Did you catch that moment at #UFC300? The one where they seemed to give her smelling salts? Wild, right? Check it out here: [pic link](https://t.co/q7nYsp1VO1). Diego caught that moment perfectly on April 14, 2024.
So, Xiaonan Yan had to clear the air about that crazy end to round one against Weili Zhang at UFC 300. It was a scene, for sure.
Yan, with a record of 18-4, was all fired up to take on Zhang for the strawweight title. The fight was nothing short of intense. “Fury” Yan showed some serious toughness but ended up with a unanimous decision loss. That choke at the end of the first round? Looked like she was out for a second there. Yet, she somehow made it back to her corner, ready to throw down for four more rounds. Yan herself said she was close to lights out but hung in there.
“I was almost out,” she admitted on The MMA Hour. “Like, right there on the edge. But I saw the clock, saw those last 10 seconds ticking down, and thought, ‘I can make it.’ And I did, barely.”
Then there’s the bit about Rudy Hernandez, the UFC cutman. He was overheard asking Yan’s corner if they needed help waking her up. Next thing, he’s pressing on Yan’s nostril, trying to get her back in the game. Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier were on commentary, speculating if smelling salts were at play. But Yan? She’s sure they weren’t used. “Didn’t even notice what was happening in my corner,” she said. “All I knew was, I had to get back up and keep fighting. Smelling salts? No way. Not allowed, and not what happened.”
“Big” John McCarthy weighed in too. He thinks Hernandez was just pressing a nerve below Yan’s nose, a trick to snap fighters back to reality.
So, there you have it. A bit of confusion, a bit of controversy, but all in a day’s work at UFC 300.