Yan Xiaonan seems to be on a bit of a campaign to make people feel good about themselves. She recently took to Instagram to declare to her followers that ‘size doesn’t matter’.
Of course it makes quite a lot of difference in the fight industry. Xiaonan is a UFC strawweight and will know the lengths that fellow fighters go to in order to cut weight and give themselves a size advantage.
But her message doesn’t seem intended for professional athletes. It sounds like Xiaonan is trying to inspire the man (or woman) on the street to feel more confidence:
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Be confident
She is speaking in Mandarin. But Xiaonan, who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, has a message in English for her fans,
Size doesn’t matter. Too big, too small, too fat, too thin… Don’t care what people say, be confident in being yourself.
In Sacramento the obesity rate among adults is 31%. It appears Xiaonan might be sharing a message of support with some of her overweight friends, although she also posted the rainbow flag emoji which is typically used to share support for the LGBTQ community.
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Biggest victory
Xiaonan is coming off a majority decision win over Mackenzie Dern at UFC Vegas 61. That was arguably the biggest victory of the 33 year old’s entire career and got her back on track after two consecutive defeats.
She saw her compatriot Weili Zhang regain the strawweight title last year and then defend it. But Xiaonan still dreams of winning the belt herself and has moved to the US in order to try and make this a reality.
There has been an influx of Chinese fighters into the UFC and several of them have decided to relocate to the US. Song Yadong trains alongside Xiaonan at Team Alpha Male.
Meanwhile Jingliang Li is based at Kill Cliff MMA in Florida and Shayilan Nuerdanbieke trains there too. Mongolia’s Danaa Batgerel uses Fight Ready in Arizona as a base and Weili Zhang has trained there too.
Xiaonan has been on the roster since 2016 and has more UFC experience than most of the other Chinese fighters on the roster. She wants to share her wisdom and knowledge with the world and let everyone know that ‘size doesn’t matter’.
