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History · 2025 · UFC 312: Du Plessis vs. Strickland 2 · Rongzhu vs Kody Steele
From the tape · 8 Feb 2025

Rongzhu vs Kody Steele

UFC 312: Du Plessis vs. Strickland 2 · Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Result

Rongzhu beat Kody Steele

Method
Decision - Unanimous
Round
3 of 3
Clock
5:00
LightweightMain cardReferee · Steve Perceval

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 Rongzhu
VSOn the tape
Blue corner KodySteeleSyndicate MMA · Austin, Texas
Lightweight3 rounds8 Feb 2025
The story going in
  • Has dropped 2 straight in the UFC.
  • Carries 16 points more takedown defence than Rongzhu.
  • Is 19 points more accurate striking than Steele.
27-6
Record
8-1
−5 yr24
Age
29
5' 9"
Height
5' 9"
71″
Reach
71″
Orthodox
Stance
Orthodox
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
Rongzhu33 sig landed
HEAD82%27 of 69BODY6%2 of 2LEGS12%4 of 4
Kody Steele27 sig landed
HEAD78%21 of 79BODY15%4 of 4LEGS7%2 of 3
33 of 75
Sig.
strikes
27 of 86
0 of 0
Take-
downs
1 of 3
0:08
Control
0:06
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 33Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 26Clinch 1Ground 0
Judges · this round · Rongzhu firstSal D'Amato10–9Evan Field10–9Clemens Werner10–9
Round 25:00 of action⚡ 1 KD Rongzhu
Rongzhu32 sig landed
HEAD88%28 of 59BODY3%1 of 2LEGS9%3 of 3
Kody Steele9 sig landed
HEAD89%8 of 33BODY11%1 of 2LEGS0%0 of 1
32 of 64
Sig.
strikes
9 of 36
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 1
0:10
Control
0:00
1
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 32Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 9Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Rongzhu firstSal D'Amato10–9Evan Field10–9Clemens Werner10–9
Round 35:00 of actionEnded 5:00
Rongzhu60 sig landed
HEAD88%53 of 92BODY2%1 of 4LEGS10%6 of 6
Kody Steele23 sig landed
HEAD78%18 of 82BODY22%5 of 5LEGS0%0 landed
60 of 102
Sig.
strikes
23 of 87
0 of 0
Take-
downs
0 of 0
0:00
Control
0:00
0
Knock-
downs
0
Distance 60Clinch 0Ground 0
Where it
happened
Distance 23Clinch 0Ground 0
Judges · this round · Rongzhu firstSal D'Amato10–9Evan Field10–9Clemens Werner10–9

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 · Steve Perceval
RongzhuKody Steele
Official totals — Rongzhu first
JudgeTotal
Sal D'Amato2.1 avg spread · 46% wide30–27
Evan Field2.2 avg spread · 48% wide30–27
Clemens Werner2.1 avg spread · 50% 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 — 11 scored, Rongzhu first · unofficial

Dayne Fox Sherdog.com30–27
Combat Press.com30–27
Zane Simon The MMA Vivisection30–27
Ryan Frederick WrestlingObserver.com30–27
Keith Shillan Sherdog.com30–27
John Pollock POST Wrestling30–27
Danny Segura MMAJunkie.com30–27
Jake Noecker Home of Fight30–27
Jay Pettry Sherdog.com30–27
Devin Tejada Sherdog.com30–27
Ben Duffy Sherdog.com29–28

Fan vote · unofficial

30-27 Zhu · 97%29-28 Zhu · 3%

39 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.

Rongzhu

1.35takedowns / 15 min
1.35 / 15m
TAKEDOWNS
1.07 / 15m
2.18 / 15m
ATTEMPTS
4.28 / 15m
62%
ACCURACY
25%
0.10 / 15m
SUB ATT
0.50 / 15m

Kody Steele

1.07takedowns / 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 (5.22 takedowns / 15m); a fighter above it pins the bar. Percentages are drawn on their own axis.

Ranked in Lightweight

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.

Rongzhu↓ −6.3pp
open 32.5%close 26.2%
Kody Steele↑ +6.3pp
open 67.5%close 73.8%
0%50%100%
OpenClosing consensus (BFO, vig removed)

Rongzhu opened at 32.5% and closed at 26.2% (−6.3pp), with Kody Steele 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
Rongzhu19526432.5%26.2%−6.3pp
Kody Steele-238-34167.5%73.8%+6.3pp
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 2025-02-09 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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