🚨Got told the UFC is working on a
bantamweight fight between Cory Sandhagen and Song Yadong. The
fight is targeted to headline the FN event on September 17th.🚨
pic.twitter.com/hAxDjUFwNI— Marcel Dorff 🇳🇱🇮🇩 (@BigMarcel24)
June 16, 2022
The Ultimate Fighting Championship can seemingly do
no wrong when it comes to matchmaking the top echelon of its
bantamweight division.
On Thursday night, Eurosport first broke the news that the
promotion was considering Cory
Sandhagen (14-4) vs. Yadong Song
(19-6-1, 1 NC) to headline its upcoming
Sept. 17 UFC Fight Night event. The UFC’s broadcast partner of
ESPN confirmed the pairing on Friday, while stating that the
contracts have not yet been signed but both sides have agreed to
it.
Sandhagen will come into this 135-pound headliner on a two-fight
skid. In July 2021, he fell short to T.J.
Dillashaw by contentious split decision, with the
sizable majority of media members scoring it for Sandhagen.
Looking to come back with a five-round interim title tilt against
Petr
Yan in October, Sandhagen lost more decisively to drop two in a
row. In a UFC career that has come with major ups and downs,
“Sandman” has beaten the likes of Frankie
Edgar, Marlon
Moraes and John
Lineker, while suffering defeat only to UFC champs in Aljamain
Sterling, Dillashaw and Yan.
This match will be Song’s first UFC main event, as he joined the
roster in 2017 and rattled off eight wins and a loss with a draw
interspersed along the way. The 24-year-old out of China has won
his last three, which includes a split decision over Casey
Kenney and a pair of knockouts over Julio Arce
and Moraes. His lone UFC setback came at UFC 259 in 2021, where he
lost a decision to Kyler
Phillips.
The UFC has not yet disclosed the location of the upcoming UFC
Fight Night card on Sept. 17. A few other matches from Sept. 10
have been displaced on this event for undetermined reasons. Of
note, Damon
Jackson vs. Pat
Sabatini at featherweight has also been booked for this fight
card, with news of that coming from Jackson’s management team of
Iridium
Sports Agency also on Friday.