UFC Macau: Song vs Figueiredo - May 30 🇲🇴

[wandshogun09]

Back in Macau, China with this lot…

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Song Yadong vs Deiveson Figueiredo 

Zhang Mingyang vs Alonzo Menifield

Sergei Pavlovich vs Tallison Teixeira 

Kai Asakura vs Cameron Smotherman 

Jake Matthews vs Carlston Harris 

Alex Perez vs Sumudaerji 

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Luis Felipe Dias vs Yi Sak Lee 

Meng Ding vs Jose Henrique 

Aoriqileng vs Cody Haddon 

Rei Tsuruya vs Luis Gurule  

Angela Hill vs Xiong Jingnan

Zhu Kangjie vs Rodrigo Vera

Loma Lookboonmee vs Jaqueline Amorim 

 

Not loving this one at all. Even the main event isn’t really doing it for me and I’d usually be all for the Bantamweights getting that main event spotlight. It’s still better than a Heavyweight or women’s Bantamweight headliner though. Just not a lot to this card really but maybe it’ll surprise us. On a positive note, this being in China means we get live morning fights. According to the UFC website, the prelims get underway at 9am on the Saturday morning, main card starts at 12pm. For those of you that like a bit of violence with your breakfast. I just wind Mrs Wand up if I want that.

 

Song Yadong vs Deiveson Figueiredo tops this one. It’s rare I’m ever down on a Bantamweight fight but, I’ll be honest, I’m not really feeling this one. I don’t mind Song, been a fan of Figgy for years, but this just isn’t grabbing me. It’s one of those fights that probably would’ve been a lot better a few years ago. In 2026, it feels like everyone’s finally accepted that Song’s never gonna quite put it all together and reach the potential many thought he had. And I think Figgy’s on his last legs. They’re both still highly ranked - Song’s at #5, Figgy’s at #7 - but I don’t know. The matchup makes sense, it’s just kind of leaving me cold.

I obviously get why they went with Song Yadong for the main event of this card given the location. Unless they were gonna have Zhang Weili on the card, Song’s pretty much the front runner to headline any card in China. I clearly remember when Song got signed to the UFC back in 2017. At the time he was just 20 years old and was training with Team Alpha Male (still is) when they were still pretty relevant. He’d already had five losses at that point but he was so young and I remember Urijah Faber bigging him up as a can’t miss prospect and I kind of bought into it. He’s been on the roster over eight years now and he’s never lived up to that early hype. He did go on a little win streak early on in the UFC but he’s never quite put everything together or managed to find consistent success. He’s had wins over the likes of Chito Vera, Marlon Moraes, Ricky Simon and Chris Gutierrez on the way up. Not bad. But they were always sandwiched between losses. Even his win last year over Henry Cejudo, that was a main event against a former champion and fading name, it should’ve been a showcase win for Song and a bit of a breakthrough. But he ended up winning via technical decision after an eye poke. Kind of sums his whole run up really. Just never seems to meet expectations. Then in his last fight in January, he lost on points to Sean O’Malley in a bit of a flat fight all around. He’s still only 28, I feel like I’m being harsh kind of writing him off. He’ll still have his good nights. I think it’s clear at this point though that he’s just never been as good as he was initially cracked up to be.

Figgy’s a bit of a legend of the lighter weight classes for me. People forget now but when Demetrious Johnson was traded and went to ONE FC in 2019, the Flyweight division could’ve easily faded away. Cejudo had taken the title off DJ by split decision in August 2018 but it was a bit of a controversial decision from what I remember. And then Cejudo fucked about once he got the belt, wasn’t very active, vacated it after one defence and then fucked off to Bantamweight. Figgy came along and kind of saved the division at that time. There were some hiccups at the start. The first fight against Joseph Benavidez to crown a new champ was a mess. Figgy missed weight, making himself ineligible to win the title, then accidentally headbutted Joey B in the fight before stopping him. So the title was still vacant and the result had a cloud over it. They rematched in July 2020, Figgy made weight this time and absolutely destroyed Benavidez, choking him out in the first round.

New champ. And the division has been pretty solid ever since. Wasn’t long after Figgy got the belt, he had that incredible FOTY contender against Brandon Moreno. Still might be the best fight in Flyweight history that. And obviously those two got locked into a four fight series after that. They never recreated that magic of the first fight but it was a great rivalry. The Flyweight division needed something like that. Figgy always struggled to make 125 though. And in late 2023, he finally decided to move up to Bantamweight. He had success initially, racking up wins over Rob Font, Cody Garbrandt and Chito Vera. He had that awesome five round battle against Petr Yan in Macau in November 2024, but lost on points. But since then, I don’t know, he’s started really looking his age to me. He lost again to Cory Sandhagen in May 2025, suffering a knee injury in the process. Was back in October, surprisingly quick after the injury, and won a very lacklustre split decision against Montel Jackson at home in Rio, Brazil. Then in January, he lost to Umar Nurmagomedov by decision in a whitewash on the scorecards. Yeah, Umar’s really good but Figgy looked absolutely done to me in that fight. Washed up. And to make matters worse, he missed weight for that one. Even at 135. It’s never a good look when you move up a weight class because you’re having problems making weight, then you still miss weight a division up. Jesus wept.

Yeah. Apologies for being so negative on this. I just can’t fake excitement where there isn’t much. Maybe it’ll be a pleasant surprise. Song has the capability for entertaining fights and we know Figgy was a beast in his day. Maybe he can turn back the clock for one night? I don’t see it though myself. He’s 38 years old now, has a ton of miles on him, he’s had injury issues quite recently and missing weight last time isn’t a good sign and probably either means he was injured again or just can’t be arsed anymore. Neither scenario fills me with optimism. As great as Figgy once was, given his age and current form, Song has no business losing this fight if he’s ever gonna make any kind of noise at the top end of the rankings. He’ll never be champ. Even though he’s not even 30 yet, I can quite confidently say he’s never gonna beat those top names at Bantamweight like Yan, Merab or Umar. But there’s no reason why he can’t at least work his way towards a shot at the gold. He’s got time. He has to win fights like these though. If he loses to last legs Figgy here, we can officially abandon all hope for Song, I reckon. Yeah, hopefully this is better than I’ve made it sound.

 

Zhang Mingyang vs Alonzo Menifield is piss weak as a co-main event. Even for a Fight Night. I thought the bout order might be wrong at first but these lads are on the poster so it’s definitely co-main. Zhang’s Chinese, that’s obviously the only reason it’s so high up the card. Just not sure what to make of this. Neither are going anywhere really. Menifield has never been great. Had a couple of alright knockouts years ago but he’s been floundering badly for years at this point. He’s 38 years old now, 17-6-1 and coming off getting smashed in about 90 seconds by Volkan Oezdemir on the Qatar card in November.

In fairness, Zhang’s only 27. He’s gotta be one of the youngest Light Heavyweights on the roster these days. But his last fight wasn’t a good look for him. He actually headlined last time out on the Shanghai card in August. Bit of a disaster that was though. He’d scored a brutal knockout over Tuco Tokkos on DWCS in June 2022 which got him in the UFC’s doors. Bashed up Ozzy Diaz in short order in his Octagon debut, then sent Anthony Smith (now he’s doing Bare Knuckle, glutton for punishment) into retirement with a first round TKO in April last year. They immediately chucked him into that Shanghai main event. Only for him to get stopped by Johnny Walker of all people. Think it’s safe to assume the matchmakers didn’t picture it going like that. I’m sure they set that up with the idea of Zhang being the latest to get one of those cartoon KOs Walker always finds himself on the receiving end of. But Walker fucked him up with leg kicks and ended it in the second round. Zhang should be winning this one and that’s clearly why they’ve booked it, to get him back on track in front of the home crowd. Hopefully it’s a one round slugfest.

 

Sergei Pavlovich vs Tallison Teixeira. Ah man. Actually half dreading this one. It’s hard to believe now but it wasn’t that long ago that big Sergei was being talked about as one of the scariest guys in the Heavyweight division. He went 18-1 with the only loss being against Alistair Overeem in his UFC debut, then he rebounded by going on a six fight knockout streak. He put Derrick Lewis and Tai Tuivasa away, both in under a minute, then chinned Curtis Blaydes in a round. Bear in mind this was when Tuivasa wasn’t considered a complete joke and Blaydes was still a contender. Then in late 2023, Pavlovich got walloped by Tom Aspinall and he’s never looked the same since. He lost to Alexander Volkov on points in a weird fight, then won decisions against Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Waldo Cortes Acosta last year. Both a load of absolute wank. Don’t know what’s happened to Sergei but it’s like that Aspinall loss totally headfucked him. That punching power is obviously still there, it’s like there’s a mental block with him or something now though. As for Teixeira, he’s only 26 years old, practically a baby by Heavyweight standards. He’s 9-1 with 8 finishes and he’s 6’8”. All sounds good. Unless you watched him fight. He ran through Justin Tafa in 35 seconds in his UFC debut, fair enough. Immediately got thrust into a main event against Derrick Lewis last July, and got stopped in 35 seconds. Not ideal. Then in his last fight at UFC 325 in January, him and Tuivasa went out and had what is probably the worst fight of 2026 so far. Teixeira won but anyone who watched that abomination knows nobody won really. Not the fighters, not the UFC and certainly not the viewers. Praying this doesn’t go longer than three minutes.

 

Kai Asakura vs Cameron Smotherman is OK. Not setting the world alight but it’ll do. Asakura needs to make something happen here. When he signed with the UFC in late 2024 there was some real excitement about it. He was coming in as Rizin champ, challenging the UFC champ Pantoja right out the gate. I loved that. It’s rare the UFC just pull the trigger straight away on stuff like that these days. It didn’t work out for Asakura. He did land a sweet knee early on that probably would’ve put a lesser fighter down but Pantoja’s chin is granite and he just ate it and wound up submitting Asakura in the second round. Asakura attempted to rebound in August and got subbed again by Tim Elliott. That’s a loss that can’t be explained away so easily. It’s one thing losing to one of the best in the game like Pantoja, losing to Elliott, who’s good but older and no world beater, is a bit more difficult to overlook. If you don’t remember Smotherman, maybe this’ll refresh your memory…

Christ. Remember that shit? He was supposed to fight Ricky Turcios at UFC 324 in January but looked like death on the scales then did a full on Flair Flop on the stage. To the surprise of no-one, the fight was immediately scrapped. Oddly, Smotherman denied he’d had a bad weight cut and said he didn’t know why he passed out. Not good though. Hopefully it was a one-off and he’ll be alright going forward. He’s 28 years old, 12-6 and after beating Jake Hadley in his debut, he’s lost two in a row now against Serhiy Sidey and Ricky Simon. Goes without saying Asakura really needs to win this one. A third straight loss would be disastrous for him. I don’t think he’d be seen as a flop quite on the level of a Patchy Mix but he wouldn’t be far off at that point.

 

Jake Matthews vs Carlston Harris came together late in the day. Matthews was originally scheduled to face Muslim Salikhov here but Salikhov dropped out. I was disappointed about that because, while Matthews does nothing for me, Salikhov is one of my ‘prelim 4 life’ favourites. So with him out, my interest an already weak undercard decreased even more. Aussie Jake Matthews is still only 31 despite it seeming like he’s been on the roster 50 years. He’s 22-8 now and, honestly, I barely remember any of his UFC career. And I’m pretty sure I’ve watched it all. 12 years and I genuinely couldn’t have told you anything about his record without looking it up. Not exactly a ringing endorsement is it? He’s not awful but he’s not very good either. And he’s just bland and very, very forgettable. He last fought on the Perth card back in September and got submitted by Neil Magny. Harris is Guyanese, 38 years old with a 19-7 record. He’s been in the UFC since 2021, beat Impa Kasanganay, got fed to Shavkat etc. He’s coming off a couple of losses, hasn’t fought since January 2025 and he’s stepping in on just a couple of weeks notice. And I’m still not confident Matthews beats him. That’s what we’re dealing with here.

 

Alex Perez vs Sumudaerji is a decent fight if it happens. Don’t hold your breath or anything though because these two both have pretty bad track records for fight cancellations. We’ll see. To be fair, they’ve both managed to stay a bit more active over the last year or so. Perez is 34 years old now with a proper journeyman record of 26-10. Actually fought for the Flyweight title back in 2020 but got bulldozed by prime Figgy. He’s coming off a first round TKO win over Charles Johnson in January, which was a bit of a surprising result to me really. Perez had been struggling going into that one, he’d lost two in a row and was 1-5 in his last six. Stopping a guy like Charles Johnson was a really good win for him at a time when he desperately needed it. Sumudaerji, ‘The Tibetan Eagle’, is 30 years old and 19-7. I bring it up every time but his fight with Matt Schnell from 2022 is an all time favourite of mine when it comes to the Flyweight division. Sumudaerji lost that night but it was some fight. Highly recommend searching it up on Fight Pass if you never saw it. He’s had a bunch of injuries and layoffs but he is coming into this fight on a three fight win streak.

 

Luis Felipe Dias vs Yi Sak Lee. Not a clue who these two fellas are. Looking them both up, Brazil’s Dias is 31 years old, 16-5 with all but one of his wins being finishes and he’s on a three fight win streak. Coming off a submission win on DWCS last October. Delving further into his Tapology page though, he’d been inactive since 2023 before that, has had a whole bunch of fight cancellations and one of his wins was “flagged by Tapology for issues with legitimacy”. Sounds like he’ll be a quality addition to the roster! Seriously, I don’t know the details of that supposedly dodgy fight but at a time when the UFC have been under scrutiny for betting scandals and shit, you’d think they’d wanna steer clear of guys like this. Apparently not. Lee is South Korean, 26 years old and 8-1 with 7 finishes. That’s about it on him.

 

Meng Ding vs Jose Henrique. Again, not a clue. Tapology it is. With a name like Meng he’s probably gonna become a bit of a favourite on this forum. He’s Chinese, 31 years old and has quite an extensive record of 35-9 with 30 of his wins coming inside the distance, 28 by KO/TKO, two by submission. No doubt via Tongan Death Grip.

Of course, I recognise none of the names on his record. None of them. Not one. He did fight on DWCS back in August 2024 and lost by decision. Then he never fought until October last year for some reason, stopping some sod by TKO on one of Urijah Faber’s A1 Combat shows. Henrique’s 23 years old, 8-1 with six by KO/TKO, also lost on DWCS in 2022 but is on a three fight win streak now. He’s actually been scheduled to make his UFC debut three times in 2026 already and had fights with Eric Nolan, Nikolay Veretennikov and Charles Radtke cancelled. Maybe he’ll show up this time? Personally, I’d ring in sick if I got the call to fight Meng.

 

Aoriqileng vs Cody Haddon. I’ll give it a look. Quite like Aoriqileng actually. ‘The Mongolian Murderer’. Bit strong for a nickname that mate. It’s going back but if you never saw his UFC debut against Jeff Molina from 2021, get on it. Proper underrated, forgotten undercard banger. He’s 32 years old and 26-12-0-1 with 10 finishes. Hasn’t had the best of runs in the UFC. Basically peaked with that awesome debut fight but he’s had his moments and he’s coming into this fight off a 21 second TKO win over Cody Gibson on the Vancouver card back in October. Haddon’s from Perth, Australia. No idea why he’s on this card and not the one in, you know, Perth, just a few weeks earlier but whatever. He’s 27 with an 8-1 record. Beat Dan Argueta on points in his UFC debut but that was October 2024 so he’s been out a while.

 

Rei Tsuruya vs Luis Gurule got thrown together just over a week out from the show. Tsuruya was all set to fight Jesus Aguilar until the Mexican dropped out. Gurule jumped in on a really quick turnaround. He just fought on the Allen vs Costa card at the Apex on the 16th, beating Daniel Barez on points, snapping a three fight losing streak in the process. He’s 32 years old and 11-3 with 6 finishes. For Tsuruya this is anything but a quick turnaround. We haven’t seen him since March 2025. So over a year of inactivity for him. Never ideal but he’s still only 23 years old so it’s not the end of the world. He’s 10-1 with 8 finishes, mostly a grappler from what I remember. That last fight was his first loss as well, although it was against current champ Joshua Van so it’s a loss that hasn’t aged too badly. Interested to see how he bounces back here.

 

Angela Hill vs Xiong Jingnan is actually ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Yeah, highlighting an Angela Hill prelim fight in 2026. This is what it’s come to. Wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice on this card though, was I? And to be honest, it’s not that I’m expecting this particular fight itself to be anything amazing. I’m highlighting this purely because it’s the UFC debut of this woman…

Xiong Jingnan was ONE FC’s first and only Strawweight champion. They cut her loose earlier this year. Don’t know what’s going on over there these days, sounds like it’s a total shambles. But apparently they binned the whole Strawweight division. I’m not expecting Jingnan to do anything of note in the UFC really. She’s 38 years old now and her activity dropped off a cliff in recent years. She never fought at all between late 2022 and early 2025. I don’t know if that was her choice or if it was the usual bullshit with ONE not keeping fighters busy enough, like De Ridder complained about when he jumped to the UFC. She was on a pretty hot run for a while there though. She had a trilogy against Angela Lee over there, which she won 2-1. I don’t think I saw the third fight but I remember loving the first two. I remember enjoying her fights whenever I’d give ONE a go. But yeah, at 38 and with the lack of activity, I’m not expecting much. Hill’s 41 years old now and has an 18-16 record, for fuck’s sake. She never really gets finished but, man, how much longer is she gonna keep doing this? It’s been going nowhere for donkeys years. If Xiong can’t win a fight like this, forget it.

 

Zhu Kangjie vs Rodrigo Vera is another late card change. Was supposed to be Kangjie against Ramon Taveras but that went down the shitter. Vera steps in on a few weeks notice and it’s his UFC debut. He’s from Peru, 30 years old, has a record of 21-1-1 with 11 finishes and he’s on a 13 fight winning streak. Not sure what the level of opposition was like and I can’t be arsed to dig through records but there you go. Doesn’t sound like the worst signing but he’s obviously debuting under less than ideal circumstances. Kangjie’s also 30 and he’s 21-4-0-1 with 12 knockouts. This was technically be his UFC debut as well. His last three fights have all been on Road To UFC, but that’s going back to 2024. How long is this ‘road’ exactly? Nice of them to finally let him on an actual UFC card.

 

Loma Lookboonmee vs Jaqueline Amorim is a totally irrelevant and inconsequential piece of matchmaking but I actually don’t mind this fight. On paper it’s one of those straightforward striking vs grappling matches that you don’t see that much of in modern MMA. Lookboonmee is obviously the striker. She fought Muay Thai from the age of 7 years old. In MMA she hasn’t had the strongest run but hasn’t embarrassed herself either. She’s 10-4 now, coming off a decision loss to Alexia Thainara in September but was on a four fight win streak before that. She’s still only 30 but she just seems like one of those fighters who’s never gonna go any higher. She’ll be on the prelims of UFC Fight Nights long after we’re all dead and gone. Amorim’s a grappling specialist. She’s also 30 and she’s 10-2, all finishes, 8 by submission. She came into the UFC undefeated and immediately lost a decision to Sam Hughes in her debut, which wasn’t ideal. She rattled off four straight wins after that, finishing Montserrat Conejo, Cory McKenna, Vanessa Demopoulos and Polyana Viana. But then dropped a decision to Mizuki Inoue in her last fight on the Aspinall vs Gane undercard in October.

 

Macau then.

Edited May 29 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

Just a reminder that this is on live tomorrow morning if you fancy a bit of UFC with your breakfast.

Can’t say I’m loving this card myself. Even Song vs Figgy feels past its sell by date. Feels like a case of a guy who’s hit his ceiling against a once great fighter who’s now on his last legs. Not feeling it but I’ll probably whack the show on as background noise when I get up tomorrow, hopefully something gets my attention and there’s a few pleasant surprises.

Completely forgot there was a Road To UFC show today, just seen spoilers, not that I’d have been arsed about avoiding them. Seen a few clips on Twitter and there was one fight that was a beautiful example of how the silly ‘one hand down = grounded opponent’ rule being binned has changed things for the better. Some fighters must still not know about the rule change because this fella got kneed in the mush and immediately looked to the ref for support 🤣 he never got any and the other guy just finished him with punches from there. 

[Egg Shen]

Fun little main card this!

Who put 20p in Alonzo Menifield? My man went full bezerker mode.

 

[Dai]

Yeah, the Menifield performance was clearly the standout one for me too. I like it when some fighters just throw out the gameplay and just use all of their gas t9 try and finish a fighter.

How annoying is Pat Barry though? Always shouting shit when coaching. Is he another Edmund or Kavannah, in that he just associated with the right person at the right time, and has milked it for all its worth? If he wasn't going out with Rose during her peak, would he be coaching anyone of note these days? Highly doubt it.

Figgy match wasn't up to much. I think Figgy is into the last 10 years of Arlovski phase now, where hes still pretty capable at the mid to lower end of the rankings, but if hes allowed to do his thing then the fight would be a stinker every time. Nothing really learned from this fight, anyway.

Hopefully the Sergei win will give him the eye of the tiger and start putting a run together. There's no doubting the man has dynamite in his gloves, especially the first few minutes. He's still a scary fighter.