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Events · Van vs Pantoja 2 ·

Robelis Despaigne vs Tai Tuivasa

Red corner RobelisDespaigne“The Big Boy”MMA Temple · Born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba · Fights out of Orlando, Florida, United States
VSSettled
Blue corner TaiTuivasa“Bam Bam”Lions High Performance Centre · Born in Sydney, Australia · Fights out of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Heavyweight3 rounds19 Sep 2026
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Has dropped 7 straight in the UFC.
  • Has finished 7 of 8 UFC wins.
7-2
Record
15-11
38
Age
−5 yr33
+5″6' 7"
Height
6' 2"
+9″84″
Reach
75″
Orthodox
Stance
Southpaw
3
UFC bouts
+1518
1/1100% of wins
Finishes
7/888% of wins
MMA Temple
Gym
Lions High Performance Centre
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Born in
Sydney, Australia
Orlando, Florida, United States
Fights out of
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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. Where a fighter was born and where they fight out of come from their Wikipedia entry; where we hold neither, the hometown shown is Sherdog’s. 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
Robelis Despaigne
77.7% confidentHIGH
Method calledKO/TKO 57%
Vs the market−1.3pp
Market had our pick at79%
The fight
Robelis Despaigne
WIN✗
How it endedDEC
Round3 of 3
Clock5:00
Called it We called Robelis Despaigne at 77.7% and Robelis Despaigne won. The method call missed.
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
Robelis Despaigne19 sig landed
HEAD100%19 of 39BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
Tai Tuivasa15 sig landed
HEAD53%8 of 21BODY47%7 of 7LEGS0%0 of 1
19 of 39
Sig.
strikes
15 of 29
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 3
1:48
Control
2:08
Distance 12Clinch 1Ground 6
Where it
happened
Distance 4Clinch 1Ground 10
Judges · this round · Despaigne firstSal D'Amato10–9Felicia Oh10–9Jovany Varela10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Robelis Despaigne3 sig landed
HEAD67%2 of 11BODY33%1 of 1LEGS0%0 landed
Tai Tuivasa7 sig landed
HEAD43%3 of 11BODY14%1 of 1LEGS43%3 of 5
3 of 12
Sig.
strikes
7 of 17
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 2
1:39
Control
2:22
Distance 3Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 2Clinch 5Ground 0
Judges · this round · Despaigne firstSal D'Amato9–10Felicia Oh9–10Jovany Varela9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Robelis Despaigne8 sig landed
HEAD100%8 of 18BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
Tai Tuivasa9 sig landed
HEAD67%6 of 17BODY11%1 of 1LEGS22%2 of 4
8 of 18
Sig.
strikes
9 of 22
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 1
1:41
Control
2:28
Distance 3Clinch 5Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 6Clinch 3Ground 0
Judges · this round · Despaigne firstSal D'Amato10–9Felicia Oh10–9Jovany Varela9–10

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 · Jason Herzog
Robelis DespaigneTai Tuivasa
Official totals — Robelis Despaigne first
JudgeTotal
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide29–28
Felicia Oh29–28
Jovany Varela28–29

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 — 13 scored, Robelis Despaigne first · unofficial

Nolan King MMAJunkie.com30–27
Unattributed30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Unattributed29–28
CombatPress.com29–28
Steve Duncan mma.uno29–28
Tudor Leonte Sherdog.com29–28
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28
Dayne Fox Sherdog.com29–28
Unattributed28–29
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com28–29
Mike Sloan Sherdog.com28–29
Unattributed28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Despaigne · 38%29-28 Tuivasa · 35%30-27 Despaigne · 19%30-27 Tuivasa · 6%

91 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.

Robelis Despaigne

0.66takedowns / 15 min
0.66 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.09 / 15m
0.66 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
0.82 / 15m
100%
ACCURACY
11%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Tai Tuivasa

0.09takedowns / 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 (6.29 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.

Robelis DespaigneTai TuivasaPolymarketSportsbook consensus (vig removed)
Robelis Despaigne vs Tai Tuivasa — implied win chance over timeLine chart. Market-implied win chance for Robelis Despaigne and Tai Tuivasa from Sep 09 to Sep 19, drawn from Polymarket and the sportsbook consensus. Robelis Despaigne moves from 83% to 78% and Tai Tuivasa from 17% to 22%. A gold marker shows where our pick was frozen.5%15%25%35%45%55%65%75%85%Sep 9Sep 11Sep 14Sep 17Sep 19▲ we flagged Robelis Despaigne (HIGH) here78%22%

From the open the market drifted away from our pick: Robelis Despaigne's implied chance moved down from 83% to 78% (−4.5pp).

Our published call had Robelis Despaigne at 77.7%. At the last price we captured before the fight, the de-vigged market had the same fighter at 78.5% — our number sat 0.8pp below 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
Robelis Despaigne — sportsbook consensus82.4%78.7%86.6%78.7%−3.7pp
Tai Tuivasa — sportsbook consensus17.6%13.4%21.3%21.3%+3.7pp
Robelis Despaigne — Polymarket83.0%78.5%85.5%78.5%−4.5pp
Tai Tuivasa — Polymarket17.0%14.5%21.5%21.5%+4.5pp
Price history from Polymarket (moneyline, both corners) and BestFightOdds (sportsbook consensus, vig removed). 1,560 snapshots on file · window Sep 09 04:11–Sep 19 23:51Z · last capture Sep 19, 23:51Z · hourly-downsampled for the chart · read at build time from the price archive, not a live feed.
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