UFC Shanghai: Walker vs Zhang - Aug 23 ??

[wandshogun09]

Fancy a Chinese?

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Johnny Walker vs Zhang Mingyang

Brian Ortega vs Aljamain Sterling

Sergei Pavlovich vs Waldo Cortes Acosta 

Su Mudaerji vs Kevin Borjas

Taiyilake Nueraji vs Kiefer Crosbie 

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS 
Maheshate Hayisaer vs Gage Young

Lone’er Kavanagh vs Charles Johnson 

Rongzhu vs Austin Hubbard

Michel Pereira vs Kyle Daukaus

Yi Zha vs Westin Wilson

Xiao Long vs Su Young You

Diyar Nurgozhay vs Uran Satybaldiev 

 

Probably not the final bout order and there might even be a last minute fight or two added yet. Not a bad lineup for a Fight Night. Purely on fight quality, the main and co-main look the wrong way around to me. But obviously the show being in China is why they’ve gone with Walker vs Zhang on top. It’s a solid combo at the top of the card regardless and there’s a couple of gems lower down the card as well.

 

 

Johnny Walker vs Zhang Mingyang headlines. Not the strongest main event but I get why it’s in that spot with it being in China. They’re obviously trying to shine some spotlight on Mingyang here. Thing is, I don’t know how much he actually gains from a win here. He’s currently ranked #14 at Light Heavyweight but Walker’s only one spot above him at #13. So it’s not like a win here will move Mingyang up the ladder in any significant way. I guess Walker’s got a bit of a name in the division but even then, these days he’s mostly just known as that guy who gets knocked out like a cartoon character. Whatever, should at least be entertaining however long it lasts.

We haven’t seen Walker in over a year now. He last fought on the Saudi card in June 2024. And yeah, once again, he got brutally ironed out by Volkan Oezdemir. It was a bad one. He’s been scheduled for a couple of fights this year (against Bogdan Guskov and Azamat Murzakanov) but pulled out injured both times. He hasn’t won a fight since 2023. It’s not looking great. Fun fighter at times, at a certain level. But I think it’s clear at this point that the matchmakers have basically given up on him and he’s probably gonna be used as a stepping stone for new blood from now on. Even those attempted Guskov and Murzakanov fights, it feels like they were trying to get Walker chinned. He’s still only 33 so he’s not a spring chicken but not that old for 205. But he’s been switched off so many times now, he just feels like damaged goods.

Zhang Mingyang is coming in fresh off sending Anthony Smith into retirement. Still feels like we know almost nothing about him though. He turns 27 just days before this fight and he’s 19-6 with a 100% finish rate, 13 by knockout and he’s on a 12 fight winning streak. Not sure how much stock to put into that though because, as impressive as it looks on paper, the opposition is pretty much all unknowns until he got to the UFC in 2024. And even then his first two opponents were Brendson Ribeiro and Ozzy Diaz. He made short work of them and looked good doing it but I don’t know. Then in his last fight in April, he stopped Smith in a round. But Smith’s been washed up for a while and that was his farewell fight. So it’s one of them weird ones where Mingyang looks the part and you can’t find fault in his actual performances in the UFC so far. But he’s yet to face a proper live opponent in my opinion. And I’m not sure Walker is that guy either given his lack of chin/defence and being inactive for a year. Feels like the timing of this and Walker’s vulnerabilities are tailor made for Mingyang to shine against but we’ll see.

So yeah. Feels to me like the matchmakers booked this one with the idea of Johnny Walker being the sacrificial lamb. We’ll see how that goes but Walker not having a win in two years, plus the year on the shelf, plus his habit of running into a devastating KO shot, it just feels like bad news for Walker to me. You never know because, like I said, we haven’t really seen Mingyang properly tested yet. But my gut feeling is Walker’s getting walloped and turned into an unconscious, limp, human slinky again here. Still, I can’t see it being boring. 

 

Brian Ortega vs Aljamain Sterling is a cracking co-main for a Fight Night. Not sure if it’s three rounds or five but, either way, I really like this and I think if this show was in almost any other location, this would be the main event. It’s the better actual fight for me by far but of course I get why they went with a Chinese finisher in the headliner. This is good stuff though. Ortega’s ranked #4 and Aljo’s ranked #7 at Featherweight, so these two are still kind of in the mix. Especially with the 145 division being a bit wide open now with Topuria and Holloway recently moving up to Lightweight. Feels like anyone in that Top 10 could make a strong case for a title shot with one really impressive performance.

I honestly thought Ortega was gonna be moving up to 155 so I was actually a bit surprised to see this fight announced. He last fought on that Sphere card in September and took a bit of a hiding off Diego Lopes. And even before that, Ortega had been making a fair bit of noise about struggling with the weight cut and saying he was looking to move up to 155. But here we are. He’s had a rough run of results the last few years. He’s gone 1-3 in his last 4 and also had some injury layoffs in that time. Those days of him being that exciting potential breakout star in the division are gone at this point. He’s 34 now and he seems to mostly just rely on his chin and submission skills to get him through. He’s always been a bit like that but after a career full of beatings (some which he lost, some he pulled off a come from behind submission), I’m not sure what’s left. He’s clearly still durable, the Lopes fight showed that, but there’s always an expiration date on that.

Sterling’s still fairly new to the Featherweight division. Former Bantamweight champ but he finally moved up to 145 last year, beating Calvin Kattar at UFC 300. I think it was long overdue him moving up. There’d been talk of him finding the weight cut a bastard for ages but, while he was champ and reaping the benefits of that, he stayed put at 135. It’s obviously a much healthier and more natural weight class for him at 145 though. And he’s 36 now. I don’t think many realise he’s that old, I always forget myself. Who needs the drastic weight cuts at any age, let alone mid to late 30s? He lost to Movsar Evloev last time out in December but it was a belter of a fight. Way better fight to watch than I think anyone really expected going in. And while Aljo lost, he lost to a guy who’s undefeated and possibly next in line for a title shot. Yeah, I like this fight. Feels like Aljo’s got more left in the tank to me at this point, despite being the older man. But I’m interested to see how these two match up, especially if it becomes more of a grappling match.

 

Sergei Pavlovich vs Waldo Cortes Acosta isn’t filling me with excitement. Mostly because I find Acosta dull as fuck but it’s not like Sergei’s been looking great himself lately either. And it’s Heavyweight. That should be enough said really. We’ve been programmed at this point to expect the worst with the big lummoxes, haven’t we? Sergei just hasn’t been the same since Tom Aspinall decked him at MSG in 2023 for me. Since then he’s been mind fucked and then outpointed by Volkov, then he won a boring decision against Rozenstruik on the Saudi card in February. He was a wrecking ball before that Aspinall loss but it seems like he’s lost confidence since. Maybe he’ll get it back but his last couple of performances haven’t been much good. And Acosta? I just can’t get into his fights. He’s managed to bluff his way into a #6 spot in the rankings, which again speaks more to the lack of depth at Heavyweight than anything, and he’s 14-1 and on a 5 fight win streak. But I just find him shite to watch. He’s coming off a win over Spivac and knocked out the mighty Ryan Spann before that. That’s enough to get you in the Top 6 these days apparently. Hope Sergei chins him but can’t say I’m confident he does based off his recent form.

 

Su Mudaerji vs Kevin Borjas is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Maybe not the most obvious choice but it’s stands out from the undercard to me as the one that probably has the best chance of delivering a banger. Su Mudaerji is hit and miss. He did have one my favourite fights in Flyweight history against Matt Schnell back in 2022 though. Seriously, if you never saw that crazy bloodbath you should fix that. He’s 17-7 overall now and just snapped a three fight losing streak in his last fight in April, beating Mitch Raposo on points. Borjas is my main reason for highlighting this fight though…

There he is almost beheading Ronaldo Rodriguez in his last fight in Mexico City in March. Rodriguez somehow ate that and managed to go the distance but Borjas was putting it on him the whole fight. I like Borjas but he’d lost back-to-back fights against Joshua Van and Alessandro Costa before that so I was happy to see him stop the rot and get the win against Rodriguez. Even in defeat I remember the Van fight being quality as well. Borjas is a fun fighter to watch. Probably doesn’t have the highest ceiling and I don’t see him troubling the higher ranked Flyweights or anything but he’s exciting to watch and there’s always room for guys like that in any division.

 

Taiyilake Nueraji vs Kiefer Crosbie is a late card change. Was supposed to be Song Kenan against Crosbie but Song’s out. In steps Nueraji on a few weeks notice and from bits I’m reading it sounds like an improvement.

Nueraji did that on Road To UFC back in 2023. Not sure why he wasn’t signed after that. Looking at his record, that was in the quarter finals and he won that one fight and that was it. Never fought in the semi finals for whatever reason. Must’ve been an injury that took him out. Since then he’s gone 3-0 with three first round finishes and his overall record now is 11-1-0-1 with 10 knockouts. Seen quite a positive reaction to this signing so I’m intrigued now. Looked him up and saw a few clips of him absolutely bludgeoning a couple of opponents. I’m in. Crosbie’s Irish, 35 years old and 10-5 with 7 finishes. He’s gone 0-2 in the UFC so far and has been subbed in the first round both times. If Nueraji was in decent shape and sharp when the call came, this could be a highlight reel showcase type debut for him.

 

Maheshate Hayisaer vs Gage Young is just there. Prelim filler. Not a lot to say about it. Maheshate’s Chinese so at least the crowd should be lively. He’s 25 years old and has a record of 10-4 with 5 not making it to the judges scorecards. He came into the UFC with a bang a few years ago when he faceplanted Steve Garcia with a vicious knockout. It’s gone right off the rails since though. He’s lost 3 of his last 4 coming into this one. Young’s also 25 with a 9-3 record. He made his UFC debut on the Kansas City card in April and lost a decision to Evan Elder. Although in fairness, he jumped in on about a week’s notice for that fight so maybe he’s better than that one showed.

 

Lone’er Kavanagh vs Charles Johnson is one of the better fights on the card for me. Really like this. Kavanagh came in with a fair bit of buzz late last year. He’d scored a brutal KO on DWCS in August and has since won a couple of decisions in the UFC over Jose Ochoa in Macau in November and then Felipe Dos Santos in London in March. Not blow away performances but he looked good in both. And he’s still only 26 and still undefeated at 9-0. Remains to be seen how far he can go but he’s definitely off to a solid start. Johnson’s 34 and has been around the block a bit with a 17-7 record. He’s had some good wins, including a KO over current top contender Joshua Van, but he’s coming off a points loss to Ramazan Temirov here. Good test for Kavanagh this. Don’t let the high number of losses on Johnson’s record fool you, he’s no pushover and he’s been in with an overall higher level of opposition to the guys Kavanagh’s fought so far. It’s the kind of fight you’d think Kavanagh wins if he’s gonna be as good as people expect but Johnson could quite easily be a banana skin here.

 

Rongzhu vs Austin Hubbard. Another one I don’t have a great deal to say about but I did really enjoy Rongzhu’s last fight, to be fair. Him and Kody Steele had the FOTN at UFC 312 in Sydney in February. Really wild and chaotic scrap that was. One of the best under the radar prelims so far this year. He’s 25 with a 26-6 record. Old Mother Hubbard I’m neither here nor there on. He’s 16-9 and has gone 1-3 in his last 4, hasn’t had any real standout fights in two stints in the UFC going back to 2019. Hopefully Rongzhu gets the win on home soil here.

 

Michel Pereira vs Kyle Daukaus wasn’t the original plan. Pereira was all set to fight Marco ‘Mr Norma Dumont’ Tulio here but that’s off just a couple of weeks before show time. Daukaus steps in and this is his return to the UFC. He had a stint in the UFC from 2020-22 but it didn’t exactly pan out and he went 2-4-0-1 and was cut loose. Since then he’s gone away and won four fights in a row, became the Cage Fury Middleweight champion and defended it twice.

Not sure what that means exactly. He’d been the Cage Fury champ before his first UFC run so it’s not like this is some big turning point in his career. He just went backwards to where he was pre-2020 and had similar success. But whatever. Can’t begrudge him getting another crack at it. Don’t know what to expect out of Pereira. You never really know what you’re getting. He was on a nice little run for a bit there but he’s hit the wall hard in his last couple. Got absolutely dominated and finished by Fluffy Hernandez in October, then lost a shitty fight against Abus Magomedov in April. Somehow he’s still only 31, I always think he’s pushing 40, but it’s difficult to see him putting everything together and becoming consistent at this point. He’s pretty much set in his ways now, isn’t he?

 

Yi Zha vs Westin Wilson is a late addition which doesn’t really add anything. Barely remember Yi Zha but he should win this just on the strength that Wilson is a complete scrub jobber from what I recall of him. Useless. Think there was even a story a while back that basically he only got signed in the first place because his wife is best friends with one of the matchmaker’s wives or something like that. He’s 36 years old, 17-6 and got smashed up in a round by both Joanderson Brito and Jean Silva before clawing a win back last time over fellow ham and egger Jeka Saragih. Fair enough, Brito and Silva are good fighters but Wilson got squashed and looked so out of his depth that he looked like he didn’t even belong on the roster. So yeah, if Yi Zha has anything about him, anything at all, he should be winning this fight.

 

Xiao Long vs Su Young You. Yeah, no idea on this either. China vs South Korea. Long’s 27 years old, 27-9 with 14 finishes. Lost his UFC debut on points but bounced back with a knockout win over Quang Le on the Macau card in November. Vaguely recall that being a fun fight actually. You is 29 years old with a record of 15-3-0-2 and 8 finishes. He’s won a couple of decisions in the UFC so far but I don’t think I saw either of them.

 

Diyar Nurgozhay vs Uran Satybaldiev. Not a single clue on this. Nothing. It’s Light Heavyweight, they’ve both fought in the UFC once but they were both at the Apex and I don’t think I watched either man’s debut. Nurgozhay is from Kazakhstan, 28 years old and is 10-1 with 8 finishes. He got subbed via Kimura by Brendson Ribeiro in March. Satybaldiev’s from Kyrgyzstan, will be 31 by the time he steps in the Octagon here and he’s 8-1 with 6 finishes. He lost a decision to Martin Buday in April. Yeah, hopes aren’t high for this. Got a feeling the fast forward button will be busy during this one.

 

That’ll do.

Edited August 22, 2025 by wandshogun09

[Kfogg1991]

This card absolutely slaps.

However I didn't fully process and I completely agree the main and co-main are definitely the wrong way round, very weird but probably for a reason unbeknownst to us 

[wandshogun09]

3 minutes ago, Kfogg1991 said:

I completely agree the main and co-main are definitely the wrong way round, very weird but probably for a reason unbeknownst to us 

Like I said in the opening post, if the show was being held in any other location I think it would’ve been Ortega vs Aljo on top with a Walker vs Zhang co-main. It’s just because it’s in China and they obviously wanna give Zhang the main event rub. 

[Bruce85]

Agreed that the Main and co-main should switch but it makes sense why they have done it this way. I hope Ortega vs Sterling is a 5 rounder as that could be a really fun battle. 
 

Rest of the card looks pretty good too! 

[wandshogun09]

Upgrade alert: Song Kenan’s out. But this lad’s in…

 

[Egg Shen]

Love how the other guy still instictively threw the right hand after the elbow

[Dai]

The Ortega/Sterling match would be criminal if its just 3 rounds, so hoping for the best that its 5.

Lovely lookling main card for a Fight Night. Pavlovich has lost all of his pre-Aspinal aura, so hopefully this is the start of the rebuilding, as surely hes the only one I can see that gives Tom any sort of issues in the next few years if he regains his eye of the tiger.

[Carbomb]

Maheshate, Nuerdanbieke, and now this guy - seems the northern Chinese are churning out some quality fighters.

[wandshogun09]

Didn’t even think about the start times for this. 11am main card, 8am prelims. 

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, Brian Ortega needs to stop trying to cut to 145 because Jesus Christ, look at the state of this. Fight’s going ahead at 155. 

 

Edited August 22, 2025 by wandshogun09

[Bruce85]

I picked Ortega in the poll, I’d like to change my answer please. He looks really bad here, you could argue they shouldn’t let him fight in that state.  
 

 

[Dai]

From what Im reading, this is him not even trying to cut to 145, which is even scarier. From what I can read, they had already both weighed in at 153 by this point, so this is him essentially cutting to 155.

These weight cut misses are always strange. I assume Sterling just stopped the big cut a day before the weigh ins, as he was 153 as well. So in a bizarre way, if Ortega is this bad at 153, then hes going to be huge once hydrated, and will have a significant weight advantage over Sterling, will probably look right as rain next time we see him, and hasnt had to pay a fine. Could actually work to his advantage.

[wandshogun09]

It’s a weird one because you look at how bad he looks there and he’s definitely tried to cut to whatever weight. So no matter how big he is after rehydrating, that’s gonna have taken something out of him regardless. He’s not gonna be at his best physically tomorrow. He will have a size advantage though and that could be even more of a factor in this fight because Aljo’s still fairly new to 145 and probably still adjusting to moving up from 135.

Ortega needs to sort himself out though. He’s been at it for years with these bad weight cuts. This is from years and years ago, looks at death’s door…

[wandshogun09]

Don’t forget there’s an early start for this tomorrow if you want some violence to go with your Saturday morning fry up or cereal…

Decent. Not in love with the main event but it should be anything but boring. Aljo/Ortega could be great but fuck knows with the dodgy weight cut. There’s a few shitty fights lower down the card but there’s enough on there to bring the overall quality of the card up to a point it’s well worthwhile. Mudaerji/Borjas and Johnson/Kavanagh are my picks of the bunch but I’m also really looking forward to seeing Nueraji’s UFC debut. And while I’m not necessarily expecting great fights due to being burned by them recently, I’m interested to see if Sergei Pavlovich and Michel Pereira can return to form. Good stuff all in all, I reckon. 

[Egg Shen]

If you could shuffle this around, you'd have near PPV level main card (minus a main event), id bump Johnson/Kavanagh up.

Should be decent this.