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Events · UFC 302: Makhachev vs. Poirier · Sean Strickland vs Paulo Costa
From the tape · 1 Jun 2024

Sean Strickland vs Paulo Costa

UFC 302: Makhachev vs. Poirier · Newark, New Jersey, USA
Result

Sean Strickland beat Paulo Costa

Method
Decision - Split
Round
5 of 5
Clock
5:00
MiddleweightCo-MainReferee · 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.

Red corner SeanStricklandXtreme Couture · Anaheim, California
VSOn the tape
Blue corner PauloCosta“The Eraser”Team Borracha · Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
Middleweight5 rounds1 Jun 2024
The story going in
  • Has finished 5 of 15 UFC wins.
  • Has finished 4 of 6 UFC wins.
  • 21 UFC bouts deep — 12 more than Costa.
  • Is 17 points more accurate striking than Strickland.
31-7
Record
16-4
33
Age
33
6' 1"
Height
6' 1"
+4″76″
Reach
72″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
+1221
UFC bouts
9
5/1533% of wins
Finishes
+33%4/667% of wins
Xtreme Couture
Gym
Team Borracha
Anaheim, California
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

5 rounds of tape

Round 15:00 of action
Sean Strickland24 sig landed
HEAD21%5 of 18BODY67%16 of 35LEGS12%3 of 3
Paulo Costa31 sig landed
HEAD13%4 of 10BODY55%17 of 21LEGS32%10 of 12
24 of 56
Sig.
strikes
31 of 43
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:01
Control
0:00
Distance 24Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 30Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Strickland firstSal D'Amato9–10Chris Lee10–9Dave Tirelli9–10
Round 25:00 of action
Sean Strickland25 sig landed
HEAD48%12 of 40BODY44%11 of 24LEGS8%2 of 6
Paulo Costa32 sig landed
HEAD6%2 of 17BODY50%16 of 17LEGS44%14 of 15
25 of 70
Sig.
strikes
32 of 49
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 25Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 32Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Strickland firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Dave Tirelli9–10
Round 35:00 of action
Sean Strickland45 sig landed
HEAD62%28 of 56BODY33%15 of 25LEGS4%2 of 2
Paulo Costa34 sig landed
HEAD21%7 of 19BODY50%17 of 23LEGS29%10 of 12
45 of 83
Sig.
strikes
34 of 54
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 45Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 34Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Strickland firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Dave Tirelli9–10
Round 45:00 of action
Sean Strickland39 sig landed
HEAD56%22 of 61BODY36%14 of 22LEGS8%3 of 5
Paulo Costa29 sig landed
HEAD31%9 of 26BODY45%13 of 19LEGS24%7 of 8
39 of 88
Sig.
strikes
29 of 53
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 38Clinch 1Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 29Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Strickland firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Dave Tirelli9–10
Round 55:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Sean Strickland49 sig landed
HEAD76%37 of 83BODY22%11 of 21LEGS2%1 of 1
Paulo Costa32 sig landed
HEAD19%6 of 28BODY66%21 of 31LEGS16%5 of 8
49 of 105
Sig.
strikes
32 of 67
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
Distance 47Clinch 2Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 32Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Strickland firstSal D'Amato10–9Chris Lee10–9Dave Tirelli10–9

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

Split Decision

Referee · Jason Herzog
Sean StricklandPaulo Costa
Official totals — Sean Strickland first
JudgeTotal
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide49–46
Chris Lee2.0 avg spread · 44% wide50–45
Dave Tirelli2.2 avg spread · 56% wide46–49

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 — 24 scored, Sean Strickland first · unofficial

Shakiel Mahjouri CBS Sports50–45
Steve Duncan mma.uno50–45
Nolan King MMAJunkie.com50–45
Zane Simon The MMA Vivisection50–45
Daniel Yanofsky The Sporting News50–45
Michael DeSantis MMASucka.com50–45
John Pollock POST Wrestling50–45
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com50–45
Nick Baldwin theScore50–45
Devin Tejada Sherdog.com50–45
Dayne Fox The MMA Draw50–45
Jake Noecker Cageside Press50–45
Paul Fontaine WrestlingObserver.com50–45
Jed Meshew MMAFighting.com49–46
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com49–46
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com49–46
MM AJunkie.com49–46
Val Dewar Cageside Press49–46
Chris De Santiago Sports Illustrated49–46
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com49–46
Patrick McCorry Cageside Press49–46
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com49–46
Sheehan SevereMMA.com49–46
Damien Bartonek Fox West Texas48–47

Fan vote · unofficial

50-45 Strickland · 58%49-46 Strickland · 24%48-47 Strickland · 8%48-47 Costa · 3%50-44 Strickland · 2%

857 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.

Sean Strickland

0.66takedowns / 15 min
0.66 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
0.30 / 15m
1.06 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
0.71 / 15m
62%
ACCURACY
42%
0.10 / 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.

Sean Strickland↑ +3.0pp
open 62.2%close 65.2%
Paulo Costa↓ −3.0pp
open 37.8%close 34.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Sean Strickland opened at 62.2% and closed at 65.2% (+3.0pp), 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
Sean Strickland-185-22062.2%65.2%+3.0pp
Paulo Costa15417337.8%34.8%−3.0pp
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% · dated 2024-06-02 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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