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Events · UFC Fight Night: Dern vs. Hill · Takashi Sato vs Themba Gorimbo
From the tape · 20 May 2023

Takashi Sato vs Themba Gorimbo

UFC Fight Night: Dern vs. Hill · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Themba Gorimbo beat Takashi Sato

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
WelterweightMain cardReferee · Chris Tognoni

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.

TS
Red corner TakashiSato“Ten”Kill Cliff FC · Shinjuku, Tokyo
VSOn the tape
Blue corner ThembaGorimbo“The Answer”MMA Masters · Masvingo
Welterweight3 rounds20 May 2023
The story going in
  • Has dropped 3 straight in the UFC.
  • Averages 3.8 more takedowns per 15 minutes than Sato.
  • 6 UFC bouts deep — 5 more than Gorimbo.
16-7
Record
14-7
32
Age
32
5' 10"
Height
+3″6' 1"
73″
Reach
+4″77″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
+56
UFC bouts
1
Kill Cliff FC
Gym
MMA Masters
Shinjuku, Tokyo
From
Masvingo
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
Takashi Sato3 sig landed
HEAD67%2 of 7BODY33%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Themba Gorimbo7 sig landed
HEAD14%1 of 9BODY86%6 of 7LEGS0%0 landed
3 of 8
Sig.
strikes
7 of 16
1 of 2
Take-
downs
1 of 3
0:32
Control
3:58
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 0Clinch 3Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 6Ground 0
Judges · this round · Sato firstMichael Bell9–10Junichiro Kamijo9–10Tony Weeks9–10
Round 25:00 of action⚡ 1 KD Gorimbo
Takashi Sato14 sig landed
HEAD64%9 of 12BODY36%5 of 5LEGS0%0 landed
Themba Gorimbo18 sig landed
HEAD83%15 of 25BODY17%3 of 5LEGS0%0 landed
14 of 17
Sig.
strikes
18 of 30
1 of 4
Take-
downs
1 of 2
1:14
Control
3:20
0
Knock-
downs
1
Distance 1Clinch 11Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 5Clinch 2Ground 11
Judges · this round · Sato firstMichael Bell9–10Junichiro Kamijo9–10Tony Weeks9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Takashi Sato13 sig landed
HEAD77%10 of 18BODY23%3 of 4LEGS0%0 landed
Themba Gorimbo8 sig landed
HEAD62%5 of 7BODY38%3 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
13 of 22
Sig.
strikes
8 of 10
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 3
0:35
Control
3:57
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 4Clinch 1Ground 8
Where it
happened
Distance 6Clinch 1Ground 1
Judges · this round · Sato firstMichael Bell9–10Junichiro Kamijo9–10Tony 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 · Chris Tognoni
Takashi SatoThemba Gorimbo
Official totals — Takashi Sato first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell27–30
Junichiro Kamijo2.0 avg spread · 43% wide27–30
Tony Weeks2.1 avg spread · 49% wide27–30

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 — 15 scored, Takashi Sato first · unofficial

Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com27–30
Jake Noecker The Scrap News27–30
Steve Duncan mma.uno27–30
Combat Press.com27–30
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com27–30
Alex Behunin MMA Mania27–30
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com27–30
Bloody Elbow.com27–30
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com27–30
Drake Riggs MMAMania.com27–30
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com27–30
Edwin Ayala Sherdog.com27–30
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com27–30
MM AJunkie.com27–30
MM AMania.com27–30

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Gorimbo · 80%29-28 Gorimbo · 12%30-26 Gorimbo · 8%

25 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.

Takashi Sato

0.76takedowns / 15 min
0.76 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
4.52 / 15m
2.05 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
7.29 / 15m
37%
ACCURACY
62%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.40 / 15m

Themba Gorimbo

4.52takedowns / 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.

Takashi Sato↑ +6.0pp
open 39.6%close 45.6%
Themba Gorimbo↓ −6.0pp
open 60.4%close 54.4%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Takashi Sato opened at 39.6% and closed at 45.6% (+6.0pp), with Themba Gorimbo 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
Takashi Sato14511039.6%45.6%+6.0pp
Themba Gorimbo-165-13160.4%54.4%−6.0pp
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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