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History · 2012 · UFC 143: Diaz vs Condit · Rafael Natal vs Michael Kuiper
From the tape · 4 Feb 2012

Rafael Natal vs Michael Kuiper

UFC 143: Diaz vs Condit · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Rafael Natal beat Michael Kuiper

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightMain cardReferee · Steve Mazzagatti

We published no prediction for this bout. Everything on this page is the official record and the tape it was fought on — the result, the round-by-round counts, the judges’ cards where they exist and the sportsbook line where one was published. Our graded calls start in 2026 and live on the public record.

RN
Red corner RafaelNatal“Sapo”Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
VSOn the tape
MK
Blue corner MichaelKuiperTeam Topfighter · Tilburg
Middleweight3 rounds4 Feb 2012
21-9-1
Record
15-5
29
Age
−7 yr22
6' 0"
Height
6' 0"
+4″77″
Reach
73″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
Gym
Team Topfighter
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
From
Tilburg
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. 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.

Round by round

Every round the fight went, shaded by where the significant strikes actually landed — and the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them.

UFCStats · per round

3 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action1 sub attempt
Rafael Natal3 sig landed
HEAD0%0 of 6BODY33%1 of 1LEGS67%2 of 2
Michael Kuiper4 sig landed
HEAD25%1 of 6BODY25%1 of 1LEGS50%2 of 4
3 of 9
Sig.
strikes
4 of 11
4 of 7
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:28
Control
1:19
0
Knock-
downs
0
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 2Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 2Ground 1
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 25:00 of action
Rafael Natal31 sig landed
HEAD77%24 of 47BODY13%4 of 7LEGS10%3 of 5
Michael Kuiper8 sig landed
HEAD62%5 of 24BODY25%2 of 3LEGS12%1 of 2
31 of 59
Sig.
strikes
8 of 29
1 of 7
Take-
downs
0 of 0
1:22
Control
0:15
0
Knock-
downs
0
0
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 21Clinch 10Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 6Clinch 2Ground 0
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.
Round 35:00 of action⚡ 1 KD Kuiper1 sub attemptEnded 5:00
Rafael Natal2 sig landed
HEAD50%1 of 3BODY0%0 landedLEGS50%1 of 1
Michael Kuiper18 sig landed
HEAD100%18 of 22BODY0%0 landedLEGS0%0 landed
2 of 4
Sig.
strikes
18 of 22
1 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
2:34
Control
2:08
0
Knock-
downs
1
1
Sub
attempts
0
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 1Clinch 0Ground 17
JudgesNo per-round card for this bout in our decisions source — the judges’ totals are in the scorecards section below.

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.

Judges’ scorecards

The judges’ totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score.

Official card

Unanimous Decision

Referee · Steve Mazzagatti
Official totals — Rafael Natal first
JudgeTotal
Adalaide Byrd2.0 avg spread · 45% wide30–27
Sal D'amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide30–27
Patricia Morse-Jarman2.0 avg spread · 45% wide29–28

There is no per-round card for this bout in our decisions source, so the judges’ totals are all we can show. This one is inside the window our source covers — it is a gap in the record, not a scrape we are waiting on, and nothing here is estimated to fill it.

Media cards — 6 scored, Rafael Natal first · unofficial

Freddie DeFreitas Sherdog.com30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27
Mike Chiappetta MMAFighting.com30–28
Jordan Breen Sherdog.com29–28
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com29–28
MM AWeekly.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Natal · 60%30-27 Natal · 40%

5 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.

Rafael Natal

2.55takedowns / 15 min
2.55 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.30 / 15m
7.50 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
4.18 / 15m
34%
ACCURACY
55%
0.50 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Michael Kuiper

2.30takedowns / 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 (6.86 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Middleweight

The market story

Where the price started and where it finished — the sportsbook consensus, with the vig removed. We captured no price series for this bout, so there is no chart to draw.

Rafael Natal↓ −7.1pp
open 66.4%close 59.3%
Michael Kuiper↑ +7.1pp
open 33.6%close 40.7%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Rafael Natal opened at 66.4% and closed at 59.3% (−7.1pp), with Michael Kuiper moving the other way by the same amount — the two are one de-vigged pair, so they always sum to 100%. There is no line between those two points because nobody recorded one: we hold the open and the close for this bout, not the days in between.

Show the numbers
CornerOpen (US)Close (US)Open %Close %Move
Rafael Natal-240-15266.4%59.3%−7.1pp
Michael Kuiper18014233.6%40.7%+7.1pp
Opening and closing moneylines from BestFightOdds (data/refs/bfo_fighter_moneylines.csv), one row per fighter per bout, de-vigged pairwise so the two corners sum to 100% · scraped 2026-06-10. No price series was captured for this bout, so no line is drawn between the two points.
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