This Saturday Hooker vs Parnasse · Accor Arena Paris France See this week's picks →
Events · UFC 328: Chimaev vs Strickland · Alexander Volkov vs Waldo Cortes Acosta
Red corner AlexanderVolkov“Drago”Strela Team · Moscow
VSSettled
Blue corner Waldo CortesAcosta“Salsa Boy”Ultimate Kombat Fitness · Fundacion, Barahona
Heavyweight3 rounds9 May 2026
The story going in
  • Has finished 7 of 13 UFC wins.
  • Comes in on a 3-fight win streak.
  • 18 UFC bouts deep — 6 more than Acosta.
  • Has finished 5 of 10 UFC wins.
40-11
Record
17-3
37
Age
−3 yr34
+3″6' 7"
Height
6' 4"
+2″80″
Reach
78″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+618
UFC bouts
12
+4%7/1354% of wins
Finishes
5/1050% of wins
Strela Team
Gym
Ultimate Kombat Fitness
Moscow
From
Fundacion, Barahona
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.

The call vs the fight

What we published before the card, next to what happened in the cage.

Our call
Alexander Volkov
57.8% confidentLOW
Method calledDEC 54%
Vs the market−1.7pp
Market had our pick at60%
The fight
Alexander Volkov
WIN
How it endedDEC
Round3 of 3
Clock5:00
Called it We called Alexander Volkov at 57.8% and Alexander Volkov won. The method call landed too.
Graded against the official UFC result, from the same record every other page on this site is graded from. The tick beside the verdict is the method call — a correct winner with a wrong method is a partial hit and reads as one. See the full public record →

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
Alexander Volkov33 sig landed
HEAD12%4 of 14BODY24%8 of 8LEGS64%21 of 22
Waldo Cortes Acosta15 sig landed
HEAD47%7 of 21BODY13%2 of 4LEGS40%6 of 8
33 of 44
Sig.
strikes
15 of 33
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 33Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 15Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Volkov firstJon Bilyk10–9Henry Krawiec10–9Dave Tirelli9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Alexander Volkov34 sig landed
HEAD38%13 of 31BODY21%7 of 11LEGS41%14 of 14
Waldo Cortes Acosta22 sig landed
HEAD36%8 of 29BODY14%3 of 6LEGS50%11 of 12
34 of 56
Sig.
strikes
22 of 47
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 34Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 22Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Volkov firstJon Bilyk10–9Henry Krawiec10–9Dave Tirelli10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Alexander Volkov21 sig landed
HEAD24%5 of 25BODY38%8 of 10LEGS38%8 of 8
Waldo Cortes Acosta17 sig landed
HEAD88%15 of 41BODY6%1 of 3LEGS6%1 of 6
21 of 43
Sig.
strikes
17 of 50
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:03
Control
0:01
Distance 21Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 16Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Volkov firstJon Bilyk10–9Henry Krawiec9–10Dave Tirelli10–9

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 · Mike Beltran
Alexander VolkovWaldo Cortes Acosta
Official totals — Alexander Volkov first
JudgeTotal
Jon Bilyk30–27
Henry Krawiec29–28
Dave Tirelli2.2 avg spread · 56% wide29–28

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, Alexander Volkov first · unofficial

Jake Noecker Home of Fight29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Dayne Fox Sherdog.com29–28
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28
MM A Latinoamerica29–28
Drake Riggs Uncrowned29–28
Zane Simon The MMA Vivisection29–28
Sheehan SevereMMA.com29–28
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com29–28
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com29–28
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com29–28
MM AFighting.com29–28
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com28–29
Steve Duncan mma.uno28–29
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Volkov · 55%29-28 Cortes-Acosta · 26%30-27 Volkov · 13%30-27 Cortes-Acosta · 3%

361 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.

Alexander Volkov

0.54takedowns / 15 min
0.54 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.40 / 15m
0.87 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
0.80 / 15m
62%
ACCURACY
50%
0.20 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.10 / 15m

Waldo Cortes Acosta

0.40takedowns / 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

What the market did on the way to the cage — the price, not our model. The gold marker is where our pick was frozen.

Alexander VolkovWaldo Cortes AcostaPolymarketSportsbook consensus (vig removed)
Alexander Volkov vs Waldo Cortes Acosta — implied win chance over timeLine chart. Market-implied win chance for Alexander Volkov and Waldo Cortes Acosta from May 02 to May 09, drawn from Polymarket and the sportsbook consensus. Alexander Volkov moves from 61% to 56% and Waldo Cortes Acosta from 39% to 44%. A gold marker sits at the first snapshot in this window — our pick was frozen before the window opened, not at that price.30%40%50%60%70%May 2May 4May 6May 7May 9▲ our call: Alexander Volkov (LOW)56%44%

From the open the market drifted away from our pick: Alexander Volkov's implied chance moved down from 61% to 56% (−4.5pp). Our pick was frozen at the model cutoff, before this window opened — so the gold marker sits at the first snapshot we hold, not at a price we were reacting to.

Our published call had Alexander Volkov at 57.8%. At the last price we captured before the fight, the de-vigged market had him at 56.5% — our number sat 1.3pp above the market’s. Two numbers, side by side. How our calls have actually done is the public record, not one bout.

Show the numbers
SeriesOpenLowHighLast captureMove
Alexander Volkov — sportsbook consensus60.0%56.4%62.1%56.4%−3.5pp
Waldo Cortes Acosta — sportsbook consensus40.0%37.9%43.6%43.6%+3.5pp
Alexander Volkov — Polymarket61.0%56.5%62.5%56.5%−4.5pp
Waldo Cortes Acosta — Polymarket39.0%37.5%43.5%43.5%+4.5pp
Price history from Polymarket (moneyline, both corners) and BestFightOdds (sportsbook consensus, vig removed). 1,461 snapshots on file · window May 02 18:46May 09 13:21Z · last capture May 09, 13:21Z · hourly-downsampled for the chart · read at build time from the price archive, not a live feed.
← Back to the public record