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Events · UFC 278: Usman vs. Edwards · Paulo Costa vs Luke Rockhold
From the tape · 20 Aug 2022

Paulo Costa vs Luke Rockhold

UFC 278: Usman vs. Edwards · Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Result

Paulo Costa beat Luke Rockhold

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightCo-MainReferee · Mike Beltran

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 PauloCosta“The Eraser”Team Borracha · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
VSOn the tape
LR
Blue corner LukeRockholdAmerican Kickboxing Academy · San Jose, California
Middleweight3 rounds20 Aug 2022
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Has finished 4 of 5 UFC wins.
  • Every one of Rockhold’s 6 UFC wins came inside the distance.
16-4
Record
16-6
−6 yr31
Age
37
6' 1"
Height
+2″6' 3"
72″
Reach
+5″77″
Orthodox
Stance
Southpaw
7
UFC bouts
+310
4/580% of wins
Finishes
+20%6/6100% of wins
Team Borracha
Gym
American Kickboxing Academy
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
From
San Jose, California
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
Paulo Costa27 sig landed
HEAD48%13 of 19BODY48%13 of 14LEGS4%1 of 1
Luke Rockhold19 sig landed
HEAD32%6 of 8BODY58%11 of 13LEGS11%2 of 2
27 of 34
Sig.
strikes
19 of 23
1 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 2
2:48
Control
0:03
Distance 11Clinch 2Ground 14
Where it
happened
Distance 17Clinch 2Ground 0
Judges · this round · Costa firstMichael Bell10–9Derek Cleary10–9Chris Lee10–9
Round 25:00 of action
Paulo Costa30 sig landed
HEAD47%14 of 22BODY47%14 of 18LEGS7%2 of 2
Luke Rockhold23 sig landed
HEAD48%11 of 23BODY39%9 of 9LEGS13%3 of 3
30 of 42
Sig.
strikes
23 of 35
1 of 1
Take-
downs
1 of 1
0:17
Control
0:12
Distance 29Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 23Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Costa firstMichael Bell10–9Derek Cleary10–9Chris Lee10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Paulo Costa16 sig landed
HEAD62%10 of 20BODY38%6 of 7LEGS0%0 landed
Luke Rockhold9 sig landed
HEAD67%6 of 9BODY33%3 of 3LEGS0%0 landed
16 of 27
Sig.
strikes
9 of 12
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
2:23
Control
0:32
Distance 13Clinch 0Ground 3
Where it
happened
Distance 8Clinch 0Ground 1
Judges · this round · Costa firstMichael Bell10–9Derek Cleary10–9Chris Lee10–9

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 · Mike Beltran
Paulo CostaLuke Rockhold
Official totals — Paulo Costa first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell30–27
Derek Cleary2.0 avg spread · 42% wide30–27
Chris Lee2.0 avg spread · 44% wide30–27

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 — 17 scored, Paulo Costa first · unofficial

Keith Shillan Sherdog.com30–26
Jillian DeCoursey30–27
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com30–27
MM AJunkie.com30–27
Noah Gagnon Sherdog.com30–27
Tyler Treese Sherdog.com30–27
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com30–27
Scott Fontana New York Post30–27
Shakiel Mahjouri CBS Sports30–27
Combat Press.com30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Drake Riggs MMAMania.com30–27
Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com30–27
John Pollock POST Wrestling30–27
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News30–27
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com29–27
MM AMania.com28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Costa · 36%29-28 Costa · 32%29-28 Rockhold · 22%30-26 Costa · 4%30-27 Rockhold · 3%

303 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.

Paulo Costa

0.30takedowns / 15 min
0.30 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.70 / 15m
0.71 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
2.41 / 15m
42%
ACCURACY
29%
0.00 / 15m
SUB ATT
1.00 / 15m

Luke Rockhold

0.70takedowns / 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.

Paulo Costa↑ +5.2pp
open 69.8%close 75.0%
Luke Rockhold↓ −5.2pp
open 30.2%close 25.0%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Paulo Costa opened at 69.8% and closed at 75.0% (+5.2pp), with Luke Rockhold 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
Paulo Costa-260-36269.8%75.0%+5.2pp
Luke Rockhold22028330.2%25.0%−5.2pp
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.
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