Date: 2026-11-07 · Venue: Meta APEX, Las Vegas
Bouts: 14 · Finishes: 7 (KO/TKO 6, submission 1) · Decisions: 7
What the card produced
Fourteen bouts produced seven finishes and seven decisions, an even split. The finish mix leaned heavily toward striking: six of the seven finishes were KO/TKO and one was a submission. No finish was recorded in the submission families beyond that single instance, and the KO/TKO group carried the card.
Set against the UFC baseline for the 2024–2026 window — 1,497 bouts, 766 finishes, a finish share of 51.2 percent, KO share 33.8 percent, submission share 17.4 percent, decision share 48.8 percent — this card’s seven-of-fourteen finish rate sits close to the sample’s finish share, but the internal distribution was lopsided. The card produced almost no submission endings relative to the baseline’s 17.4 percent submission share, and it concentrated its endings in the KO/TKO column.
The counted action across the card was takedown-heavy in the middle and lower portions of the bout order. Several bouts generated double-digit takedown attempt volume, and one bout produced 13 attempts with a single completion. The main event, by contrast, produced no takedown attempts at all and was decided entirely on knockdowns. The card therefore had two distinct shapes: a grappling-and-attrition undercard and a striking headliner.
The pre-fight pattern check across the card returned 0 finishes that matched the winner’s recorded pattern, 0 that came in a different family, 7 finishes with no comparable record, and 7 bouts that went to a decision and were not graded as a technique miss. That tally is addressed in its own section below.
Main event
Heavyweight: Johnny Walker beat Waldo Cortes Acosta — KO/TKO, R3 2:27.
The main event ended in the third round by KO/TKO. The bout produced no takedown attempts and two knockdowns, one in round one and one in round three. The recorded action therefore describes a fight contested entirely on the feet, with the first knockdown arriving in the opening round and the second in the third, the round in which the bout was stopped at 2:27.
The finishing technique is recorded as KO/TKO. The UFC baseline for the 2024–2026 window records 427 of 766 finishes in the punches family, 84.4 percent of all finishes, making a KO/TKO by punches the single most common ending in the sample. The baseline also records elbows at 58 finishes (11.5 percent of finishes), knees at 46 (9.1 percent), head kicks at 24 (4.7 percent), unspecified kicks at 12 (2.4 percent) and doctor stoppages at 11 (2.2 percent). A KO/TKO is the modal finish in the sport by a wide margin, and this main event sits in that majority category.
The ratings context is the most significant item in the bout. Johnny Walker went in at 1536.8 and Waldo Cortes Acosta at 1612.0, a gap of 75.2 points in Cortes Acosta’s favor. Walker’s rating moved from 1536.8 to 1559.2, a gain of 22.4, and Cortes Acosta’s moved from 1612.0 to 1589.7, a loss of 22.3. The result ran directly against the ratings: the lower-rated fighter won, and the gap of 75.2 points makes it the largest upset on the card by rating margin.
Walker’s pre-fight record stood at 6-7, with one submission win (most often rear-naked choke) and four KO/TKO wins (most often punches). Cortes Acosta’s record stood at 7-1, with four KO/TKO wins (most often punches) and three wins on the cards. The pre-fight pattern for Walker listed punches, knees and elbows as the predicted finish families. The actual result was recorded as having no comparable record for grading purposes, so the finish was not scored as a match or a miss against Walker’s pattern.
The rest of the main card
W Strawweight: Tatiana Suarez beat Virna Jandiroba — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the full three rounds and produced 13 takedown attempts with one completed, a completion rate of 7.7 percent, plus one submission attempt. By round: round one had one takedown and five takedown attempts; round two had one submission attempt and four takedown attempts; round three had four takedown attempts. The shape was persistent grappling volume that rarely converted. Suarez went in at 1592.7 against Jandiroba’s 1604.8, a gap of 12.1. Suarez moved to 1613.4 (+20.7) and Jandiroba to 1584.1 (-20.7). Suarez’s pre-fight record was 4-1 with one submission win (most often rear-naked choke) and two wins on the cards; Jandiroba’s was 7-4 with two submission wins (most often armbar), one KO/TKO win (most often injury) and three wins on the cards. No finish arrived, so the bout was not graded as a technique miss.
Bantamweight: Elijah Smith beat Davey Grant — KO/TKO (R1 1:00). The bout ended in the first round at the one-minute mark and produced one knockdown, recorded in round one, with no takedown attempts. Smith went in at 1591.2 against Grant’s 1567.8, a gap of 23.4 in Smith’s favor. Smith moved to 1608.3 (+17.1) and Grant to 1550.7 (-17.1). Smith’s pre-fight record was 2-0 with one KO/TKO win (most often slam) and one win on the cards; Grant’s was 6-2 with one submission win (most often triangle), two KO/TKO wins (most often punches) and three wins on the cards. The pre-fight pattern for Smith listed the slam family. The finish was recorded as having no comparable record.
Light Heavyweight: Lucas Fernando beat Billy Elekana — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the distance and produced three takedown attempts with one completed (33.3 percent), plus one official intervention for a low blow. By round: round one had the low-blow pause and one takedown attempt; round three had one takedown and two takedown attempts. Fernando went in at 1505.5 against Elekana’s 1556.2, a gap of 50.7 against him. Fernando moved to 1533.0 (+27.5) and Elekana to 1528.8 (-27.4). Fernando’s pre-fight record was 1-0 with one KO/TKO win (most often knees); Elekana’s was 3-1 with two submission wins (most often rear-naked choke) and one win on the cards. The pre-fight pattern for Fernando listed knees and elbows. No finish arrived.
W Bantamweight: Nina Milošević beat Priscila Cachoeira — KO/TKO (R2 3:40). The bout ended in the second round at 3:40 and produced eight takedown attempts with two completed (25.0 percent). By round: round one had one takedown and two takedown attempts; round two had one takedown and six takedown attempts. Milošević went in at 1523.5 against Cachoeira’s 1458.4, a gap of 65.1 in her favor. Milošević moved to 1538.5 (+15.0) and Cachoeira to 1443.4 (-15.0). Milošević carried no UFC finish record in the sample; Cachoeira’s record was 3-6 with three KO/TKO wins (most often punches). The finish was recorded as having no comparable record.
Flyweight: Mitch Raposo beat Marcos Degli — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the full three rounds and produced three takedown attempts with one completed (33.3 percent). By round: round one had one takedown attempt; round three had one takedown and two takedown attempts. Raposo went in at 1492.5 against Degli’s 1527.6, a gap of 35.1 against him. Raposo moved to 1514.5 (+22.0) and Degli to 1505.6 (-22.0). Raposo’s pre-fight record was 1-2 with one win on the cards; Degli carried no UFC finish record in the sample. No finish arrived.
The prelims
Featherweight: Ollie Schmid beat Keiichiro Nakamura — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the distance and produced five takedown attempts with one completed (20.0 percent), one knockdown, and two official interventions for low blows. By round: round two had one low-blow pause and one takedown attempt; round three had one knockdown, one low-blow pause, one takedown and four takedown attempts. Schmid went in at 1476.4 against Nakamura’s 1527.6, a gap of 51.2 against him. Schmid moved to 1503.9 (+27.5) and Nakamura to 1500.1 (-27.5). Schmid carried no UFC finish record in the sample; Nakamura’s record was 1-0 with one KO/TKO win (most often knees). No finish arrived.
Heavyweight: Thomas Petersen beat Gabriel Lorenço — KO/TKO (R3 4:47). The bout ended in the third round at 4:47 and produced two takedown attempts, both completed (100.0 percent), one submission attempt, two knockdowns and one reversal. By round: round one had one knockdown, one reversal, one takedown and one takedown attempt; round two had one knockdown and one submission attempt; round three had one takedown and one takedown attempt. Petersen went in at 1499.7 against Lorenço’s 1527.6, a gap of 27.9 against him. Petersen moved to 1524.6 (+24.9) and Lorenço to 1502.8 (-24.8). Petersen’s pre-fight record was 1-2 with one win on the cards; Lorenço carried no UFC finish record in the sample. The finish was recorded as having no comparable record.
W Flyweight: Karine Silva beat Gabriella Fernandes — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the full three rounds and produced three takedown attempts, none completed (0.0 percent), all recorded in round one. Silva went in at 1562.2 against Fernandes’s 1503.1, a gap of 59.1 in her favor. Silva moved to 1578.8 (+16.6) and Fernandes to 1486.5 (-16.6). Silva’s pre-fight record was 3-2 with one submission win (most often guillotine) and two wins on the cards; Fernandes’s was 3-0 with one submission win (most often rear-naked choke) and two wins on the cards. No finish arrived.
Featherweight: Murtazali Magomedov beat Jose Delano — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the distance and produced eight takedown attempts with four completed (50.0 percent), plus one knockdown. By round: round one had one takedown attempt; round two had two takedowns and two takedown attempts; round three had one knockdown, two takedowns and five takedown attempts. Magomedov went in at 1551.5 against Delano’s 1545.2, a gap of 6.3 in his favor. Magomedov moved to 1575.0 (+23.5) and Delano to 1521.7 (-23.5). Neither fighter carried a UFC finish record in the sample. No finish arrived.
Featherweight: Austin Bashi beat Carlos Calderon — submission (R1 1:07). The bout ended in the first round at 1:07 and produced one takedown attempt, completed, and one submission attempt, all recorded in round one. Bashi went in at 1512.7 against Calderon’s 1476.0, a gap of 36.7 in his favor. Bashi moved to 1537.4 (+24.7) and Calderon to 1451.3 (-24.7). Bashi’s pre-fight record was 0-1 with no UFC finish record in the sample; Calderon carried no UFC finish record in the sample. The finish was recorded as having no comparable record. This was the card’s only submission.
Middleweight: Andre Petroski beat Mantas Kondratavičius — KO/TKO (R2 4:39). The bout ended in the second round at 4:39 and produced five takedown attempts with two completed (40.0 percent). By round: round one had one takedown and four takedown attempts; round two had one takedown and one takedown attempt. Petroski went in at 1528.3 against Kondratavičius’s 1545.4, a gap of 17.1 against him. Petroski moved to 1547.6 (+19.3) and Kondratavičius to 1526.1 (-19.3). Petroski’s pre-fight record was 7-3 with one submission win (most often triangle), one KO/TKO win (most often elbows) and five wins on the cards. The pre-fight pattern for Petroski listed elbows and punches. The finish was recorded as having no comparable record.
Welterweight: Seokhyeon Ko beat Wellington Turman — decision (R3 5:00). The bout went the full three rounds and produced 10 takedown attempts with six completed (60.0 percent), the highest completion volume on the card. By round: round one had two takedowns and two takedown attempts; round two had one takedown and three takedown attempts; round three had three takedowns and five takedown attempts. Ko went in at 1546.2 against Turman’s 1447.4, a gap of 98.8, the widest rating gap on the card. Ko moved to 1560.7 (+14.5) and Turman to 1432.9 (-14.5). Ko carried no UFC finish record in the sample; Turman’s record was 2-4 with two wins on the cards. No finish arrived.
Welterweight: José Souza beat Jonny Parsons — KO/TKO (R1 4:16). The bout ended in the first round at 4:16 and produced no takedown attempts and one knockdown, recorded in round one. Souza went in at 1500.0 against Parsons’s 1541.1, a gap of 41.1 against him. Souza moved to 1530.8 (+30.8), the biggest single rating gain on the card, and Parsons to 1510.2 (-30.9). Neither fighter carried a UFC finish record in the sample. The finish was recorded as having no comparable record.
Where the ratings were wrong
Five results on this card were upsets by a rating gap of 30 points or more going in.
- Johnny Walker (1536.8) beat Waldo Cortes Acosta (1612.0) — gap 75.2, by KO/TKO. The largest upset on the card.
- Ollie Schmid (1476.4) beat Keiichiro Nakamura (1527.6) — gap 51.2, by decision.
- Lucas Fernando (1505.5) beat Billy Elekana (1556.2) — gap 50.7, by decision.
- José Souza (1500.0) beat Jonny Parsons (1541.1) — gap 41.1, by KO/TKO.
- Mitch Raposo (1492.5) beat Marcos Degli (1527.6) — gap 35.1, by decision.
Three of the five upsets were decisions and two were KO/TKO finishes. The two finish upsets — Walker and Souza — were the two largest rating gains on the card among winners, at +22.4 and +30.8 respectively. The card therefore did not simply produce noise at the bottom of the rating table; it produced its biggest corrections at the top of the upset list.
Did the technique read hold up
The card-level tally as recorded: 0 finish(es) matched the winner’s recorded pattern, 0 came in a different family, 7 finish(es) had no comparable record, and 7 bout(s) went to a decision (not graded as a technique miss).
Working through each finish:
- Johnny Walker carried a record of four KO/TKO wins, most often punches, and one submission win, most often rear-naked choke. The pre-fight pattern listed punches, knees and elbows. The bout ended KO/TKO. The result was recorded as having no comparable record, so it was neither a match nor a different-family miss.
- Elijah Smith carried a record of one KO/TKO win, most often slam. The pre-fight pattern listed the slam family. The bout ended KO/TKO. Recorded as no comparable record.
- Nina Milošević carried no UFC finish record in the sample. The bout ended KO/TKO. Recorded as no comparable record.
- Thomas Petersen carried a record of one win on the cards and no recorded finish family. The bout ended KO/TKO. Recorded as no comparable record.
- Austin Bashi carried a record of 0-1 with no UFC finish record in the sample. The bout ended in submission. Recorded as no comparable record.
- Andre Petroski carried a record of one KO/TKO win, most often elbows, one submission win, most often triangle, and five wins on the cards. The pre-fight pattern listed elbows and punches. The bout ended KO/TKO. Recorded as no comparable record.
- José Souza carried no UFC finish record in the sample. The bout ended KO/TKO. Recorded as no comparable record.
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The seven decisions — Suarez–Jandiroba, Fernando–Elekana, Raposo–Degli, Schmid–Nakamura, Silva–Fernandes, Magomedov–Delano and Ko–Turman — are not technique misses. The finish never arrived in any of them, and they are excluded from the grading by definition.
The honest reading of the tally is that the card offered almost no test of the pattern method. Seven of fourteen bouts produced a finish, and every one of those seven fell into the no-comparable-record bucket, largely because the winners’ recorded finish histories were thin or absent in the sample. The method was neither confirmed nor contradicted here.
Technique patterns
Six of the seven finishes were KO/TKO and one was a submission. Against the 2024–2026 baseline, that is a card weighted toward striking endings and away from grappling endings.
The KO/TKO finishes sit in the sport’s dominant category. The baseline records 427 of 766 finishes in the punches family, 84.4 percent of finishes, so a KO/TKO is the ordinary result. The card’s six KO/TKOs are consistent with that majority, though the recorded data does not break the six down by striking family, so no finer comparison to the elbows (58 finishes, 11.5 percent), knees (46, 9.1 percent) or head-kick (24, 4.7 percent) shares is possible from this payload.
The single submission is the card’s rarest item relative to the baseline. The baseline records 94 rear-naked chokes (36.2 percent of finishes), 38 guillotines (14.6 percent), 36 triangles (13.8 percent), 22 neck cranks (8.5 percent), 21 armbars (8.1 percent) and 16 unspecified submissions (6.2 percent). The card produced one submission against a baseline submission share of 17.4 percent of all bouts, and the recorded data does not specify which submission family it belonged to.
The style mix that emerges is a card decided on the feet at the top and ground out on takedown volume underneath. The main event produced zero takedown attempts and two knockdowns. The Suarez–Jandiroba bout produced 13 takedown attempts and one completion. The Ko–Turman bout produced 10 attempts and six completions. The Magomedov–Delano bout produced eight attempts and four completions. The card’s grappling was concentrated in bouts that went to the judges, and its striking was concentrated in the bouts that ended early.
What it means going forward
The ratings absorbed fourteen results, seven of them finishes. The largest single gain on the card belonged to José Souza, who moved from 1500.0 to 1530.8, a gain of 30.8, after beating Jonny Parsons, who dropped from 1541.1 to 1510.2. The largest gain among the headliners belonged to Johnny Walker, who moved from 1536.8 to 1559.2 (+22.4) after beating Waldo Cortes Acosta, who fell from 1612.0 to 1589.7 (-22.3). That result closed a 75.2-point gap by roughly a third in a single night.
Other notable movers: Lucas Fernando gained 27.5 to 1533.0 after beating Billy Elekana, who lost 27.4 to 1528.8; Ollie Schmid gained 27.5 to 1503.9 after beating Keiichiro Nakamura, who lost 27.5 to 1500.1; Thomas Petersen gained 24.9 to 1524.6 after beating Gabriel Lorenço, who lost 24.8 to 1502.8; Austin Bashi gained 24.7 to 1537.4 after his first-round submission of Carlos Calderon, who fell to 1451.3; and Murtazali Magomedov gained 23.5 to 1575.0 after beating Jose Delano, who fell to 1521.7.
The card’s widest rating gap going in — Seokhyeon Ko at 1546.2 against Wellington Turman at 1447.4, a gap of 98.8 — produced the expected winner, with Ko gaining 14.5 to 1560.7 and Turman falling to 1432.9. The narrowest gap, Magomedov–Delano at 6.3, produced a decision and a 23.5-point swing.
The net effect is a card that compressed several mid-table ratings toward each other while leaving the top of the table largely intact. The five upsets of 30 points or more redistributed rating points downward from favorites to underdogs, and the two finish upsets — Walker and Souza — did the most of that work.
Methodology and limits
Ratings are Elo values derived from UFC results from 2019 onward and updated after every fight. Results and the recorded finishing technique come from ESPN’s official scoreboard and Wikipedia’s event records. The counted action — takedown attempts and completions, submission attempts, knockdowns, reversals and official interventions, broken out by round — comes from ESPN’s play stream, which records counts per bout but not which fighter performed them. For that reason, action in this report is described as an event of the bout rather than as an act of a named fighter. The pre-fight patterns are the finishes each fighter had recorded before this card and were never edited after it; the pattern comparison is a comparison against what happened, not a published forecast. Strike counts and control time are not available in this data and are not used. The technique baseline covers the 2024–2026 window: 1,497 bouts, 766 finishes, a finish share of 51.2 percent, KO share 33.8 percent, submission share 17.4 percent and decision share 48.8 percent.
Sources
- ESPN Fight Center: https://www.espn.com/mma/fightcenter/_/id/600061268
- Wikipedia event page for UFC Fight Night: Cortes Acosta vs. Walker (2026-11-07)
