Women’s Strawweight champion Zhang Weili will face Xiaonan Yan at UFC 300, in a bout that will make history as the first time two Chinese athletes have faced off for a UFC World Title.
A hyped-up UFC CEO Dana White took to social media to announce the monumental fight news. He said:
“Alright everybody, on August 31st 2019, history was made when Zhang Weili beat Jessica Andrade to become the first Chinese champion in UFC history. Well guess what? Five years later, we will see history being made again as Zhang Weili faces number one contender Xiaonan Yan for the UFC Strawweight title on UFC 300 and this is the first time two Chinese contenders have faced off for a world title. Why is this such a bad ass fight? Let me tell you why.
“Zhang Weili has 19 finishes in 24 wins that’s an 80% finish rate! She is tied for second most title wins in Strawweight history and she was involved in arguably one of the greatest fights ever vs Joanna Jedrzejczyk. Her last fight was the most dominant statistical win ever, in UFC women’s history against Amanda Lemos. She out struck her 288 to 21 in that fight. She landed the most strikes on the ground by a UFC Strawweight ever!
“Now Yan, Yan is the first Chinese female ever signed to the UFC. She’s got the most head strikes landed in a single UFC Strawweight fight ever and she is coming off a first round knockout against Jessica Andrade in under three minutes. Which, by the way, she was a 2/1 underdog in that fight, and she has 8 first round knock outs.
“This fight has bad ass written all over it. So, there’s one of the title fights for UFC 300 I will have at least two or more for you tomorrow!”
Zhang shot to stardom following her title winning bout. After dropping her belt to Rose Namajunas at UFC 261 then losing in a much closer rematch at UFC 268, the Chinese superstar worked her way back into the title picture and reclaimed gold at UFC 281 with a second-round submission over Carla Esparza. The bout will mark her second title defence in her second run as UFC champion.
Xiaonan enters the contest under similar circumstances to the champion. Having dropped back-to-back losses against Carla Esparza and Marina Rodriguez, Xiaonan to seven months to regroup and rebuild before coming back and dominating Mackenzie Dern to earn a majority decision. Looking to build on her return to the win column, she then had an arguably career best performance in the Andrade bout which White alluded to in his announcement.
This is the first title fight that has been officially announced for UFC 300 but as Dana White commented at the end of the video, it sounds like fans can expect to see at least two more titles on the line on April 13th.
