Song Yadong Didn't Just Win at Home — He Finished a Former Champion

Song Yadong came home looking for a statement. He got the biggest one available.

In front of his own crowd at the Galaxy Arena, the No. 5 bantamweight submitted Deiveson Figueiredo in the second round — not a decision, not a close call, a finish over a former two-time UFC champion. It's comfortably the most significant win of Song's career and the kind of result that turns a homecoming into a launching pad. The man who walked across the cage at Friday's face-off to invade Figueiredo's space backed it up emphatically.

For Figueiredo, the harder version of the story arrived. He came to Macau insisting he was "still alive" in the title picture and talking about fighting until 43. Instead, on the same floor where Petr Yan outpointed him in 2024, he was finished for the second time in this bantamweight run — Cory Sandhagen stopped him in May 2025, and now Song — and the gatekeeper framing he'd rejected all week looks, for now, like the accurate one. At 38 and now on the wrong end of a submission, the questions only get louder.

The Crowd's Night Soured Twice

Macau came to celebrate its stars, and two of them fell.

In the light-heavyweight co-main, Alonzo Menifield knocked out home favorite Zhang Mingyang — the upset our preview flagged as live, in a fight between two punchers with suspect recent chins. Zhang, the betting favorite, ate the first clean shot that mattered, and the American sent the building quiet. It was exactly the coin-flip-with-a-finish that the matchup promised, landing on the side the market didn't expect.

Then, on the prelims, Angela Hill spoiled Xiong Jingnan's UFC debut, taking a unanimous decision over the former ONE champion. The veteran gatekeeper did exactly what the matchup asked of her — dragged a heralded newcomer into deep, awkward water and won the rounds. A debut that was supposed to send Xiong "rocketing up the ladder" instead became a reminder of how hard the UFC's deep waters are.

Pavlovich Answered His Question Early

The heavyweight bout posed one question: could Tallison Teixeira survive the early rounds where Sergei Pavlovich is most lethal? The answer was no. Pavlovich needed just one round, closing the show by knockout and reminding everyone that the patient, decision-winning version of him still has the old finishing power on tap. Teixeira, who'd predicted a finish of his own and a callout of Alexander Volkov, instead ran into the wall the line warned about.

Asakura Finally Gets One — His Way

Kai Asakura's UFC story had been written by grappling: two losses, both by submission. So he rewrote it by refusing to play that game. The former Rizin champion kept his bout with Cameron Smotherman standing and ended it by first-round knockout — his first UFC win, in his bantamweight return, exactly where his hands were always going to be the edge. Smotherman, who hadn't competed since June 2025, had no time to find a rhythm.

Around the Card

  • Jake Matthews outpointed Carlston Harris over three rounds, the veteran's activity and well-rounded game telling against a dangerous but rusty opponent — as the matchup math suggested.
  • Jose Henrique (Souza) completed a long road back, edging Ding Meng by split decision on debut in hostile territory.
  • Rei Tsuruya submitted Luis Gurule in the first; the quick-turnaround Gurule, fighting two weeks after his last win, couldn't make the short notice pay.
  • Jaqueline Amorim did what she does, submitting Loma Lookboonmee in the opening round — the grappler-vs-grappler battle decided by the sharper submission hunter.
  • Cody Haddon stopped veteran Aoriqileng by knockout, and Luis Felipe Dias and Rodrigo Vera both scored finishes among the newcomers.
  • Alex Perez vs. Sumudaerji ended without a result, stopped in the second round and ruled a no-contest — excluded from the night's pick grading.

How the Model Did

FightIQ's 4-input stacking ensemble went 10-for-12 on graded fights (the Perez–Sumudaerji no-contest is excluded). Both misses were the night's two upsets — Zhang and Xiong, market favorites the model also sided with. An 83% hit rate on a single card runs above the model's roughly ~70% (0.6986 leak-free) accuracy on the 2025-2026 holdout (n=428); one card is a small sample and a good night, not a new baseline. Notably, the spots the model missed were the same ones our previews had flagged as genuine coin-flips — a reminder that "favorite" and "safe" aren't the same word.