Brad Tavares vs Marc-André Barriault
Middleweight Bout • UFC Fight Night: Du Plessis vs. Usman
Saturday, July 18, 2026 • Paycom Center, Oklahoma City
Explore Detailed Fighter Profiles
Click on either the fighter's name or profile image for each fighter to access comprehensive UFC statistics including striking metrics, grappling data, clinch performance, complete fight history, offensive & defensive analytics, and round-by-round breakdowns.
Brad Tavares
Fighter Metrics
Victory Methods
Win Round Distribution
Marc-André Barriault
Fighter Metrics
Victory Methods
Win Round Distribution
📋 Last 5 Fights - Brad Tavares
| Date | Opponent | Result | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-09-06 | Robert Bryczek | L | KO/TKO (R3, 1:43) |
| 2025-04-05 | Gerald Meerschaert | W | U-DEC (R3, 5:00) |
| 2024-06-15 | JunYong Park | L | S-DEC (R3, 5:00) |
| 2024-02-10 | Gregory Rodrigues | L | KO/TKO (R3, 0:55) |
| 2023-08-19 | Chris Weidman | W | U-DEC (R3, 5:00) |
📋 Last 5 Fights - Marc-André Barriault
| Date | Opponent | Result | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-07-26 | Shara Magomedov | L | U-DEC (R3, 5:00) |
| 2025-05-10 | Bruno Silva | W | KO/TKO (R1, 1:27) |
| 2025-01-18 | Dustin Stoltzfus | L | KO/TKO (R1, 4:28) |
| 2024-06-29 | Joe Pyfer | L | KO/TKO (R1, 1:25) |
| 2024-01-20 | Chris Curtis | L | S-DEC (R3, 5:00) |
Technical Analysis
Technical Score
Cardio Score
Overall Rating
📊 Technical Score
Calculated as the average of Striking Composite (41 vs 44) and Grappling Composite (43 vs 35). Balances overall striking effectiveness with grappling ability to measure complete technical skills. Barriault's inputs are labeled estimates — he has no computed DB metrics.
💪 Cardio Score
Based on average fight duration, striking rate per minute, takedown rate, and finish rate. Measures cardiovascular endurance and ability to maintain pace throughout fights.
🎯 Overall Rating
Simple average of Technical Score and Cardio Score. Provides a holistic view of fighter capabilities combining skill level with physical conditioning and fight performance.
Striking Composite
Grappling Composite
Technical Radar Comparison
Visual comparison of key performance metrics between both fighters
📊 Detailed Statistical Comparison
🥊 Fight Analysis Breakdown
🧩 Brad Tavares Key Advantages
Tavares fights 78–89% of his offense at distance behind a jab and leg kicks, and his elite 81% takedown defense guarantees the bout stays standing on his terms. Barriault's entire game requires closing distance and landing power in the pocket — exactly the phone-booth war a 26-fight veteran is built to deny. The Shara Magomedov tape is the template: a disciplined distance striker out-pointed Barriault over three rounds doing precisely what Tavares does best — circling, jabbing, and refusing every invitation to brawl.
Tavares's output rises rather than fades across a fight — 14.4 significant strikes in Round 1 climbing to 17.0 in Round 3, with accuracy improving from 41% to 45% (an R3 that is 113% of his R1). That trajectory is the direct counter to a brawler whose danger and discipline are front-loaded: the longer this stays competitive, the more it tilts toward the man who gets sharper. Tavares has banked the full 15 (and 25) minutes more often than almost anyone in the division, and his 12:56 average fight time confirms a reliable three-round gas tank. It is his chin under fatigue, not his lungs, that has ever betrayed him.
With a 0.76 leg-kick rate and roughly a quarter of his output to the legs, Tavares can chop Barriault's base and slow the forward march over time — compounding any conditioning question and making the late rounds even more his. Layered on top is elite-level seasoning: he has shared the cage with Adesanya, Whittaker, Romero, Du Plessis and Weidman, and knows how to manage range, clinch defensively, and steal rounds in deep water. Barriault's best wins sit a clear tier below that company, and against a counter-striker this experienced, the low-risk leg tax quietly banks points that decide three-round fights.
⚠️ Unfavorable Scenarios
The nightmare script is the one already on tape twice: Tavares banks the first two rounds at range, then gets cracked late exactly as he was by Gregory Rodrigues and Robert Bryczek — both championship-adjacent stoppages after he had banked earlier minutes. His durability flag is blunt: across the five fights in which he has been knocked down he is 0-5 after the knockdown, with three KO losses in his last four defeats. Against a man who hits hard enough to have starched the same Bruno Silva who once starched Tavares, every minute spent in punching range turns a points lead into live KO risk.
If Tavares plants his feet and trades in the pocket instead of circling, his weak 43% striking accuracy (rank 40/46) fails to keep Barriault honest, and the brawler's power finds the chin inside the first ten minutes. His occasional slow start (22.7%) only widens that window, handing Barriault a live, dangerous opening round when the underdog's power is freshest. Tavares does not deter pressure with sharp, fight-altering counters — he taxes with volume — so a fighter willing to eat a jab to land a bomb is structurally suited to walk through him if the range discipline ever slips.
📋 Likely Gameplan
Tavares should fight at the end of the jab and never plant his feet — use the two-inch height and one-inch reach edge, circle off the fence, and make Barriault chase. Distance here is survival, not just strategy. Whenever Barriault closes, the play is to tie up briefly, disengage, and re-establish range; his clinch usage already drops sharply after Round 1 by design. The single rule that decides his night is to refuse the stationary firefight where the 0-5-after-knockdown math comes due, keeping every exchange short and on his terms.
The supporting plan is attrition: chop the lead leg early and often (0.76 leg-kick rate) to slow the pressure and bank rounds without standing in front of power. Tavares should aim to be even-or-ahead through two and then pull away in the round Barriault is weakest — his output climbs to 113% of Round 1 while a pressure fighter who front-loads his danger tends to fade. Win the third, and the cards take care of themselves, because Barriault simply does not win close decisions against disciplined strikers.
🚀 Marc-André Barriault Key Advantages
This is the cleanest, most defensible edge in the fight. Barriault owns documented one-punch knockout power, and Tavares is 38, 0-5 after being knocked down, with a 0.57 KD exchange ratio and three KO losses in his last four defeats. The common-opponent proof is on tape: Bruno Silva knocked Tavares out, and Barriault knocked that same Bruno Silva out in 87 seconds. Barriault's power lives in the exact weight class of blow that has already ended Tavares once — so every minute this fight stays in punching range, that power is live and fight-ending.
Tavares is a reactive fighter at his best when controlling space, and relentless forward pressure — cutting the cage, forcing exchanges along the fence — is the exact recipe that has beaten him before, with Rodrigues and Bryczek both walking him down and finishing him late. Barriault is, if nothing else, a relentless presser. He also carries a far higher per-exchange ceiling: he finishes 66.7% of his UFC wins to Tavares's 12.5%, so in a fight that hinges on whether one clean shot lands, the man who routinely ends fights holds the edge on any given exchange.
⚠️ Unfavorable Scenarios
The worst case for Barriault is the Magomedov rerun: Tavares circles, jabs, chops the legs, and refuses every invitation to brawl, and Barriault drops a clear, frustrating decision with his power never finding a stationary target. He does not win close cards — he was out-pointed by the rangy, defensively-slick Shara Magomedov over three rounds, and by Chris Curtis before that. Tavares is a less powerful but far more experienced version of that exact assignment, and if the fight stays at distance, the decision lane that Barriault cannot win is the one that opens.
Barriault is a two-way knockout proposition: his own suspect chin has gotten him stopped in as little as 16 seconds (vs Njokuani) and 1:25 (vs Pyfer), and Tavares's only two UFC finishes both came against hurt, over-committing opponents. A reckless Barriault eating a clean counter is exactly how the technician scores his upset TKO. Compounding it is conditioning: his danger is front-loaded and he has been out-pointed in every fight that reached the third, so if the bout is even after ten minutes, his fade against a man whose output is climbing surrenders the deciding round.
📋 Likely Gameplan
Barriault's path begins with taking away the open canvas: cut the cage, trap Tavares on the fence, and make every second a pocket exchange, because Tavares wilts under sustained pressure. A retreating Tavares is a less accurate, more hittable Tavares, so the job is to force him to fight going backward into defensive exchanges where the power differential decides it. He must also check the leg kicks and stay heavy on the front foot — neutralizing the leg tax that would otherwise erode his pressure into the later rounds.
Urgency is everything: Barriault should go to the chin early, loading up on power and hunting the knockout in Rounds 1-2, before Tavares's cardio and climbing round-trajectory advantages activate. His best chance is front-loading damage while he is fresh and Tavares may be starting slow. His path is the finish, not the cards — he loses close decisions — so he cannot afford to let himself get out-volumed into a three-round points loss. If he hasn't hurt Tavares by the midpoint, the math begins to turn against him fast.
🎯 Fight Prediction Analysis
Data-driven prediction model based on statistical analysis
📊Detailed Analysis Summary
⏱️A Clock-and-Chin Fight
Strip this matchup to its bones and it is a race between two competing timers. Tavares's win equity grows with every minute: his output climbs into Round 3, his cardio is genuinely good over fifteen minutes, his 81% takedown defense keeps it standing, and his ring craft compounds. Barriault's win equity is front-loaded into the chin: his power is most likely to find Tavares's documented vulnerability early, before fatigue and accumulated leg damage blunt his pressure. The fight has a clean internal clock, and the decisive variable is not who is more skilled — Tavares, clearly — but whether the more durable-on-paper plan survives contact with a heavier puncher.
🎯Technical Breakdown
The measured profile belongs to one man. Tavares is a high-IQ, distance-first counter-striker with elite 81% takedown defense, modest 43% accuracy, reliable three-round cardio (R3 at 113% of R1), and almost no power (KD 0.17, rank 31/46) — he wins by out-pointing limited opponents over fifteen minutes, 67% of his career wins coming by decision. Barriault is a statistical blank row, legible only through the fight log: documented one-punch power, forward pressure, a 66.7% UFC finish rate among his wins, and a defensive porousness that has gotten him knocked out in as little as sixteen seconds. This is not "Tavares dominates the numbers." It is the measured, craftier, better-conditioned man against an unmeasured one who hits hard enough to make all of that moot in a single exchange.
🧩The Three Questions That Decide It
Three questions settle everything. First: can Tavares maintain distance for fifteen minutes against sustained pressure? If yes, he points his way to a decision; if he gets trapped on the fence, his chin is on the menu — the Magomedov tape says he can be out-boxed, the Rodrigues and Bryczek tapes say he can be walked down and finished. Second: which suspect chin cracks first? Both men are finishable, but Tavares is the more recently and repeatedly cracked, against the heavier hand. Third: does Barriault's conditioning hold into Round 3? If the fight is even after ten minutes, the trajectory data — Tavares climbing, Barriault fading — hands the deciding round to the veteran.
🏁Final Prediction
The most likely single outcome is Brad Tavares by Decision (45%), achieved by circling, jabbing, chopping the legs, and out-working a frustrated brawler over fifteen minutes for the cards Barriault cannot win. Tavares's KO/TKO path (9%) is a minor one — accumulation or a counter on a hurt, over-committing Barriault rather than one big shot. Barriault's upset lane is concentrated and live: early KO/TKO (31%) is the entire underdog case, his documented power against a 38-year-old who is 0-5 after being dropped and validated by the Bruno Silva common-opponent thread. His decision path (9%) stays deliberately low because he loses close cards, and his submission lane (4%) reflects only a functional scramble game against a non-grappler.
💰 Betting Analysis: Model vs Market
Detailed value assessment in the betting market
📊Market Odds
🤖Analytical Model
💎Value Opportunities
MAXIMUM VALUE
GOOD VALUE
SLIGHT VALUE
⚠️Key Market Discrepancies
- • Overweights early KO volatility – Underprices five-round wrestling cycles.
- • Undervalues damage economy – Low SApM differential drives optics on cards.
- • Big-cage bias – Space helps early, but fence/rides erode it late.
🎯 Comprehensive Probabilistic Analysis
100 hypothetical fight simulation based on statistical data
🏆Outcome Distribution - Brad Tavares
Primary path via fence control and rides
Attritional GNP and accumulative pressure
Back-takes off rides create RNC chances
💥Outcome Distribution - Marc-André Barriault
Best lane via intercepts and counters
Requires extended range control in big cage
Low historical submission profile
⏰Fight Timeline Analysis
⚡Window of Opportunity - Marc-André Barriault
- • First 10 minutes: Highest KO equity — hunt the finish before the leg tax and cardio tell.
- • Cut the cage: Trap Tavares on the fence and force the pocket exchanges where power decides.
- • Target the chin: Tavares is 0-5 after a knockdown — one clean shot can end it.
🎯Progressive Dominance - Brad Tavares
- • Distance & jab: Fight at the end of the jab; make Barriault chase and never plant.
- • Leg-kick tax: Chop the lead leg (0.76 rate) to slow the pressure and bank rounds.
- • Win the third: Output climbs into R3 (113%); out-work a fading brawler on the cards.
🎯 Final Confidence Assessment
Confidence level and uncertainty factors
Confidence Level
A measured lean on the craftier, better-conditioned technician — held with full respect for a heavy puncher aimed at a fading chin
✅Supporting Factors
- • Highest-floor path: out-box a brawler over 15 minutes (67% career decision rate)
- • Output that climbs into R3 (113%) vs a front-loaded, fading presser
- • Elite 81% takedown defense and distance-first craft dictate the range
- • Barriault is 1-4 in his last five and loses close decisions — finish-or-bust
⚠️Risk Factors
- • The chin: Tavares is 38, 0-5 after a knockdown, 3 KO losses in his last four
- • Common-opponent thread: Barriault KO'd Bruno Silva, who KO'd Tavares
- • Pressure is Tavares's kryptonite — walked down and finished by Rodrigues, Bryczek
🏁Executive Summary
Across 100 simulations two stories recur. In roughly 56, Brad Tavares's craft and cardio decide the night — most often (45) by circling, jabbing, chopping the legs, and out-working a frustrated brawler over three rounds for a decision Barriault cannot win on the cards; occasionally (9) by breaking down a hurt, over-committing Barriault late. Every measurable factor favors the technician: a 67% career decision rate, output that climbs into Round 3, elite 81% takedown defense, and the only computed statistical profile in the fight. The one factor that doesn't — Barriault's documented one-punch power — is the only one capable of erasing all the others in a single exchange.
Prediction: Brad Tavares by Decision is the single most likely path (45%), with a late TKO of a faded brawler (9%) behind it; Barriault's live upset lane is the early KO/TKO (31%) that a 0-5-after-knockdown chin no longer reliably survives. The data, the cardio, and the craft all favor Tavares — but at 38 with a chin cracked three times in four fights, against a man who starched a common opponent, this stays a measured five-and-not-higher lean.