Umar Nurmagomedov did not soften it. With his booked co-main against David Martinez reportedly in doubt, the No. 3 bantamweight turned his attention to a different name and went after it hard.
"Of course, I'm interested," Nurmagomedov told Adam Zubayraev of Song Yadong in a translated interview, per MMA Junkie. "He's a punching bag. How did he do against O'Malley? He was dead by the third round." He went further, saying the only weapon Song carries is "that one punch."
The callout landed because the bracket above it is in flux. Nurmagomedov (20-1, 7-1 UFC) was set to headline UFC Fight Night 282 against No. 9 David Martinez (14-1, 3-0 UFC) on July 25 in Abu Dhabi, but manager Ali Abdelaziz said Martinez is out with an injury, and reports have the UFC eyeing Nurmagomedov against Song (23-9-1, 12-4-1 UFC) instead, per MMA Junkie. No second outlet has confirmed it yet, so treat the Song booking as a rumor rather than a done deal. The callout, the records and the recent results below are verified.
Where the two actually sit
Strip away the trash talk and the 135-pound picture is tighter than Nurmagomedov made it sound. MMA Fighting's latest global rankings, published June 20, list Nurmagomedov at No. 3 and Song at No. 7 at bantamweight, with Cory Sandhagen, Mario Bautista and Sean O'Malley clustered between and around them. Both men are coming off wins. Nurmagomedov outpointed former champion Deiveson Figueiredo over three rounds on Jan. 24. Song answered his O'Malley loss with a bonus-winning second-round submission of Figueiredo on May 30, the same opponent, the cleaner result.
That symmetry matters. Nurmagomedov beat Figueiredo on the cards; Song finished him. If Song is a punching bag, he is one who submitted the man Nurmagomedov needed 15 minutes to decision.
The fight Umar keeps pointing at
Nurmagomedov's whole case rests on one night: Song's unanimous-decision loss to O'Malley at what the promotion billed as a featured bantamweight bout on the Jan. 24 card. "He was dead by the third round," Nurmagomedov said. We had a model running on that exact fight, and the read does not match the insult.
Our model went into O'Malley vs. Song with O'Malley at 58.8% and Song at 41.2%, tagged LOW confidence, close enough that we framed it as a near coin flip rather than a mismatch. O'Malley won the decision, so the pick hit, but barely the way the word "pick" implies. A model that rates you a 41% live underdog against a former champion is not describing a punching bag. It is describing a competitive fight that went the distance, which is exactly what happened: three rounds, all 15 minutes, decision.
That is the honest counterweight to the soundbite. Song lost, and lost clearly enough on the cards. He was not, by the numbers we ran in advance, "dead."
The data-take
The contrast inside our own logs is the story. On that January card we tagged Nurmagomedov a LOCK at 83% over Figueiredo, our highest confidence tier, and he won. Same night, same division, we tagged O'Malley over Song a LOW-confidence near-toss-up, and the fight went to a decision a couple of points either way. Nurmagomedov is using the closer of those two results to dismiss Song while standing on the strength of his own. The model saw a wide gap in one fight and almost none in the other.
For the record on how those calls hold up: our verified 2026 live model record is 67.9% on all picks and 81.4% on LOCK and HIGH-confidence picks through 70 graded fights. The Nurmagomedov LOCK is one of the green ones in that LOCK column. We are not citing it to dunk on Nurmagomedov; we are citing it because it is the same scoreboard that says the O'Malley fight he keeps invoking was close.
What the matchup would mean
If the UFC books it, Nurmagomedov vs. Song is a genuine contender fight that is closer to even than Nurmagomedov is selling. It pairs the division's best defensive grappler against a heavy-handed striker who has now finished a former champion. Nurmagomedov's path is obvious: take Song down, control, decision, the same blueprint that beat Sandhagen over five rounds in 2024 and Figueiredo in January. Song's path is the one Nurmagomedov mocked, the one punch, except that punch has stopped Marlon Moraes, Ricky Simon and Figueiredo.
There is also unfinished business above this fight. Bloody Elbow reported June 22 that Nurmagomedov favors a rematch with Merab Dvalishvili, the only man to beat him, who lost the belt to Petr Yan in December and has spent recent weeks publicly hunting for a new wrestling coach. A win over Song would build the case for that rematch better than a callout does.
For now it is talk, and a fight that may or may not get signed. Nurmagomedov called Song weak. The tape, the rankings and our own pre-fight numbers point somewhere quieter: these two are closer than he wants you to think.