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History · 2019 · UFC 241: Cormier vs. Miocic 2 · Yoel Romero vs Paulo Costa
From the tape · 17 Aug 2019

Yoel Romero vs Paulo Costa

UFC 241: Cormier vs. Miocic 2 · Anaheim, California, USA
Result

Paulo Costa beat Yoel Romero

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightMain cardReferee · Jason Herzog

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 PauloCosta“The Eraser”Team Borracha · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Middleweight3 rounds17 Aug 2019
The story going in
  • Has finished 7 of 9 UFC wins.
  • Comes in on a 4-fight win streak.
  • 11 UFC bouts deep — 7 more than Costa.
  • Every one of Costa’s 4 UFC wins came inside the distance.
13-5
Record
16-4
42
Age
−14 yr28
6' 0"
Height
+1″6' 1"
+1″73″
Reach
72″
Southpaw
Stance
Orthodox
+711
UFC bouts
4
7/978% of wins
Finishes
+22%4/4100% of wins
American Top Team
Gym
Team Borracha
Miami, Florida
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⚡ 1 KD Romero⚡ 1 KD Costa
Yoel Romero32 sig landed
HEAD72%23 of 54BODY6%2 of 7LEGS22%7 of 8
Paulo Costa37 sig landed
HEAD51%19 of 46BODY43%16 of 20LEGS5%2 of 3
32 of 69
Sig.
strikes
37 of 69
0 of 2
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:06
Control
0:04
1
Knock-
downs
1
Distance 31Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 32Clinch 2Ground 3
Judges · this round · Romero firstMichael Bell9–10Guilherme Bravo9–10Ron McCarthy9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Yoel Romero40 sig landed
HEAD70%28 of 77BODY15%6 of 7LEGS15%6 of 7
Paulo Costa37 sig landed
HEAD65%24 of 53BODY32%12 of 17LEGS3%1 of 1
40 of 91
Sig.
strikes
37 of 71
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:01
Control
0:00
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 39Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 36Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Romero firstMichael Bell9–10Guilherme Bravo9–10Ron McCarthy9–10
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Yoel Romero53 sig landed
HEAD85%45 of 113BODY6%3 of 6LEGS9%5 of 5
Paulo Costa44 sig landed
HEAD55%24 of 49BODY41%18 of 21LEGS5%2 of 3
53 of 124
Sig.
strikes
44 of 73
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:05
Control
0:02
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 48Clinch 5Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 42Clinch 2Ground 0
Judges · this round · Romero firstMichael Bell10–9Guilherme Bravo10–9Ron McCarthy10–9

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 · Jason Herzog
Yoel RomeroPaulo Costa
Official totals — Yoel Romero first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell28–29
Guilherme Bravo2.1 avg spread · 48% wide28–29
Ron McCarthy2.0 avg spread · 41% wide28–29

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, Yoel Romero first · unofficial

Steve Duncan mma.uno28–29
MM AMania.com28–29
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com28–29
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com28–29
Matthew Wells FanSided.com28–29
Rob Tatum CombatPress.com28–29
Sheehan SevereMMA.com28–29
Phil Murphy ESPN28–29
John Pollock POST Wrestling28–29
Keith Shillan FanSided.com28–29
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com28–29
Kendrick Johnson The Sports Daily29–28
Stephie Haynes BloodyElbow.com29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Nick Baldwin BloodyElbow.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com29–28
Patrick Auger Sherdog.com29–28
MM ABrasil.com.br29–28
Mookie Alexander BloodyElbow.com29–28
Danny Segura MMAFighting.com29–28
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com30–27

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Costa · 48%29-28 Romero · 41%30-27 Romero · 2%30-27 Costa · 1%

2,124 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
0.30 / 15m
5.23 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
0.71 / 15m
30%
ACCURACY
42%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.00 / 15m

Paulo Costa

0.30takedowns / 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.

Yoel Romero↓ −4.0pp
open 63.5%close 59.4%
Paulo Costa↑ +4.0pp
open 36.5%close 40.6%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Yoel Romero opened at 63.5% and closed at 59.4% (−4.0pp), with Paulo Costa 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-190-16263.5%59.4%−4.0pp
Paulo Costa16513736.5%40.6%+4.0pp
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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