By:  | March 6, 2022 11:37 am

Another week, another Asian fighter on the wrong end of a split decision in the UFC. This time it was Xiaonan Yan who has no luck at all with the judges, narrowly losing to Marina Rodriguez.

Xiaonan started strongly at UFC 272, looking light on her feet and scoring with punches and low kicks. Rodriguez’s main contribution was a knee below the belt which caused a lengthy delay towards the end of the round.

The Chinese fighter was clearly ahead at this stage but the second stanza was closer. This time it was the Brazilian’s turn to fire off leg kicks and Xiaonan responded with a takedown attempt.

Close quarters

Xiaonan was looking to drag the fight into the clinch and work at close quarters and she forced Rodriguez to defend although the Brazilian did land a right hand at the end of the round. The second stanza was too close to call meaning the last five minutes would be decisive.

Both came out swinging but neither was able to connect with anything too solid at the start of the third. They were matching each other kick for kick and punch for punch with the crowd sounding its appreciation.

Xiaonan did land a spinning back kick which caught the eye without doing any serious damage. The Chinese fighter felt she had done enough to win the first two rounds but only one of the judges agreed.

The scorecards read 29-28, 29-28 and 28-29 in favour of Rodriguez who improves to 16-1-2. Xiaonan drops to 13-3 and we think Ji Yeon Kim will have some sympathy for her after what happened to the Korean last week.

The fight was undeniably close but Asian ladies just don’t seem to have any luck with the UFC judges just at the moment.

Best of the rest

Colby Covington (17-3) beat Jorge Masvidal (35-16) in the main event. The former did a lot of talking during this welterweight fight but it was the latter who did the damage.

UFC 272, Las Vegas, March 5th
Colby Covington def. Jorge Masvidal via Decision (Unanimous)
Rafael dos Anjos def. Renato Moicano via Decision (Unanimous)
Bryce Mitchell def. Edson Barboza via Decision (Unanimous)
Kevin Holland def. Alex Oliveira via TKO (Punches) at 0:38 of R2
Serghei Spivac def. Greg Hardy via TKO (Punches) at 2:16 of R1
Jalin Turner def. Jamie Mullarkey via second-round TKO (punches)
Marina Rodriguez def. Yan Xiaonan via Decision (Split)
Nicolae Negumereanu def. Kennedy Nzechukwu via Decision (Split)
Maryna Moroz def. Mariya Agapova via Submission (Head and arm choke) at 3:27 of R2
Umar Nurmagomedov def. Brian Kelleher via Submission (Rear naked choke) at 3:15 of R1
Tim Elliott def. Tagir Ulanbekov via Decision (Unanimous)
L’udovit Klein def. Devonte Smith via Decision (Split)
Dustin Jacoby def. Michal Oleksiejczuk via Decision (Unanimous)