Song Yadong's Homecoming Headlines a KO-Heavy Macau Card

The UFC returns to Galaxy Arena on May 30, and the headliner is personal: Song Yadong fights in China for the first time since 2018, in front of a home crowd, with his top-5 bantamweight ranking on the line against former two-time flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo. It's the second straight UFC Macau card to close with a Figueiredo bout — and 'Deus da Guerra' arrives looking to spoil the party.

It's a rebuild fight for both men.

The Main Event

Both Song and Figueiredo lost at UFC 324 on January 24 and meet in Macao after identical 126-day layoffs.

Song (#5 BW in the UFC rankings) dropped a unanimous decision to Sean O'Malley in January. Going further back, his recent run has been mixed — a signature decision win over Henry Cejudo in February 2025, between losses to Petr Yan (March 2024) and O'Malley. At 28, he's one of the division's younger contenders, and a win at home keeps him in the title conversation.

Figueiredo (#7 BW) has had the rougher stretch: 2-3 in his last five at 135, with a unanimous-decision loss to Umar Nurmagomedov at UFC 324, a split-decision win over Montel Jackson in October 2025, a TKO loss to Cory Sandhagen, a decision loss to Petr Yan, and a decision win over Marlon Vera. Sherdog career data puts him at 25-6 overall with nine submission wins. He turned 38 in December.

Figueiredo also took a non-MMA grappling exhibition against Raul Rosas Jr. at Hype Brazil on April 8 — a match that ended in a draw and, by MMA Fighting's account, was more entertainment than competition. It tells us little about his current sharpness.

The market: BetWay opened Song at -400 against Figueiredo at +300, implying a no-vig Song win probability of 76.2% (BFO snapshot 2026-05-16) — a heavy line between top-10 opponents, reflecting Figueiredo's age, his recent skid against the division's better wrestlers, and Song's striking edge.

The Co-Main: A Light-Heavyweight Power Clash

Zhang Mingyang brings his own homecoming storyline alongside Song's. The Chinese light heavyweight has been one of the division's scariest finishers — first-round knockouts of Brendson Ribeiro and Ozzy Diaz, then a stunning first-round stoppage of veteran Anthony Smith — before running into Johnny Walker, who handed him a second-round TKO in August 2025. He faces Alonzo Menifield, an American knockout artist in his own right. The market makes Zhang the favorite (-225, no-vig 64.5%) over Menifield (+163). Two heavy hitters who both prefer to end nights early: this is the card's most likely highlight-reel finish.

The Heavyweight Featured Bout: Pavlovich vs. Teixeira

Sergei Pavlovich, a former UFC interim heavyweight title challenger (he lost only to Tom Aspinall at the top of the division), faces rising Brazilian Tallison Teixeira. Pavlovich has rebuilt with decision wins over Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Waldo Cortes Acosta across 2025 — notable for a fighter whose calling card was always first-round power. Teixeira enters 2-1 in the UFC: a first-round TKO of Justin Tafa, a first-round TKO loss to Derrick Lewis, and a unanimous decision over Tai Tuivasa in January. That Tuivasa win matters — it shows Teixeira can survive the danger rounds, exactly where Pavlovich is most lethal. Pavlovich is a -400 favorite.

Notable Subplots

Kai Asakura drops back to bantamweight. The former Rizin champion is 0-2 in the UFC after a UFC 310 second-round submission loss in a flyweight title shot against Alexandre Pantoja, then a second-round submission loss to Tim Elliott at UFC 319 in August 2025 (per MMA Junkie). He returns to 135 — his pre-UFC weight class — against Cameron Smotherman, who comes in cold: a scheduled UFC 324 bout fell through at the weigh-in stage, leaving his last completed fight a June 2025 decision loss to Ricky Simon.

Xiong Jingnan makes her UFC debut against Angela Hill. Per MMA Junkie, Xiong is the former ONE strawweight champion, with seven title defenses before that promotion folded the division. Hill is a long-tenured UFC strawweight veteran coming off back-to-back decision losses to Iasmin Lucindo and Fatima Kline in 2025. The market has Xiong at -175 (no-vig 59.4%) in her promotional debut.

What the FightIQ Model Sees

The FightIQ 4-input stacking ensemble (V14 + V15+packs + Paperclip + market) publishes its per-fight picks closer to event time. The model runs at approximately ~70% (0.6986 leak-free) accuracy on the 2025-2026 holdout (n=428 fights), with a 59% peak drawdown caveat on the ¼-Kelly stacking strategy.

Big favorites like the -400 main event tend to converge with the model's view. The closer lines — the women's strawweight bouts and the Ding Meng welterweight fight, hovering near 50/50 — are where the model and market are most likely to diverge.

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UFC Fight Night 277 airs from Galaxy Arena, Macao on May 30, 2026 (prelims 4am ET / main card 7am ET, Paramount+). 13 bouts. Data: ufc_gold_dataset_final.csv (fight records), data/refs/upcoming_fights.json + corpus card confirmations, data/UFC_bfo_moneyline.csv (BetWay 2026-05-16), data/refs/sherdog_raw_data.json, data/refs/master_fighter_profiles.json. Corpus sources synthesized below.