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Events · UFC 183: Silva vs Diaz · Rafael Natal vs Tom Watson
From the tape · 31 Jan 2015

Rafael Natal vs Tom Watson

UFC 183: Silva vs Diaz · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Rafael Natal beat Tom Watson

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightMain cardReferee · Mark Smith

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
TW
Blue corner TomWatson“Kong”Jackson-Wink MMA · Southampton
Middleweight3 rounds31 Jan 2015
The story going in
  • 11 UFC bouts deep — 6 more than Watson.
  • Carries 34 points more takedown defence than Watson.
21-9-1
Record
17-9
32
Age
32
6' 0"
Height
+1″6' 1"
+4″77″
Reach
73″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+611
UFC bouts
5
1/617% of wins
Finishes
1/250% of wins
Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
Gym
Jackson-Wink MMA
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
From
Southampton
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 — the takedowns, control time and knockdowns beside them, and how the three judges scored that round.

UFCStats · per round

3 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Rafael Natal23 sig landed
HEAD43%10 of 35BODY9%2 of 4LEGS48%11 of 12
Tom Watson9 sig landed
HEAD44%4 of 29BODY0%0 of 5LEGS56%5 of 10
23 of 51
Sig.
strikes
9 of 44
3 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
1:20
Control
0:00
Distance 23Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Natal firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Sal D'Amato10–9Lester Griffin10–8
Round 25:00 of action
Rafael Natal19 sig landed
HEAD63%12 of 37BODY11%2 of 2LEGS26%5 of 5
Tom Watson9 sig landed
HEAD44%4 of 35BODY0%0 of 6LEGS56%5 of 7
19 of 44
Sig.
strikes
9 of 48
2 of 5
Take-
downs
0 of 0
1:24
Control
0:00
Distance 18Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Natal firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Sal D'Amato10–9Lester Griffin10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Rafael Natal25 sig landed
HEAD84%21 of 53BODY8%2 of 2LEGS8%2 of 2
Tom Watson11 sig landed
HEAD45%5 of 42BODY9%1 of 9LEGS45%5 of 7
25 of 57
Sig.
strikes
11 of 58
3 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:46
Control
0:00
Distance 24Clinch 0Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Natal firstAdalaide Byrd10–9Sal D'Amato10–9Lester Griffin10–9

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.

The cards, totalled

The judges’ final totals, the media’s cards beside them, and how these judges usually score. Their round-by-round 10–9s are with the rounds above.

Official card

Unanimous Decision

Referee · Mark Smith
Rafael NatalTom Watson
Official totals — Rafael Natal first
JudgeTotal
Adalaide Byrd2.0 avg spread · 45% wide30–27
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide30–27
Lester Griffin2.0 avg spread · 47% wide30–26

Each judge’s round-by-round scores sit with the round they belong to, in the round-by-round section above — switch a round there and the three cards for it change with the stats.

Media cards — 16 scored, Rafael Natal first · unofficial

Cage Pages.com30–27
Severe MMA.com30–27
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com30–27
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com30–27
Jason Floyd TheMMAReport.com30–27
Fergus O' Farrell Setanta30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com30–27
TJ DeSantis Sherdog.com30–27
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com30–27
MM ABrasil.com.br30–27
Andrew Richardson MMAMania.com30–27
Marc Raimondi MMAFighting.com30–27
Dallas Winston BloodyElbow.com30–27
Wrestling Observer30–27
Craig Amos BleacherReport.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Natal · 92%30-26 Natal · 8%

12 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
0.15 / 15m
7.50 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
2.14 / 15m
34%
ACCURACY
7%
0.50 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Tom Watson

0.15takedowns / 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↓ −1.4pp
open 56.7%close 55.3%
Tom Watson↑ +1.4pp
open 43.3%close 44.7%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Rafael Natal opened at 56.7% and closed at 55.3% (−1.4pp), with Tom Watson 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-155-13256.7%55.3%−1.4pp
Tom Watson11511743.3%44.7%+1.4pp
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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