Tom Watson and Rafael Natal kicked off the Fox Sports 1 portion of UFC 183 preliminaries with their middleweight bout. Natal was in control of the entire bout, but he simply could not find a way to finish the fight.

Natal mixed things up nicely with a mixture of takedowns and strikes. Natal was efficient with his strikes and ended up landing over 50% of his attempted strikes! Watson was unable to land anything significant and he was always chasing Natal who dictated the pace of the fight.

Watson proved to be durable as he took a great deal of punishment and asked for more. He was taken down multiple times but found a way to get back to his feet whether it was wall-walking or scrambling back to his feet.

Rafael Natal def. Tom Watson by way of Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)