Volkanovski vs Evloev: 10 UFC Wins, All 10 on the Scorecards

On Saturday at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, Movsar Evloev (20-0) gets the fight his record has been asking for since 2019: Alexander Volkanovski (28-4) and the featherweight title, in the main event of UFC 333. The sportsbook consensus cannot pick a side. Volkanovski is -111, Evloev -110, and the line has barely moved since it opened at -114 and -109.

Our model can. It gives Evloev 66.5 percent. Strip the bookmakers' margin out of those two prices and the market has him at about 50, so the model sits 16 points to one side of a coin flip on a title fight.

Here is the number that both of them are pricing. Evloev is 10-0 in the UFC, and the judges decided all ten. He has not finished a UFC opponent. He has not scored a knockdown in the UFC either. Every one of those wins is a stack of three scorecards, which means there are 30 of them to read, and the 30 say something more specific than "he wins decisions."

Thirty cards, one loss and one draw

Of the 30 cards turned in on Evloev's UFC fights, 28 had him winning. One had him losing. One had it level. The full ledger:

Two things jump out. The first is the trend in the margins. In his first six UFC fights, 17 of 18 cards had him ahead, and 12 of those by two points or more. Since 2023, eight of his 12 cards have been 29-28, the narrowest win a three-round card allows, and the other four are Dave Tirelli's 30-27 against Lopes and the three five-round cards from the Murphy fight. As the opposition got better, the fights got closer, which is how it is supposed to work, and also exactly what a 20-0 record hides.

The second is the striking column. Evloev was outlanded in significant strikes by Barzola, Allen, Sterling and Murphy, and he won every one of those fights. Over ten UFC fights he has landed 625 significant strikes and absorbed 448. He has taken his opponents down 51 times in 97 attempts and spent 57 minutes and 6 seconds in control of them, against 12 minutes and 7 seconds the other way. That is the fighter: the takedown attempts keep coming, and the scorecards follow the control time.

The split, the close one and the low blow

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The only judge to score against him was Eric Colón, 29-28 for Nik Lentz at UFC 257 in January 2021. It is an odd card to draw from the statistics, because Evloev outlanded Lentz 82 to 46 and finished 2 of 2 on takedowns to Lentz's 1 of 5. Ben Cartlidge and Paul Sutherland both had it 29-28 for Evloev, and that was the split decision.

The fight that should worry an Evloev backer more is Aljamain Sterling at UFC 310 in December 2024, because on the numbers it was the closest fight of his UFC career. Sterling landed 12 significant strikes to Evloev's 8, took him down six times to his four, and held 6:16 of control to his 6:09. All three judges gave Sterling the first round and Evloev the second. The third is where it was decided, and Sterling went 3 of 3 on takedowns in it with 2:39 of control to Evloev's 1:49, while each man landed four significant strikes. Ben Cartlidge, Derek Cleary and Sal D'Amato all scored it 10-9 Evloev. Three judges agreeing makes it a fair call rather than a robbery, but it was a coin that landed his way.

Then there is Lerone Murphy, in Evloev's first main event at The O2 in London in March. He did not attempt a takedown in the first two rounds and lost the striking in both, 11 to 14 and 17 to 24. From the third round on he went 9 of 10, with 3:54 of control, and all three judges gave him the third and the fifth. They gave him the fourth as well, 10-9, except that Marc Goddard had taken a point from him for a low blow in that round, which made it a 9-9 on all three cards. Cartlidge and Cleary still had it 48-46 for Evloev. Clemens Werner had it 47-47. Without the deduction Werner's card is 48-47 Evloev and the fight is a unanimous decision. The only blemish on the official result is a foul he committed himself.

What the model sees

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The model's case for Evloev is not mysterious, and it is not the scorecards. Its biggest inputs this week are age and record. Volkanovski turned 38 on September 29, and Evloev is 32. Volkanovski comes in on a two-fight winning streak, the two unanimous decisions over Diego Lopes at UFC 314 and UFC 325, and Evloev on a ten-fight UFC streak with no losses at all. Then comes grappling: Evloev averages 4.8 takedowns per 15 minutes in the model's inputs to Volkanovski's 1.6, and 5.4 minutes of control per 15 to Volkanovski's 3.0.

The one area where the model sides with the champion is the one that should matter most in a fight that stays standing. Volkanovski lands 57 percent of his significant strikes to Evloev's 48 percent, and he lands 6.0 per minute to Evloev's 3.9. In the first Lopes fight he landed 158 significant strikes to 63. That is the Volkanovski the market is still paying for.

And there is a reason to be careful with the grappling number. Across his 18 UFC fights, Volkanovski's opponents have taken him down 14 times in 45 attempts. Four of those 14 came from Islam Makhachev at UFC 284, who also held 7:37 of control, and Volkanovski still lost that one on the cards over five rounds rather than being run over. Evloev's takedown is good. It has not yet been tried on a champion with 11 scheduled five-round fights behind him.

Five rounds is the question

That last part is the cleanest difference between them. Volkanovski has fought 11 scheduled five-round fights in the UFC and won eight: three over Max Holloway, then Brian Ortega, Chan Sung Jung, Yair Rodriguez and Lopes twice. Evloev has fought one, the Murphy fight, and it took him until the third round to start the work that won it.

The pattern in that fight is the whole argument for both sides. If Evloev spends two rounds feeling out a striker who lands six per minute, he can be two rounds down to Volkanovski in a way he never really was to Murphy. If he wrestles from the start the way the takedown column says he did against Dawodu and Ige, 9 of 13 and 9 of 16, the 30 cards say the judges will give him the rounds he controls, and rounds are all he has ever needed.

The market says neither man has an edge. The model says the 38-year-old is the one who should be worried. Evloev has never needed a finish. On Saturday he needs three rounds out of five from a champion who has won eight five-round fights, and those will be three cards unlike any of the other 30.

Make your pick at the UFC 333 pick'em, and the card, start times and broadcasters are in our UFC 333 viewing guide.