Fast facts
- Division: Bantamweight (No. 2 in the UFC bantamweight rankings as of Sept. 5, 2026)
- Record: 13-4-1 in the UFC
- Nationality: Chinese
- Team/gym: Not listed in available sources
- Notable wins: Umar Nurmagomedov (KO, Round 2), Deiveson Figueiredo (guillotine, Round 2), Henry Cejudo (technical decision), Marlon Moraes (KO, Round 1), Ricky Simón (TKO, Round 5), Marlon Vera (unanimous decision)
The clip that went around this week was small and funny. Jean Silva stood next to Song Yadong and couldn’t square what he was seeing with the division Song fights in. “How much kilos?” Silva asked. Song told him 77, Silva refused to believe it, and Song revised his own number upward to 78, maybe. Championship Rounds posted the exchange on X, via Instagram, and it got the laughs it deserved. It also tells you something about the man. Song is a big, strong bantamweight who has been in the UFC so long that people forget he’s still only 28.
A teenager with a resume
Song was born on Dec. 2, 1997, and started training mixed martial arts at 13. He was a professional fighter before he turned 16, which is the kind of fact that reads as reckless or remarkable depending on how the story turns out. In his case, the paper trail from those years shows a kid collecting skills from every room he walked into. In 2011 he won the Hebei Provincial Sanda Championship at 60 kilograms and finished fifth at the National Muay Thai Championship. A year later he took fourth at the Shanghai Jiu-Jitsu Open.
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Sanda, Muay Thai and jiu-jitsu, all before most fighters have had their first amateur bout. You can still see each of them in his fights. The kicks and the clean entries on the feet, the clinch work, and a guillotine that has finished two UFC opponents nine years apart.
Shanghai, on short notice
The UFC found him in November 2017, when he stepped in on short notice in Shanghai at UFC Fight Night 122 against Bharat Khandare, the first Indian-born fighter in the promotion. Song was 19. He choked Khandare out with a guillotine in the first round and walked away with a Performance of the Night bonus.
The early run moved fast. A second-round TKO of Felipe Arantes in Singapore in June 2018 earned another bonus. A first-round knockout of Alejandro Pérez at UFC 239 in July 2019 earned a third. The one hiccup was a majority draw with Cody Stamann that December, and then came the fight that told the bantamweight division he belonged. In May 2020, Song beat Marlon Vera by unanimous decision in a featherweight bout, and the two of them split Fight of the Night honors.
The losses that shaped him
Song’s record has four losses in it, and every one came against somebody serious. Kyler Phillips outpointed him at UFC 259 in March 2021. He responded with a split decision over Casey Kenney and a second-round TKO of Julio Arce, then flattened former title challenger Marlon Moraes in the first round in March 2022.
The Cory Sandhagen fight that September ended with a doctor stoppage, and it was the first time Song looked like a prospect who had run into the ceiling. What he did next is the part of his career I find most interesting. He headlined against Ricky Simón in 2023 and stopped him in the fifth round, which is a hard thing for a young striker to do, since it means you kept your pace and your head across 25 minutes and still found a finish late. When Petr Yan pulled out of their December 2023 main event with an injury, Song took Chris Gutiérrez instead and won a decision.
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Yan eventually got him at UFC 299 in March 2024, a clear unanimous decision for the former champion. A December 2024 headliner against Umar Nurmagomedov fell apart when Song got hurt. That’s a lot of setbacks packed into one calendar year for a fighter who was still in his mid-20s.
Cejudo, O’Malley and the summer he took over
The Henry Cejudo fight in February 2025 is the strange one on his record. Song accidentally poked Cejudo in the eye, Cejudo couldn’t continue at the start of Round 4, and Song won a technical decision. A win over a two-division champion is a win, but nobody left that night feeling settled.
Then came Sean O’Malley at UFC 324 in January 2026. Song lost a unanimous decision, and the scoring was close enough that nine of 21 media outlets had it for him. That’s the sort of loss that can stall a contender for a year. Song turned it into fuel.
In May he submitted former two-time flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo with a guillotine in the second round of a main event, the same choke that got him his first UFC win back in Shanghai. Three months later, on Aug. 30, he finally met Umar Nurmagomedov, nearly two years after their first booking collapsed, and knocked him out in the second round at UFC Fight Night 286. Both nights paid him a $100,000 Performance of the Night bonus.
That Nurmagomedov result matters. Beating a disciplined, undefeated-style grappler from that lineage with a knockout says plenty about how far Song’s defensive wrestling and composure have come since the Sandhagen night.
The numbers back up the eye test. Song’s seven Performance of the Night awards tie him with Donald Cerrone, Ovince Saint Preux, Tom Aspinall, Carlos Prates and Conor McGregor for fourth most in UFC history. His seven finishes at bantamweight tie Urijah Faber, Rob Font and O’Malley for third most in division history, and his six bantamweight knockouts tie him for third as well.
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Where he stands
The loudest endorsement this week came from someone who beat him. Speaking during UFC 333 fight week, Yan said Song was “more deserving” of a title shot than O’Malley, as MMA Fighting reported, and he didn’t soften the shot at the UFC’s handling of O’Malley: “They gave [O’Malley] two free fights against the champ. They raised this chicken to lay eggs for so long, and now they’re trying to squeeze as many eggs out as possible.”
Not everyone took that at face value. Coach Tim Welch wrote on X that O’Malley’s style is a lot trickier for Yan, suggesting that explains why Yan would rather see Song. Fair enough, and both things can be true. Song is ranked No. 2, he’s coming off two main-event finishes over former champions or elite contenders, and his only loss in the last 18 months was a fight that nearly half the media scored his way.
Away from the cage, Song and his wife, Daisy, have a son. The fighter who debuted before his 16th birthday is now a father with a decade of UFC tape behind him, which is a strange and lovely thing to think about.
What’s next
His next contest won’t involve gloves. Song will face Cejudo in a wrestling match in the main event of RAF 15 in Chicago on Nov. 28, according to announcements posted by MMA Fighting and RAF. That’s the man whose fight with him ended on an eye poke, meeting him again on a mat where nobody can throw a punch. Cejudo was an Olympic-caliber wrestler long before he was a UFC champion, so Song walking into that room tells you plenty about where his confidence sits right now.
