At noon on January 11, Beijing time, Dana White, CEO of the UFC Ultimate Fighting Event, announced that on April 14, UFC 300 will stage a women's strawweight world title fight, with Chinese player Zhang Weili facing another Chinese girl, Yan Xiaonan, which will also be the first time in UFC history that both sides will fight for the championship with Chinese fighters.
The name Zhang Weili is believed to be familiar to many martial arts fans. As the reigning Strawweight World Champion, Zhang Weili currently has a 24-4 record, 11 knockouts and eight submission wins. In 2019, Zhang Weili became the first world champion from China in UFC history by beating champion Andrade by TKO in 42 seconds, and the following year, Zhang Weili successfully defended her title with former strawweight champion Joanna in the best women's MMA matchup, becoming the first athlete in China and Asia to defend the title.
When Zhang Weili lost the championship belt to Rose in 2021, she did not admit defeat and threw herself into ultra-high-intensity training with high morale. It is also a plan to find high-level sparring training and improve diet and rehabilitation all over the world, and quickly came out of the trough. The following year, she had a rematch with Joanna, where she knocked out Joanna with a spinning whip to claim the title again.
That same year, Zhang Weili submitted Carla Esparza in the second round in New York and became the UFC Women's Strawweight World Champion for the second time. In August 2023, Zhang Weili challenged Amanda Lemos in her title defense, showing not only her impressive improvement in her wrestling skills, but also a massive strike advantage of 288 to 21 leads, and finally won the unanimous decision by disparity, once again demonstrating her dominance in the strawweight division.
Now, in the strawweight division, Zhang Weili has almost completely crushed her opponent, but the 34-year-old Yan Xiaonan has also risen rapidly in recent years. On May 7, 2023, Yan Xiaonan faced off against her career's toughest opponent, former fourth-ranked champion Jessica Andrade – and in just the first round, Yan Xiaonan TKO Andrade won the first stoppage victory in the octagon.
Yan Xiaonan currently has a career record of 17-3-1 with eight knockout wins. Yan Xiaonan is not only the Chinese female fighter with the best record in the UFC except for Zhang Weili, but also the first Chinese female fighter to sign a UFC contract and one of the pioneers of Chinese women's MMA. Yan's striking style focuses on striking and is excellent with her punches and legs, and she's adept at keeping her matches in the mid-to-long range she is more comfortable with.
At present, Yan Xiaonan has won eight fights in the UFC Octagon Cage, defeating Claudia Gadhar, Mackenzie Dern, Jessica Andrade and other well-known fighters, including the first-round knockout of Andrade at UFC 288 last May, which made her the first strawweight athlete to knock out Andrade, and her official ranking has risen to No. 2 in the strawweight division after the fight, which also earned her the opportunity to challenge for the World Title.
In this UFC 300 women's strawweight world championship match, Zhang Weili vs. Yan Xiaonan, as the current women's strawweight world ranking two strong dialogue between the two fighters, and with the blessing of the "Chinese Derby", I believe it will become the focus of attention of martial arts fans around the world. At that time, whether Zhang Weili will successfully defend the title or Yan Xiaonan's "new king ascends the throne", let us wait and see.