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Events · UFC 298: Volkanovski vs. Topuria · Robert Whittaker vs Paulo Costa
From the tape · 17 Feb 2024

Robert Whittaker vs Paulo Costa

UFC 298: Volkanovski vs. Topuria · Anaheim, California, USA
Result

Robert Whittaker beat Paulo Costa

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 RobertWhittaker“The Reaper”PMA Super Martial Arts · Sydney, New South Wales
VSOn the tape
Blue corner PauloCosta“The Eraser”Team Borracha · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Middleweight3 rounds17 Feb 2024
The story going in
  • Has finished 5 of 15 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 4 of 6 UFC wins.
  • 20 UFC bouts deep — 12 more than Costa.
  • Is 16 points more accurate striking than Whittaker.
28-9
Record
16-4
33
Age
−1 yr32
6' 0"
Height
+1″6' 1"
+1″73″
Reach
72″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+1220
UFC bouts
8
5/1533% of wins
Finishes
+33%4/667% of wins
PMA Super Martial Arts
Gym
Team Borracha
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 Whittaker38 sig landed
HEAD68%26 of 50BODY3%1 of 1LEGS29%11 of 11
Paulo Costa27 sig landed
HEAD59%16 of 38BODY15%4 of 4LEGS26%7 of 7
38 of 62
Sig.
strikes
27 of 49
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 38Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 27Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Whittaker firstMichael Bell10–9Eliot Kelly9–10Ron McCarthy9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Robert Whittaker32 sig landed
HEAD62%20 of 43BODY9%3 of 3LEGS28%9 of 9
Paulo Costa26 sig landed
HEAD62%16 of 43BODY8%2 of 3LEGS31%8 of 8
32 of 55
Sig.
strikes
26 of 54
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 32Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 26Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Whittaker firstMichael Bell10–9Eliot Kelly10–9Ron McCarthy10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Robert Whittaker25 sig landed
HEAD68%17 of 50BODY0%0 landedLEGS32%8 of 8
Paulo Costa14 sig landed
HEAD50%7 of 36BODY14%2 of 5LEGS36%5 of 7
25 of 58
Sig.
strikes
14 of 48
0 of 1
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 25Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 14Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Whittaker firstMichael Bell10–9Eliot Kelly10–9Ron 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 · Mike Beltran
Robert WhittakerPaulo Costa
Official totals — Robert Whittaker first
JudgeTotal
Michael Bell30–27
Eliot Kelly29–28
Ron McCarthy2.0 avg spread · 41% 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 — 29 scored, Robert Whittaker first · unofficial

MM AMania.com30–27
Sheehan SevereMMA.com29–28
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com29–28
Tristen Critchfield Sherdog.com29–28
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com29–28
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com29–28
MM AJunkie.com29–28
Dominik Durniat ddreporter Tv29–28
Kendrick Johnson The Sports Daily29–28
Bloody Elbow.com29–28
Chris De Santiago Sports Illustrated29–28
Steve Duncan mma.uno29–28
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com29–28
Drake Riggs MMAMania.com29–28
Ben Davis29–28
John Pollock POST Wrestling29–28
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com29–28
Nick Baldwin theScore29–28
Combat Press.com29–28
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Shakiel Mahjouri CBS Sports29–28
Jake Noecker Cageside Press29–28
Damien Bartonek Fox West Texas29–28
Matthew Wells MMAJunkie.com29–28
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com29–28
Alex Behunin MMA Mania29–28
Dayne Fox BloodyElbow.com29–28
Scott Fontana New York Post28–29
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News28–29

Fan vote · unofficial

29-28 Whittaker · 58%30-27 Whittaker · 25%29-28 Costa · 12%30-28 Whittaker · 2%30-27 Costa · 1%

560 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
0.30 / 15m
1.92 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
0.71 / 15m
38%
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.

Robert Whittaker↓ −2.5pp
open 68.1%close 65.6%
Paulo Costa↑ +2.5pp
open 31.9%close 34.4%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Robert Whittaker opened at 68.1% and closed at 65.6% (−2.5pp), 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
Robert Whittaker-245-21668.1%65.6%−2.5pp
Paulo Costa20017931.9%34.4%+2.5pp
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% · dated 2024-02-18 on the odds record (1d from the card date; the nearest day inside a two-day window is used, never a guess) · 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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