Sandhagen Wins at UFC Fight Night 201, Yadong Shows Talent

Cory Sandhagen defeated Song Yadong in the main event of the UFC Fight Night 210 in Las Vegas last night, snapping back-to-back losses streak. The American earned a TKO win after the referee in the ring, Herb Dean, stopped the fight between the fourth and the fifth round.

Dean consulted with the doctors, who suggested that Yadong couldn’t continue to compete due to a massive cut under his left eye. Even though the Chinese wanted to continue, Dean had no intentions to allow that.

At that moment, the scorecards were pretty much leveled, with Sandhagen having an edge with one judge, and two of them had the bout tied. It only shows how good this battle was.

The bout didn’t disappoint, that’s for sure. Both guys were landing huge blows, hitting one another relentlessly, often doing a lot of damage. Sandhagen implemented takedowns, trying to draw the action down on the mat and dry out Yong’s energy bar. Though he failed in that.

The elbow that would end up winning Cory Sandhagen the fight.#UFCVegas60 https://t.co/upelUihLt1

— MMA Mania (@mmamania) September 18, 2022

We’ve seen huge strikes on both ends, with both Sandhagen and Yadong in challenging situations, saving their skin. Sandhagen had the initiative in the opening round, going for takedowns and throwing some kicks, but Yadon repelled that each time even though he ate a few hard punches.

On the other side, he would strike from counter-attacks, reaching the target on several occasions and shaking Sandhagen. We saw him landing a hard left early in the second, which dazzled Sandman, who barely recovered. Yet during the second, Yadong had that cut, and the doctors examined the injury already then, allowing the fight to continue.

As time went by, the cut became more and more visible, and the doctors eventually didn’t want to take any risk, so they decided to tell Dean to stop the fight. The Chinese tried to be more aggressive in the fourth round, going after Sandhagen both in standup and on the ground, yet he couldn’t finish the American.

After the end of the round, Herb Dean and the doctors spoke for a while, before Dean decided to end the bout.

“Song is good, I knew he was good,” Sandhagen said. “I hate the way it ended. He deserved a fifth round. I wanted to see the scorecards to see if I was winning.”

This is a very valuable win for Sandhagen who lost his last two appearances in the octagon. One was a very controversial split-decision defeat to TJ Dillashaw that, according to many, clearly ended in Sandman’s favor. The other was against Petr Yan, who was quite dominant against the American earning a unanimous decision victory.

As for Yadong, his three-fight winning streak ended tonight. The Kung Fu Monkeywon against Casey Kenney, Julio Arce, and Marlon Moraes, putting the spotlight in the bantamweight division on him. With 24 years, he is by far the biggest talent in the division at the moment, and many predict him to have a wonderful career.

Gregory Rodrigues snaps Chidi Njokuani’s win streak#UFCVegas60pic.twitter.com/7zyZENiPPX

— MMA Mania (@mmamania) September 18, 2022

In other fights of the night, Gregory Rodrigues defeated Chidi Njokuani via TKO in the second round. Though, the way these two light heavyweights opened the bout it seemed that Njokuani would win this one, especially after opening a massive cut on Rodrigues’ forehead, after a knee. Thought the Brazilian pulled himself together and continued to work well before ending the bout.

Andre Fili earned a split-decision win against Bill Algeo, Rodrigo Nascimento also won via split decision against Tanner Boser, while Joe Pyfer knocked out Alen Amedovski.

Up next is the UFC Fight Night: Dern vs. Yan.