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History · 2017 · UFC 213: Romero vs. Whittaker · Yoel Romero vs Robert Whittaker
From the tape · 8 Jul 2017

Yoel Romero vs Robert Whittaker

UFC 213: Romero vs. Whittaker · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Result

Robert Whittaker beat Yoel Romero

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
Interim Middleweight TitleTitle fightMainReferee · 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.

YR
Red corner YoelRomero“Soldier of God”American Top Team · Miami, Florida
VSOn the tape
Blue corner RobertWhittaker“The Reaper”PMA Super Martial Arts · Sydney, New South Wales
Interim Middleweight Title5 rounds8 Jul 2017
The story going in
  • Comes in on a 8-fight win streak.
  • Comes in on a 7-fight win streak.
  • Has finished 6 of 8 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 5 of 9 UFC wins.
13-5
Record
28-9
40
Age
−14 yr26
6' 0"
Height
6' 0"
73″
Reach
73″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
8
UFC bouts
+311
+19%6/875% of wins
Finishes
5/956% of wins
American Top Team
Gym
PMA Super Martial Arts
Miami, Florida
From
Sydney, New South Wales
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

5 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Yoel Romero12 sig landed
HEAD17%2 of 8BODY25%3 of 3LEGS58%7 of 7
Robert Whittaker7 sig landed
HEAD57%4 of 19BODY29%2 of 5LEGS14%1 of 1
12 of 18
Sig.
strikes
7 of 25
1 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:53
Control
0:00
Distance 10Clinch 2Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 6Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Romero firstSal D'Amato10–9Junichiro Kamijo10–9Jeff Mullen10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Yoel Romero6 sig landed
HEAD67%4 of 8BODY33%2 of 3LEGS0%0 of 1
Robert Whittaker6 sig landed
HEAD33%2 of 14BODY50%3 of 6LEGS17%1 of 2
6 of 12
Sig.
strikes
6 of 22
2 of 6
Take-
downs
0 of 0
3:20
Control
0:00
Distance 3Clinch 1Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 3Clinch 3Ground 0
Judges · this round · Romero firstSal D'Amato10–9Junichiro Kamijo10–9Jeff Mullen10–9
Round 35:00 of action
Yoel Romero5 sig landed
HEAD40%2 of 11BODY20%1 of 3LEGS40%2 of 2
Robert Whittaker11 sig landed
HEAD73%8 of 36BODY18%2 of 16LEGS9%1 of 1
5 of 16
Sig.
strikes
11 of 53
0 of 3
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 5Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 10Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Romero firstSal D'Amato9–10Junichiro Kamijo9–10Jeff Mullen9–10
Round 45:00 of action
Yoel Romero7 sig landed
HEAD29%2 of 10BODY14%1 of 1LEGS57%4 of 7
Robert Whittaker19 sig landed
HEAD58%11 of 31BODY37%7 of 10LEGS5%1 of 1
7 of 18
Sig.
strikes
19 of 42
1 of 4
Take-
downs
0 of 0
1:02
Control
0:05
Distance 5Clinch 0Ground 2
Where it
happened
Distance 16Clinch 2Ground 1
Judges · this round · Romero firstSal D'Amato9–10Junichiro Kamijo9–10Jeff Mullen9–10
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Yoel Romero18 sig landed
HEAD56%10 of 31BODY28%5 of 8LEGS17%3 of 4
Robert Whittaker31 sig landed
HEAD68%21 of 63BODY29%9 of 15LEGS3%1 of 1
18 of 43
Sig.
strikes
31 of 79
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
1:28
Distance 18Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 24Clinch 0Ground 7
Judges · this round · Romero firstSal D'Amato9–10Junichiro Kamijo9–10Jeff Mullen9–10

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
Yoel RomeroRobert Whittaker
Official totals — Yoel Romero first
JudgeTotal
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide47–48
Junichiro Kamijo2.0 avg spread · 43% wide47–48
Jeff Mullen2.1 avg spread · 42% wide47–48

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 — 23 scored, Yoel Romero first · unofficial

Jordan Breen Sherdog.com46–49
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com47–48
Kendrick Johnson The Ring47–48
MM AMania.com47–48
Nathan McCarter BleacherReport.com47–48
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com47–48
Brian Knapp Sherdog.com47–48
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com47–48
MM AJunkie.com47–48
Pedro Carneiro MMABrasil.com.br47–48
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com47–48
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com47–48
Danny Segura MMAFighting.com47–48
Wesley Riddle MMASucka.com47–48
Jason Floyd TheMMAReport.com47–48
Jim Edwards MMALatestNews.com47–48
Marc Raimondi MMAFighting.com47–48
Nick Baldwin BloodyElbow.com47–48
Tim Burke BloodyElbow.com47–48
John Pollock Fight Network47–48
Steve Duncan mma.uno47–48
Youngs FanSided.com47–48
Phil Murphy ESPN47–48

Fan vote · unofficial

48-47 Whittaker · 69%49-46 Whittaker · 16%48-47 Romero · 4%49-47 Whittaker · 2%

466 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.

Yoel Romero

1.57takedowns / 15 min
1.57 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.73 / 15m
5.23 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
1.92 / 15m
30%
ACCURACY
38%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Robert Whittaker

0.73takedowns / 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.

Yoel Romero↓ −5.7pp
open 53.1%close 47.4%
Robert Whittaker↑ +5.7pp
open 46.9%close 52.6%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Yoel Romero opened at 53.1% and closed at 47.4% (−5.7pp), with Robert Whittaker 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
Yoel Romero-13010253.1%47.4%−5.7pp
Robert Whittaker100-12246.9%52.6%+5.7pp
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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