September 12, 2026 · Desert Diamond Arena, Glendale, Arizona, USA
Martínez
14-1-0
#8 BantamweightMexico City, Mexico | 28 years old
Ige
19-11-0
UnrankedHaleiwa, Hawaii | 35 years old
The Prospect and the Reset
Martínez went from nowhere to No. 8 in three fights. Ige drops a division for the first time in his life, at 35, chasing a second career.
Conviction
Conviction 7 because the thesis doesn't rest on Martínez being better, it rests on Ige having exactly one way of losing and that way being on the table tonight. He lost to Kattar, Chan Sung Jung, Emmett, Evloev, Bryce Mitchell, Diego Lopes, Lerone Murphy and Patricio Pitbull the same way: whoever produced more at range took the cards. Martínez produces more, absorbs less and defends better on all three numbers that run that script. The Hawaiian's natural escape hatch is the grappling, and that's measured too: 26% takedown accuracy for his career, two completed on nine attempts across his last five fights, and five takedowns conceded to a 38-year-old Patricio Pitbull. What stops this from climbing above 7 is concrete and it pulls the number down, not up: Martínez has three UFC fights, and in the two that reached the cards his opponent's accuracy nearly doubled from round one to round three, Vera going from 12% to 36% and Font from 21% to 39%, with Vera rocking him in the final seconds. That is precisely the window Ige used to stop Woodson after losing two rounds. Add that Martínez withdrew from the July Nurmagomedov booking with a training injury nobody has described. If that third-round window were wider, or if Ige had a reliable tool for reaching it, this would be a 5.
Conviction 7 because the thesis doesn't rest on Martínez being better, it rests on Ige having exactly one way of losing and that way being on the table tonight. He lost to Kattar, Chan Sung Jung, Emmett, Evloev, Bryce Mitchell, Diego Lopes, Lerone Murphy and Patricio Pitbull the same way: whoever produced more at range took the cards. Martínez produces more, absorbs less and defends better on all three numbers that run that script. The Hawaiian's natural escape hatch is the grappling, and that's measured too: 26% takedown accuracy for his career, two completed on nine attempts across his last five fights, and five takedowns conceded to a 38-year-old Patricio Pitbull. What stops this from climbing above 7 is concrete and it pulls the number down, not up: Martínez has three UFC fights, and in the two that reached the cards his opponent's accuracy nearly doubled from round one to round three, Vera going from 12% to 36% and Font from 21% to 39%, with Vera rocking him in the final seconds. That is precisely the window Ige used to stop Woodson after losing two rounds. Add that Martínez withdrew from the July Nurmagomedov booking with a training injury nobody has described. If that third-round window were wider, or if Ige had a reliable tool for reaching it, this would be a 5.
THE DECIDING POINT
The Only Door Opens in Round Three
In both of David Martínez's three-round UFC fights the same thing happened, and it never showed up in the result. Against Rob Font, the veteran landed at 21% in round one, 30% in round two and 39% in round three. Against Marlon Vera it was starker: 12% in the first, including zero head strikes on 30 attempts, then 32%, then 36%. Both opponents finished the night hitting at nearly double their opening accuracy, and in Vera's case there was a late flurry that appeared to hurt Martínez before the horn bailed him out. Martínez won both fights, and he deserved both. But the crack has a fixed address: round three. That address is the only one that matters to Dan Ige. He has 30 pro fights and has been stopped exactly once, this February. He loses on the scorecards, always on the scorecards, 10 of his 11 defeats. What he has not lost is the right hand. In April 2025, Sean Woodson out-landed him 26 to 9 in round one and took round two, and Ige still stopped him at 1:12 of the third while going 20 of 29 in that round. That is the whole plan here. There is no plan B, and he needs 10 live minutes to get to it.
In both of David Martínez's three-round UFC fights the same thing happened, and it never showed up in the result. Against Rob Font, the veteran landed at 21% in round one, 30% in round two and 39% in round three. Against Marlon Vera it was starker: 12% in the first, including zero head strikes on 30 attempts, then 32%, then 36%. Both opponents finished the night hitting at nearly double their opening accuracy, and in Vera's case there was a late flurry that appeared to hurt Martínez before the horn bailed him out. Martínez won both fights, and he deserved both. But the crack has a fixed address: round three. That address is the only one that matters to Dan Ige. He has 30 pro fights and has been stopped exactly once, this February. He loses on the scorecards, always on the scorecards, 10 of his 11 defeats. What he has not lost is the right hand. In April 2025, Sean Woodson out-landed him 26 to 9 in round one and took round two, and Ige still stopped him at 1:12 of the third while going 20 of 29 in that round. That is the whole plan here. There is no plan B, and he needs 10 live minutes to get to it.
Truth A
The window is real and it is documented. Martínez gives ground in the third, Vera found him there in the closing seconds, and Ige is literally a fighter who wins fights in round three after losing the first two.
Truth B
To reach round three, Ige has to survive 10 minutes of the exact script that has beaten him nine times since 2018, on a 135-pound scale he has never made in his life, at 35, coming off the first knockout loss of a 30-fight career.
Tale of the Tape
Seven years apart, and the younger man is the faster one
Ige carries a four-inch reach edge down from a division above
The loudest line on the tape
Current Form
David Martínez
Co-main in Mexico City. Won 29-28 across all three cards, out-landed Vera 71 to 42 in significant strikes and held him to 5 of 39 in round one with zero head strikes. Added two takedowns.
Unanimous DecisionLast year's Noche UFC. Chopped Font's lead leg all night, 19 of 24 leg kicks landed, and buried him 115 to 49 in total strikes. Cracked the top 10 by bumping Font out of it.
Unanimous DecisionUFC debut, at home in Mexico City. Landed 65% of his significant strikes, dropped the Brazilian and finished with a knee and punches at 4:38 of round one.
TKO R1Contender Series. Clear decision and a UFC contract. Out-landed his man 79 to 46 in significant strikes.
Unanimous DecisionCombate Global. Spinning wheel kick knockout at 4:17 of round four, the kind of finish that built his highlight reputation on the Mexican circuit.
KO R4Ten straight wins since 2021 and a 3-0 UFC run that carried him to No. 8 in barely a year in the promotion. He beat Rob Font and Marlon Vera on the cards, both ranked, and knocked out Saimon Oliveira in his debut. The caveat isn't performance, it's the calendar: he pulled out of a July 25 booking against Umar Nurmagomedov with a training injury, nobody disclosed what the injury was, and it's the first time his name has appeared on a withdrawal report.
Dan Ige
First stoppage loss of his career. Spinning back kick and punches from Costa at 4:56 of round one. Ige landed only seven significant strikes in the entire fight before he went down. Costa walked in unranked on a six-fight featherweight win streak, and this was the night that put him in the top 15. Ige was the ranked man in that cage, at No. 14.
TKO R1UFC 318. Gave up five takedowns to the former Bellator champ and lost on all three cards, despite throwing 124 significant strikes at just 37% accuracy.
Unanimous DecisionUFC 314. The blueprint for his whole plan: lost round one going 9 of 37, lost round two on volume, then flipped it with 20 of 29 in the third and stopped him at 1:12.
TKO R3UFC 308. Knocked the undefeated Murphy down in round one and landed 32 strikes there. Then dropped to 11 in the second and three in the third, and the Englishman took the cards.
Unanimous DecisionUFC 303. Took the fight on four hours' notice at a 165-pound catchweight and dragged Lopes to the cards. Lost 29-28 on all three and walked out with a bigger name than he walked in with.
Unanimous DecisionOne win in his last five, and the most recent defeat is the first stoppage loss of a 30-fight career. Context helps him some: the Diego Lopes loss came on four hours' notice at a 165-pound catchweight, and the others were to Lerone Murphy and Patricio Pitbull, both top-shelf. But the pattern is old and mechanical: nine decision losses since 2018, always to the man producing more at range. At 35 he drops to bantamweight for the first time in his life chasing a second career, after a full test cut in Las Vegas he publicly called a success.
Level of Competition
No common opponents, and there couldn't be: one built a career in the Mexican bantamweight scene, the other spent nine years in the UFC featherweight division. The resume gap is real and it favors Ige. He has shared a cage with Calvin Kattar, Chan Sung Jung, Josh Emmett, Movsar Evloev, Bryce Mitchell, Diego Lopes, Lerone Murphy and Patricio Pitbull. Martínez's UFC ledger is three names, two of them ranked, Rob Font and Marlon Vera. The honest read: Ige has seen a level Martínez has not, and lost nearly all of those nights the exact same way.
Statistical Comparison
Sig. Strikes per Minute
Martínez produces well over a strike a minute more
Striking Accuracy (%)
Strikes Absorbed per Minute
Ige takes more than he gives in most of his fights
Striking Defense (%)
A 13-point gap in the number that decides three-round fights at range
Takedowns per 15 Min
Takedown Accuracy (%)
Both men miss three of every four takedown attempts
Takedown Defense (%)
Careful with the 100%: it's five attempts across three fights, every one of them from Rob Font
Submissions per 15 Min
Martínez leads in 5 categories · Ige leads in 3
Win & Loss Distribution
Wins
KO/TKO
Submission
Decision
On the surface Martínez is the finisher: 71% of his wins by knockout and six first-round stoppages. But nine of those 10 knockouts came outside the UFC, spread across Combate Global, Combate Americas, Panama Fight League and XK, and inside the Octagon he finished the only unranked man he faced while going to the cards against both ranked ones. Ige is the more versatile fighter on paper, his wins split almost evenly three ways, and he's the only one of the two who has ever won by submission, five times. For the method tonight, that's what matters: Martínez's finisher profile hasn't shown up yet at the level he's now fighting.
Losses
KO/TKO
Submission
Decision
This is the spine of the analysis. Dan Ige loses one way and one way only: 10 of his 11 defeats on the scorecards, nine of them unanimous, and zero submission losses in 30 pro fights. His chin took 12 years to crack and it cracked once, in February, to a Melquizael Costa spinning back kick. On the other side the sample is far too small to call a pattern, and it has to be said with that caveat: Martínez has one loss in his entire career, a split decision in April 2021 on the Combate Global circuit, five years ago and at a level that has nothing to do with this one. Nobody knows how to knock Martínez out because nobody has managed it yet, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In practice: the script that beats Ige is written and it runs through the judges, and the script that beats Martínez is still a blank page.
Skills Profile
Martínez
vs
Ige
Striking at Range
+3 Martínez
Martínez is a kickboxer by trade who circles, changes angles and hunts the lead leg. He landed 19 of the 24 leg kicks he threw at Rob Font.
Close-Range Striking
+1 Ige
When the fight turns into a phone-booth scrap, Ige grows. That's exactly where Vera found Martínez in the closing seconds of round three.
Knockout Power
+1 Ige
Nine of Martínez's 10 knockouts in 14 wins came outside the UFC, scattered across Combate Global, Combate Americas, Panama Fight League and XK. Five of Ige's seven came inside it, Andre Fili and Gavin Tucker and Sean Woodson among them, and he's bringing that hand down a division.
Striking Defense
+3 Martínez
69% defense against 56%. Vera landed 5 of 39 across a full round and never once touched Martínez's head.
Grappling & Clinch
+2 Ige
Ige is a college wrestler and a BJJ black belt with five submissions. The caveat is conversion: 26% takedown accuracy for his career and two of nine over his last five fights.
Cardio (3 Rounds)
+2 Martínez
Round three was Martínez's highest-volume round in both of his long fights. Ige's round three against Murphy was three strikes landed on 17 attempts.
Martínez wins everything that happens at 10 feet, and that's where he wants this fight to live. Ige wins everything that happens at three feet, and he has no reliable tool for dragging it there. The question tonight isn't who's better in close, it's who gets to pick the distance.
Final Prediction
The Thesis
Conviction7/10The thesis is: David Martínez wins because the script that beats Dan Ige is already written and it's exactly what the Mexican does best, with 10 of the Hawaiian's 11 losses coming on the cards to men who produce more and land more at range, because the three numbers that govern that script all sit on Martínez's side (4.82 significant strikes per minute to 3.60, 69% striking defense to 56%, and 2.90 absorbed per minute to 3.56), and because Ige arrives at 35 dropping a division for the first time in his life off the first knockout loss of a 30-fight career.
The thesis is: David Martínez wins because the script that beats Dan Ige is already written and it's exactly what the Mexican does best, with 10 of the Hawaiian's 11 losses coming on the cards to men who produce more and land more at range, because the three numbers that govern that script all sit on Martínez's side (4.82 significant strikes per minute to 3.60, 69% striking defense to 56%, and 2.90 absorbed per minute to 3.56), and because Ige arrives at 35 dropping a division for the first time in his life off the first knockout loss of a 30-fight career.
The path is Martínez circling, chopping the lead leg the way he chopped Rob Font's, and refusing straight lines, banking rounds one and two on volume and managing round three on movement. It breaks down if Ige comes in strong off the scale and turns this into a close-range brawl before the 10-minute mark, or if he lands real takedowns against a 100% defense built on five attempts from a boxer.
What Breaks This Pick
- 01
If Ige comes in light and strong and spends the opening five minutes cutting off the cage rather than chasing, the premise that the 135-pound cut robs his engine is already dead and this becomes a different fight.
- 02
If Martínez starts backing up in straight lines instead of circling, he hands over exactly the distance Ige needs and becomes the stationary target the Hawaiian knocked out in Andre Fili, Gavin Tucker and Sean Woodson.
- 03
If Ige completes two takedowns by the midpoint of round two, Martínez's 100% defense will have proven to be what it always could be: five attempts from a boxer, never a real wrestler.
- 04
If the injury that pulled Martínez out of the July booking against Umar Nurmagomedov is still limiting his output, the win-on-the-numbers plan doesn't hold for 15 minutes and the fight falls to the more experienced man.
Underdog Path
Ige makes 135 without emptying himself and walks in as the stronger man, not the faster one. He accepts losing round one on volume but spends those five minutes cutting off the cage and pinning Martínez to the fence instead of chasing him through the middle, which is the mistake he made against Lerone Murphy and Melquizael Costa. In round two he mixes in clinch takedown attempts, not to score but to freeze Martínez's feet and strip away the lateral movement his defense runs on. In the third, with the Mexican more willing to trade and with the opponent accuracy climbing the way it climbed against Font and Vera, he lands the right hand on the counter and finishes on the ground.
Required Conditions
- Make 135 pounds for the first time in his life, at 35, without arriving hollow on Friday
- Cut off the cage instead of chasing in straight lines, which is precisely how he lost to Murphy and Costa
- Survive the opening 10 minutes without conceding two wide rounds, keeping both the cards and the knockout alive
- Land clean inside the round-three window, where opponent accuracy nearly doubled in both of Martínez's long fights
— Precedent: Ige vs Sean Woodson, UFC 314, April 2025. Ige lost round one going 9 of 37, lost round two on volume, and still stopped the fight at 1:12 of the third while landing 20 of 29 in that round. The honest caveat has to travel with it: Woodson is a long fighter who stands still in straight lines and Martínez circles constantly. The precedent counts for the mechanism, flipping a lost fight in the third, not for the opponent type.
Verdict
Winner
David Martínez
Method
Unanimous Decision
Most Likely
- 01
Method
David Martínez by decision
Martínez by decision because 10 of Ige's 11 losses came on the cards, nine of them unanimous, and because the Mexican went the distance in both of his UFC fights against ranked opposition. The market is wrong because it prices Martínez's 10 knockouts without separating out the nine that came outside the UFC. Breaks if the 135-pound cut empties Ige and Martínez finds his chin early.
- 02
How It Ends (Either Fighter)
Fight goes to decision
Decision because both sides point there: Ige has been stopped once in 30 fights and Martínez has finished neither of the ranked men he's faced. The market is wrong because it reads Martínez's 71% knockout rate as if it were a UFC number. Breaks if Ige shows up drained from the scale, because then round one becomes finishing territory.
- 03
Winner
David Martínez
Martínez because he's the correct side, with the edge in volume, defensive accuracy and age. The market isn't wrong here, which is why the price is bad: asks for 75% and this read has him at 67%, so there's no fat left at all. Parlay leg, not a standalone play. Breaks if Ige reaches round three with the fight still live.
- 04
Underdog Winner
Dan Ige by KO/TKO
Ige by knockout because it's the only clean way the underdog wins and it has a recent precedent, the comeback over Woodson at 1:12 of round three after losing two. The market underrates that opponent accuracy nearly doubled from round one to round three in both of Martínez's long fights. Breaks if Martínez keeps circling and refuses the flat-footed exchange, which is his pattern for 100% of his cage time so far. Small stake, a lottery ticket with a real receipt.
Most Likely Outcome
David Martínez by decision
It's the soundest read in the analysis because it marries the right side to the right method: Ige loses on the cards and Martínez hasn't finished a ranked opponent yet. Conviction 7 and no higher means moderate stake, not a max-confidence play, because the round-three window is real and it's documented in both of the Mexican's long fights.
Stats That Matter
10 of 11
of Dan Ige's losses came on the scorecards, nine of them unanimous
In 30 pro fights he's been stopped exactly once, in February of this year
5 of 39
is what Marlon Vera landed on Martínez in round one
Zero head strikes on 30 attempts in that round
5
takedown attempts have been made against Martínez across three UFC fights
All of them by Rob Font, a boxer. His 100% takedown defense is a small sample, not a proven wall
The Trap
Trap: Martínez inside the distance
Ten knockouts in 14 wins and six first-round finishes will pull the market toward the method. But nine of those 10 knockouts came outside the UFC, and the read has to cut both ways here: the best name on that list is Francisco Rivera, who went 11 fights in the UFC between 2011 and 2016 and knocked out Alex Caceres in there. The caveat is the context. That knockout came in the Combate Global bantamweight tournament in May 2021, a one-night bracket in which Rivera had already fought twice before he ever saw Martínez, at 39 years old and five years removed from the Octagon. Inside the UFC, against the two ranked men he's faced, Martínez went to the cards both times. And across from him is a fighter who needed 30 pro fights to get stopped once. Paying up for Martínez inside the distance is buying a finisher profile that hasn't shown up at the level he's fighting at now.
Ten knockouts in 14 wins and six first-round finishes will pull the market toward the method. But nine of those 10 knockouts came outside the UFC, and the read has to cut both ways here: the best name on that list is Francisco Rivera, who went 11 fights in the UFC between 2011 and 2016 and knocked out Alex Caceres in there. The caveat is the context. That knockout came in the Combate Global bantamweight tournament in May 2021, a one-night bracket in which Rivera had already fought twice before he ever saw Martínez, at 39 years old and five years removed from the Octagon. Inside the UFC, against the two ranked men he's faced, Martínez went to the cards both times. And across from him is a fighter who needed 30 pro fights to get stopped once. Paying up for Martínez inside the distance is buying a finisher profile that hasn't shown up at the level he's fighting at now.
COLISEUM - Statistical and tactical analysis. Data sourced from ufcstats.com and public sources.
David "Black Spartan" Martínez vs Dan "100 Grand" Ige | Noche UFC: Silva vs Delgado | September 12, 2026 | Desert Diamond Arena, Glendale, Arizona, USA
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