The historic UFC 300 card is getting a historic title fight. Tonight, Dana White announced that strawweight champion Zhang Weili (24-3) will be defending her title against Yan Xiaonan (17-3) on the historic April 13th card. This is the first time that two Chinese fighters will be fighting each other for UFC gold.
Starting with Yan, she’s won back-to-back fights to earn this title shot against Weili. She started off her run inside the octagon winning her first six fights. However, she then suffered back-to-back losses to Carla Esparza and Marina Rodriguez. Following those two losses, there were questions around whether or not she’d get back into title contention.
However, she bounced back incredibly well with a decision win over Mackenzie Dern. Then, she got a fight with Jessica Andrade and knocked her out in the first round. Now, she gets to compete at UFC 300 against someone from her home country for the strawweight title.
UFC 300
Zhang Weili has had quite the run in the UFC. After winning her first three fights, she got a title fight in China against Jessica Andrade. Just like Yan, Weili was able to knock out Jessica Andrade in the first round. However, her win was for undisputed gold.
She had one title defense before getting stopped by Rose Namajunas. Namajunas would then edge out Weili in the rematch and there were a lot of questions around Weili’s future at strawweight. However, after a bounce back win and with Namajunas dropping the title to Carla Esparza, Weili got another shot.
She dominated Carla Esparza to regain the title. Most recently, we saw her at UFC 292 where she dominated Amanda Lemos to successfully defend her title. Now, she’ll look to do something she’s never done. Defend the title two times in a row successfully.