Xiaonan Yan Reacts to Controversy Surrounding End of First Round at UFC 300

Xiaonan
Yan has issued a clarification about the chaotic end of the
first round of her UFC
300 clash against Weili
Zhang.

Yan (18-4) challenged her compatriot for the strawweight title in
UFC 300 co-main event last weekend. “Fury” showed an immense
display of grit en route to an emphatic unanimous decision loss
against the champ. Yan was caught in a deep rear-naked choke in the
final seconds of the opening frame and appeared to have passed out
as the clock expired. She was visibly struggling while walking back
to her corner but managed to gather herself and go hard for four
more rounds. The Chinese standout admits that she had almost passed
out but not quite.

“I think since she took my back and she got the rear-naked choke
position very quickly. But I still believe I can defend that,” the
34-year-old said on The MMA Hour. “And then when she swept me I was
facing the roof of the arena and then I could see the clock on the
big screen. So I saw that about 10 seconds left, I think, ‘OK I can
go through this round.’ So at the last second when they ring bell,
I was almost out. Just like somebody almost knocked me out, but I
still recognized that I need to stand up immediately and I tried my
best to walk to my corner to show that the fight is still able to
continue.”

Ultimate Fighting Championship cutman Rudy Hernandez could be
heard asking Yan’s corner if they wanted him to wake her up which
they obviously agreed to. Hernandez could then be seen putting his
finger on Xiaonan’s nostril to wake her up, prompting commentators
Joe Rogan and Daniel
Cormier to conjecture if he used smelling salts. While Yan
admits that she didn’t register much of what went down in that
break, she is confident that smelling salts, which are banned,
weren’t used to wake her up.

“So, to be honest I didn’t notice what the cornerman was doing
between the rounds. Because when I went back to my corner I was
still recovering from the choke. So, the only thing I can see is
Urijah and Danny stood in front of me and they are talking. But I
cannot absorb anything they said. Actually, I didn’t notice what
the cornerman was doing… But the smell salts thing makes no sense.
Nobody put those to let me smell that. No nobody used those things
to wake me up. It makes no sense. It’s just like all my previous
fights, you guys know it’s not allowed to be used.”

Former referee “Big” John McCarthy recently explained that cut man
Hernandez had probably pressed his finger hard right below Yan’s
nose to activate the nerve endings, a technique often used to
revive rocked fighters.