What can Yadong Song do to beat Petr Yan at UFC 299?
🇨🇳 A deep dive into the hard hitting contender
Once upon a time Petr Yan was of the most feared men in the sport of mixed martial arts. Working his way up the bantamweight division and beating John Dodson, Urijah Faber and Jose Aldo, Yan seemed destined for a long reign in a deep division. One ill-fated knee later and it all came crashing down for Petr Yan. He faces Yadong Song at UFC 299 and the matchup is a make or break for the former bantamweight champion.
Yadong Song is looking for his way into the top. Riding two straight wins, Song hopes to add Yan’s name to his resume that includes Chito Vera,Marlon Moraes, and Ricky Simon. Can Yadong Song get that marquee win to put him in title contention of the talent rich bantamweight division? Today we will be looking at the two bantamweight sluggers and postulate on what Yadong Song must do to emerge victorious.
Shoutout to Warren G on X for the request. This matchup is slick and was super fun to break down.
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Yadong Song’s deliberate rise
The rise of Yadong Song has been slow but deliberate. At only 26 years old, Song is 21-7-1 with loads of high level experience. With wins over Chito Vera, who is fighting in the main event across from Sean O’Malley, Marlon Moraes, Ricky Simon, Vince Morales, and more, Song has become a tough competitor that stands with the division’s best. In his loss to Cory Sandhagen, we saw a Yadong Song that could take on the best.
Seen in the video above, Vince Morales weighed in on what makes Yadong Song so tough as a fighter. Morales shared the cage with Yadong in 2018 for his UFC debut. Morales would go on to fight nine times in the UFC and most recently for RIZIN. Morales’ app, React Workouts, assists you in working on combination punching. Being a striker and having shared the cage with the Chinese bantamweight, Morales is very qualified to weigh in on Yadong
Petr Yan offers a tough challenge because he is, or was, depending on which Yan shows up. But Yadong Song has stepped up to these challenges. Ricky Simon was supposed to wrestle him to death. Cory Sandhagen was supposed to outclass him. Song stood his ground in both of these fights.
The main puzzle to solve with Petr Yan is that high guard that he uses to make punching him difficult. With his hands high, Yan will use that to get in the way of punches and find counters of his own. Lowering that guard so Yadong can land those heavy blows is a priority. There are several ways to do this. The ones we will be discussing today are as follows:
Punching the body
Kicking the body
Drawing out counters
In fighting
Out of these four options, Yadong does well in three while he should avoid the last, in fighting. Yadong Song does better work from drawing out counters and doesn’t fight in the clinch to a high enough degree to compete with Yan there, who excels in the clinch.
Yadong Song’s bread and butter: Punching the body
One wouldn’t think that a power puncher like Yadong Song’s best punch would be punching the body. This will be our little secret. Here’s another secret: Petr Yan is super susceptible to the body. While he usually gets the best of a fight as the fight goes on. With Yan a slow starter, it will be paramount to have Yadong Song hit the body early and often. Here’s how he does that.
As long as the fight lasted, Yadong Song managed to show us a couple of things against Marlon Moraes. A heavy hitter in his own right, despite being washed beyond all measures, Yadong had to mind his P’s and Q’s as not to get sparked. He did this by taking his time and hitting the body to get Moraes to lower his guard.
In our first diagram, we see (1) Yadong and Moraes in a bladed stance, orthodox versus orthodox. (2) Yadong steps in with a jab high. This gets Moraes to raise his guard, similar to that high guard of Petr Yan. This leaves Moraes’ mid section wide open. He comes behind it with (3) a long right hook to the body and (4) then a left hook as well.
Against Jose Aldo, Petr Yan suffered with loads of Aldo’s fantastic body work. He managed to get Aldo to fade but the openings were still there.
This tells us that A: Petr Yan can get hit to the body, and B: Yadong Song can hit to the body. Yadong just needs to make sure to hit it early to slow down Petr Yan as the fight enters the later stages. This fight is only a three rounder and Yadong can steal the early rounds. Hitting Yan in the body can slow him down from getting his motor started even further or open up bigger shots as Ricky Simon found out the hard way.
Simon is a fan of fancy footwork and head movement. It can make him intimidating to fight at times, but he’s not infallible. With his wrestling pedigree, he’s confident in the pocket and Yadong made him pay. (1) Yadong Song covered distance with wide steps in his footwork. This allowed him to change levels but not for a takedown. (2) As Simon comes over the top with a left hook, it shoots right over Yadong’s head and Yadong manages to lead with a big right to the body. Having conditioned Simon to think about the body punching, (3) Yadong Song stays in the pocket and dips low again. Simon bites and lowers his hands. (4) Yadong Song then pops up and lands a left as Simon’s hands are low.
This type of Pavlovian conditioning is something Simon thrives at. Punching the body is something he does and he does it from several different ways. We’ve seen him open up with a cross to the body, a jab, and he will also throw uppercuts as well.
Lastly, there is the low kick. Yan gets low kicked, there’s no two ways about it. Aldo kicked him, Merab Dvalishvili kicked him, Sean O’Malley kicked him. Kicking the legs will also get Yan reaching. This lowers the guard and, as we will see later, change his stance. Yan will look to get a jump on catching the low kick and cheat his hand down towards the kick a bit as it’s coming. This provides combinations up top for Yadong as well.
The kicks bring us to our next area of discussion…
The open side body kick
The open side body kick first requires an understanding of the southpaw versus orthodox matchup compared to orthodox versus orthodox. In a traditional matchup (orthodox v orthodox), the two fighters are in a bladed stance. The power side of a fighter is on the lead side of an opponents.
In a mirrored stance (southpaw v orthodox), the two fighters are mirrored. The power shots come from the strong side. Now Petr Yan is a switch hitter, which means he will fight from both stances in the fight. Often he will switch from orthodox to southpaw and vice versa if he things he has a better read from the opposite stance or if something is not going his way.
In What makes Benoit Saint-Denis so dangerous as a fighter?, we discussed how he uses the open side body kick religiously as a southpaw who has exclusively faced orthodox opponents. Incidentally, Saint-Denis is fighting Dustin Poirier in the co-main event of UFC 299 as well. Digressing, kicking across the body is a bit different to stop. Instead of turning away from the kick, a fighter needs to brace both of his arms to parry the kick down.
Now Yadong Song has a very good body kick, but that’s really utilized in a traditional matchup. He will need to take advantage of Petr Yan switching to the stance or force him there.
We’ve seen Yan forced to southpaw before. I’m the Merab Dvalishvili fight, Yan was smashed 21 times to the leg. By round two, that leg was compromised and Dvalishvili reaped the benefit. (1) Dvalishvili throws the outside leg kick as Yan is in orthodox. (2) He retreats to southpaw by bringing that rear leg back and (3) Dvalishvili attacks the takedown.
I’m not concerned with that takedown for Yadong. Instead, it’s about the forced switch. He can make Yan go to southpaw. I’ve not seen much of a step up body kick from Yadong which is not to say he can’t do it. But smashing the legs will provide more benefits. With a compromised leg, Yan’s mobility will be negated. Capitalizing on the open side body kick is simply a very valuable secondary benefit.
Drawing out the counter
To beat Petr Yan, hitting the body alone will not be enough. Yadong Song will have to land strikes upstairs as well. Damage is the number one criteria in the unified rules of MMA and hitting the body will get Yan’s hands to drop. Once he gets his hands low and gets Yan thinking about the body, Yadong will do his best work.
Crucial in boxing, head movement hasn’t caught on completely as other techniques have like the calf kick. But fighters like Ilia Topuria are showing it’s use. Combination punching is extended when you can make your opponent miss. There is none better than Topuria at the moment. Let’s rewind to What makes Ilia Topuria so special as a fighter? for a moment.
From that article:
We see (1 & 2) Topuria moving his head left and right, loading up the lead hook and rear uppercut. (3) Topuria decides on the uppercut off of the right lean. Off of the twist of the hips from the uppercut, Topuria loads up the left hook which (4) he throws and loads up the (5) right hand.
This combination punching has been consistent throughout Topuria’s run to the title since his fight with Damon Jackson. The changing of levels, the addition of the shoulder rolls, and his footwork are the major keys to Topuria’s success.
Now Yadong Song doesn’t have the head movement of Ilia Topuria. But he does throw his head off the center line when exchanging.
Yadong could use the uppercut and jabbing off of the lead hook to get Yan to open up. Once he does, Yadong can get the better of the exchanges by landing the heavier shots.
We’ve seen Yadong Song throw the lead uppercut in exchanges before. Against Moraes, (1) Yadong threw the right as Moraes jabbed and threw his head off the center line. Now in range with Moraes, (2) Yadong throws the lead uppercut up the middle, something that will come in handy against Petr Yan’s high guard. (3) Moraes doesn’t react fast enough and Yadong lands the right hook.
In another example, Yadong Song utilizes the outside slip to drop Ricky Simon. Simon, a switch hitter like Yan, (1) is in southpaw and is pressuring Yadong. (2) Yadong anticipates the left coming his way and Simon dropping his right hand to throw said strike. (3) He will slip his head to the outside and (4) sit Simon down with a left hook.
I feel like we are beating up on Ricky Simon a bit, but here is one more example.
(1) Yadong Song steps in and (2) throws a right which Simon blocks with his elbow. Having got a feel for the range and speed, (3) Yadong brings out his own high guard as Simon throws the right cross from orthodox. This lets Yadong stay in the pocket which allows him to (4) land a left hook as Simon is opened up and (5) away in round five.
Avoid the clinch
One of Petr Yan’s best areas of fighting is in the clinch. Yadong Song doesn’t make it a habit to fight here, but Yan often seeks out a collar tie to control the fight.
Taking away the power shot via takedowns is something that’s often sought out against Yadong. Yan has great ways of getting the takedown from the clinch.
In the first Sterling match, Yan found success in that area despite Sterling being such an effective wrestler. (1) We start off with Sterling chasing the takedown and Yan grabs across the body with his right arm and wrist control with the left. (2) Yan swings his right leg across Sterling and (3) reaps the outside of Sterling’s right leg and (4) securing the takedown.
The takedown is just the beginning of the threat. In the clinch, Yan can make his opponents pay for breaking in an unsafe manner.
In Petr Yan’s fight with Urijah Faber, Faber often looked to clinch for a takedown. Big mistake. (1) We see in the diagram above, Petr Yan controlling the right arm of Faber, (2) sliding it off to the side, and (3) landing an elbow over the top. These strikes in the clinch really allow Yan to get the ball moving on his offense early in a fight.
The cons outweigh the benefits too much for Yadong Song in the clinch with Petr Yan. Sticking to big punches from the pocket but not a clinch situation is the ideal solution.
At the end of the day, there are two people in the cage and Petr Yan will not go away quietly. Yadong has a big task ahead of him and a win would skyrocket him to the top five of the division. But this is fist fighting and the outcomes are hardly ever determined as we have discussed today.
I hope this article shed some light on how Yadong Song can win his fight against Petr Yan at UFC 299. Regardless of a win or loss, this can shed some light on how to deal with an opponent with a high guard and slick boxing.