This Saturday Hooker vs Parnasse · Accor Arena Paris France See this week's picks →
Events · UFC 197: Jones vs Saint Preux · Robert Whittaker vs Rafael Natal
From the tape · 23 Apr 2016

Robert Whittaker vs Rafael Natal

UFC 197: Jones vs Saint Preux · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Robert Whittaker beat Rafael Natal

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightMain cardReferee · John McCarthy

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.

Red corner RobertWhittaker“The Reaper”PMA Super Martial Arts · Sydney, New South Wales
VSOn the tape
RN
Blue corner RafaelNatal“Sapo”Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Middleweight3 rounds23 Apr 2016
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 4-fight win streak.
  • Comes in on a 4-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 3 of 6 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 2 of 9 UFC wins.
28-9
Record
21-9-1
−8 yr25
Age
33
6' 0"
Height
6' 0"
73″
Reach
+4″77″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
8
UFC bouts
+614
+28%3/650% of wins
Finishes
2/922% of wins
PMA Super Martial Arts
Gym
Renzo Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
Sydney, New South Wales
From
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
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
Robert Whittaker23 sig landed
HEAD70%16 of 43BODY9%2 of 2LEGS22%5 of 6
Rafael Natal22 sig landed
HEAD77%17 of 37BODY9%2 of 8LEGS14%3 of 3
23 of 51
Sig.
strikes
22 of 48
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:02
Control
0:00
Distance 22Clinch 0Ground 1
Where it
happened
Distance 22Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Whittaker firstDerek Cleary10–9Chris Lee10–9Patricia Morse Jarman10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Robert Whittaker31 sig landed
HEAD55%17 of 45BODY10%3 of 4LEGS35%11 of 12
Rafael Natal21 sig landed
HEAD48%10 of 31BODY10%2 of 3LEGS43%9 of 12
31 of 61
Sig.
strikes
21 of 46
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 2
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 30Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 21Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Whittaker firstDerek Cleary10–9Chris Lee10–9Patricia Morse Jarman9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Robert Whittaker35 sig landed
HEAD51%18 of 41BODY14%5 of 5LEGS34%12 of 18
Rafael Natal19 sig landed
HEAD47%9 of 27BODY0%0 of 4LEGS53%10 of 12
35 of 64
Sig.
strikes
19 of 43
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 31Clinch 1Ground 3
Where it
happened
Distance 18Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Whittaker firstDerek Cleary10–9Chris Lee10–9Patricia Morse Jarman10–9

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 · John McCarthy
Robert WhittakerRafael Natal
Official totals — Robert Whittaker first
JudgeTotal
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide30–27
Chris Lee2.0 avg spread · 44% wide30–27
Patricia Morse Jarman2.0 avg spread · 45% wide29–28

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 — 22 scored, Robert Whittaker first · unofficial

Diego Peixoto MMABrasil.com.br30–27
Shaun Al- Shatti MMAFighting.com30–27
Chris Nelson Sherdog.com30–27
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com30–27
TJ DeSantis Sherdog.com30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27
Craig Amos BleacherReport.com30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com30–27
Jim Edwards MMALatestNews.com30–27
Mike Whitman Sherdog.com30–27
Danny Segura MMAFighting.com30–27
Youngs TheMMACorner.com30–27
John Pollock Fight Network30–27
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com30–27
Severe MMA.com30–27
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Steven Kelliher Tapology.com29–28
Dana Becker FightLine.com29–28
Cory Braiterman MMAMania.com29–28
Dave Meltzer Wrestling Observer29–28
Dallas Winston BloodyElbow.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Whittaker · 82%29-28 Whittaker · 17%30-26 Whittaker · 2%

60 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.

Robert Whittaker

0.73takedowns / 15 min
0.73 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
2.55 / 15m
1.92 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
7.50 / 15m
38%
ACCURACY
34%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.50 / 15m

Rafael Natal

2.55takedowns / 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.

Robert Whittaker→ no move
open 73.1%close 73.3%
Rafael Natal→ no move
open 26.9%close 26.7%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

The line barely moved. Robert Whittaker opened at 73.1% and closed at 73.3% once the vig is taken out — a 0.2pp shift across the whole build-up. 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
Robert Whittaker-350-31773.1%73.3%+0.2pp
Rafael Natal25026226.9%26.7%−0.2pp
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.
← Every fighter on the record