UFC Macau Recap

9 finishes in 13 fights is quite the feat, but let’s go over the biggest winners.

Rei Tsuruya: Say what you want about Rei, but he proved at UFC Macau that he deserves his flowers. With a 2-1 record in the UFC, Rei has a lone loss to the now-champ Joshua Van. In his previous fights, we saw a wrestling-heavy Rei that couldn’t find the submission and against Luis Gurule is where Rei put everything together. He looked sharp and dominant as he cruised to a quick round 1 submission.

Kai Asakura: Did everyone forget how much of a problem Kai Asakura was heading into the UFC? While his flyweight journey has come to an end, bantamweight Kai looks dannnnngerous. It may be too soon to say, but if Kai can continue leveling up his striking game, I think we can picture him as a fun fighter in this division. At UFC Macau it took him less than 10 punches to get Cameron Smotherman out. Kai was poise in the pocket, picked his moment and when he saw the end in sight, he took over. Not even two minutes in the 1st round and Kai was back to winning ways.

Sergei Pavlovich: The man is back to knocking people out. This less-than-a-minute knockout registers as Pavlovich’s 3rd consecutive win. It seems as though everyone forgot that Pavlovich was finishing fights in a hurry before Tom Aspinall. From 2019-2023 Pavlovich was undefeated and was earning round 1 knockouts, this is insane. At UFC Macau he proved again why he is a force in this heavyweight division and showed levels over Tallison Teixeira. Pavlovich is fast and his combos come from all different angles which make it so difficult for that heavyweight division to adjust. This is a great win and going forward after UFC White House, we’re interested where he lands in that contender talk.

Song Yadong: Finally the main main of UFC Macau. Song Yadong bounced back from the loss earlier this year to Sean O’Malley with a sound submission against Deiveson Figueredo. It was wild to see Figgy get caught in his famous guillotine, but Song looked amazing. People may have written him off after that O’Malley loss, but this fight proves that Song deserves to be talked about with the likes of Umar, Merab, Petr, Sean and the rest of that top 10 at bantamweight. Song was the favorite coming into this fight, but a rematch with Petr Yan would be so fun to watch. At UFC Macau it was more of an avalanche where Song just took over the fight as the fight progressed.

What was your favorite moment of UFC Macau and did you stay up to watch?