Yadong Song is starting to feel at home in the main event position. He’s just competed in his third consecutive headliner, where he dominated Chris Gutierrez over five rounds to secure a unanimous decision victory at UFC Fight Night 233.
The event took place on a Saturday night at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Song has now won five of his last six Octagon appearances and continues to be a strong contender at 135 pounds.
Let’s take a closer look at UFC Fight Night 233, with statistics courtesy of UFCStats.com. Song’s record in UFC main events now stands at 2-1. The “Kung Fu Kid” has defeated Gutierrez and Ricky Simon, but fell to Cory Sandhagen in headliners for the Las Vegas-based promotion. All three of these fights have gone into the championship rounds.
Gutierrez managed to land 78 significant strikes over the first three rounds. Song, however, landed 48 during the same period. In rounds 4 and 5, Gutierrez landed only 9 significant strikes, while Song landed 29 in the fight’s final 10 minutes.
Gutierrez landed 76 significant leg strikes out of 87 total. Song, on the other hand, landed 30 significant leg strikes. Song also landed 35 significant head strikes, while Gutierrez landed just eight. In terms of significant body strikes, Song held a 12-to-3 edge and a 24-to-0 advantage in significant ground strikes.
Song landed a total of 160 strikes. By comparison, Gutierrez landed 105. Song also had total control time of 11:03 and landed two of three takedowns in the contest. Gutierrez, meanwhile, did not have any control time and was unsuccessful on his two takedown attempts.
Khalil Rountree is also on a winning streak, with five consecutive victories. This ties him with Carlos Ulberg for the longest-active winning streak in the UFC’s light heavyweight division. Rountree defeated Anthony Smith via third-round technical knockout in Saturday’s co-main event.
Rountree now has 7 KO/TKO victories at light heavyweight. This is the third most in the history of the division, trailing only Chuck Liddell (10) and Mauricio Rua (eight).
It’s been 1,589 days since Nasrat Haqparast’s last finish in the Octagon. This was a second-round knockout of Joaquim Silva at UFC on ESPN 5 on Aug. 3, 2019. Haqparast defeated Jamie Mullarkey via TKO 1:44 into the opening round of their middleweight matchup.
Haqparast landed two knockdowns in less than two minutes against Mullarkey. He had landed knockdowns in each of his first four UFC appearances but had landed just one in his last seven outings prior to Saturday night.
Andre Muniz landed 11 takedowns, in 14 attempts, in a split-decision triumph over Jun Yong Park. This ties him with Marvin Vettori and Nick Maximov for the second-most takedowns ever landed in a UFC middleweight bout. Only Makhmud Muradov, who secured 13 takedowns against Bryan Barberena at UFC Fight Night 224, has landed more in a single 185-pound fight.
Muniz had a total control time of 9:34. By comparison, Park logged 2:58 of control time. Park outlanded his foe 27 to 14 in significant strikes but couldn’t shift momentum in his favor long enough to earn the nod from the cageside judges.
Kevin Jousset landed 134 significant strikes in a unanimous decision win over Kenan Song at welterweight. Joussett landed more than 40 significant strikes in each stanza while connecting on 57% of his attempts. Song landed 62 significant strikes — at a 39% success rate — in defeat.
Shannon Ross has suffered seven knockdowns in three UFC bouts and one Dana White’s Contender Series appearance. On Saturday, “The Turkish Delight” was dropped twice by Hyun Sung Park en route to a TKO defeat at the 3:59 mark of Round 2. Ross is winless in those four fights.
Steve Garcia had a significant strike advantage of 24 in the decisive second round of his technical knockout victory over Melquizael Costa at lightweight. After being controlled for 4:41 of the opening frame, “Mean Machine” finished his opponent with elbows from mount 1:01 into Round 2.
Garcia has landed five knockdowns in his last three UFC appearances. He is 3-0 in those fights.
Japanese prospect Tatsuro Taira has four consecutive 125-pound victories. This ties him with Alexandre Pantoja, Amir Albazi, and Manel Kape for the second-longest winning streak in the UFC’s flyweight division. Taira defeated Carlos Hernandez via second-round technical knockout in their preliminary clash on Saturday. Taira has a five-fight winning streak in UFC competition overall, but one of those wins came at a catchweight.
Taira landed 33 significant strikes, including one knockdown. Hernandez, meanwhile, landed just two significant strikes.
Of the 10 unofficial media scorecards tracked by MMADecisions.com, nine scored the strawweight fight between Rayanne Amanda dos Santos and Talita Alencar in favor of dos Santos. However, judges Adalaide Byrd and Ron McCarthy submitted 29-28 tallies in favor of Alencar, giving “The Problem Child” a split-decision triumph.
Dos Santos landed 57 significant strikes. By comparison, Alencar landed 36. Dos Santos also stuffed eight of her opponent’s nine takedown attempts.