BODY44%12 of 13LEGS26%7 of 7
24 of 40
Sig.
strikes
27 of 41
0 of 1
Take-
downs
1 of 2
0:15
Control
0:48
Distance 19Clinch 5Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 20Clinch 7Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sterling firstMichael Bell9–10Derek Cleary10–9Eric Colón9–10

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

Split Decision

Referee · Herb Dean
Aljamain SterlingHenry Cejudo
Official totals — Aljamain Sterling first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell47–48
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide48–47
Eric Colón2.0 avg spread · 43% wide48–47

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 — 23 scored, Aljamain Sterling first · unofficial

Jay Pettry Sherdog.com49–46
Sheehan SevereMMA.com49–46
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com49–46
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com49–46
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com48–47
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com48–47
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com48–47
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com48–47
MM AJunkie.com48–47
Jake Noecker The Scrap News48–47
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com48–47
Phil Murphy ESPN48–47
Nolan King MMAJunkie.com48–47
Chris De Santiago MiddleEasy.com48–47
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com48–47
Nick Baldwin theScore48–47
Bloody Elbow.com48–47
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News48–47
Dan Levi Best Fight Picks48–47
Steve Duncan mma.uno48–47
Alex Behunin MMA Mania48–47
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com47–48
MM AMania.com47–48

Fan vote · unofficial

48-47 Sterling · 40%48-47 Cejudo · 39%49-46 Sterling · 14%49-46 Cejudo · 3%

1,857 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.

Aljamain Sterling

2.54takedowns / 15 min
2.54 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.78 / 15m
7.94 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
6.14 / 15m
32%
ACCURACY
29%
0.60 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.10 / 15m

Henry Cejudo

1.78takedowns / 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.

Aljamain Sterling↓ −9.5pp
open 58.0%close 48.5%
Henry Cejudo↑ +9.5pp
open 42.0%close 51.5%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Aljamain Sterling opened at 58.0% and closed at 48.5% (−9.5pp), with Henry Cejudo 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
Aljamain Sterling-150-10258.0%48.5%−9.5pp
Henry Cejudo130-11642.0%51.5%+9.5pp
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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