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Events · UFC Fight Night: Ribas vs. Namajunas · Karl Williams vs Justin Tafa
From the tape · 23 Mar 2024

Karl Williams vs Justin Tafa

UFC Fight Night: Ribas vs. Namajunas · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Karl Williams beat Justin Tafa

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
HeavyweightCo-MainReferee · 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 KarlWilliamsXtreme Couture · St. Thomas
VSOn the tape
Blue corner JustinTafa“Bad Man”NTG Fight & Fitness · Brisbane, New South Wales
Heavyweight3 rounds23 Mar 2024
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 2-fight win streak.
  • Every one of Tafa’s 4 UFC wins came inside the distance.
  • Averages 4.2 more takedowns per 15 minutes than Tafa.
  • 8 UFC bouts deep — 6 more than Williams.
10-2
Record
7-5
34
Age
−4 yr30
+3″6' 3"
Height
6' 0"
+5″79″
Reach
74″
Orthodox
Stance
Southpaw
2
UFC bouts
+68
0/20% of wins
Finishes
4/4100% of wins
Xtreme Couture
Gym
NTG Fight & Fitness
St. Thomas
From
Brisbane, New South Wales
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
Karl Williams12 sig landed
HEAD58%7 of 11BODY17%2 of 2LEGS25%3 of 3
Justin Tafa6 sig landed
HEAD67%4 of 10BODY33%2 of 2LEGS0%0 landed
12 of 16
Sig.
strikes
6 of 12
4 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
3:58
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 6Clinch 3Ground 3
Where it
happened
Distance 5Clinch 0Ground 1
Judges · this round · Williams firstMichael Bell10–9Chris Flores10–9Jacob Montalvo10–9
Round 25:00 of action1 sub attempt
Karl Williams20 sig landed
HEAD75%15 of 29BODY20%4 of 4LEGS5%1 of 1
Justin Tafa9 sig landed
HEAD56%5 of 10BODY44%4 of 5LEGS0%0 landed
20 of 34
Sig.
strikes
9 of 15
1 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:45
Control
0:00
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 10Clinch 0Ground 10
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Williams firstMichael Bell10–9Chris Flores10–9Jacob Montalvo10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Karl Williams8 sig landed
HEAD50%4 of 7BODY12%1 of 1LEGS38%3 of 3
Justin Tafa6 sig landed
HEAD100%6 of 16BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
8 of 11
Sig.
strikes
6 of 16
2 of 6
Take-
downs
0 of 0
3:48
Control
0:00
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 5
Where it
happened
Distance 4Clinch 2Ground 0
Judges · this round · Williams firstMichael Bell9–10Chris Flores9–10Jacob Montalvo10–9

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

Unanimous Decision

Referee · Herb Dean
Karl WilliamsJustin Tafa
Official totals — Karl Williams first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell29–28
Chris Flores1.9 avg spread · 44% wide29–28
Jacob Montalvo2.0 avg spread · 47% wide30–27

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 — 12 scored, Karl Williams first · unofficial

Jay Pettry Sherdog.com30–27
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com30–27
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com30–27
Zane Simon The MMA Vivisection30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com30–27
Chris De Santiago Sports Illustrated30–27
Steve Duncan mma.uno30–27
Nate Wilcox BloodyElbow.com30–27
MM AMania.com29–28
Dayne Fox The MMA Draw29–28
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Williams · 33%30-27 Williams · 30%29-28 Tafa · 30%30-26 Williams · 2%29-27 Williams · 2%

46 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.

Karl Williams

4.20takedowns / 15 min
4.20 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.00 / 15m
8.75 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
n/a
48%
ACCURACY
n/a
0.20 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Justin Tafa

0.00takedowns / 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 (5.77 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Heavyweight

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.

Karl Williams↓ −6.8pp
open 70.1%close 63.3%
Justin Tafa↑ +6.8pp
open 29.9%close 36.7%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Karl Williams opened at 70.1% and closed at 63.3% (−6.8pp), with Justin Tafa 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
Karl Williams-290-19470.1%63.3%−6.8pp
Justin Tafa21516129.9%36.7%+6.8pp
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% · dated 2024-03-24 on the odds record (1d from the card date; the nearest day inside a two-day window is used, never a guess) · 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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