Preview: UFC Fight Night 203 ‘Santos vs. Ankalaev’

Bantamweights

#10 | Marlon Moraes (23-9-1) vs. #14 | Yadong Song (18-5-1, 1 N/C)
Odds: Song (-255), Moraes (+205)

The vibes certainly aren't great for Marlon Moraes at the moment. Heading into his 2019 bout against Henry Cejudo for the UFC's vacant bantamweight belt, things had been going about as well as possible for the Brazilian. After running his way through World Series of Fighting, Moraes narrowly dropped his 2017 debut to perennial fringe contender Raphael Assuncao, but "Magic" rebounded with four straight wins, including first-round finishes of Aljamain Sterling, Jimmie Rivera and Assuncao in a rematch. It looked like Cejudo would join that club early on in their fight, but then Cejudo changed tactics and turned around the fight in gigantic fashion, essentially choosing not to respect Moraes's power and to instead march through his offense, which was enough to throw Moraes off and score Cejudo a third-round finish. Moraes rebounded well enough against Jose Aldo, a result that was almost immediately forgotten given Aldo's success and Moraes' struggles since, but the last year and a half has seen Moraes essentially relive the troubles he had against Cejudo. Moraes' style has historically revolved around bursts of offense to either finish or scare off his opponents, but Cory Sandhagen basically embodied the type of new-school approach that Moraes is now running into head-on, pouring on volume and finding a wheel kick finish in the second round. Moraes then pivoted to a wrestling-heavy approach against Rob Font that quickly turned into a first-round knockout loss, and then had an immensely disheartening fight against Merab Dvalishvili; a ton of early success, including a near-finish gave Moraes a huge moment of hope, only for Dvalishvili to take over and lay on an extended beating that turned into a merciful stoppage late in the second round. Those flashes in the Dvalishvili fight provide some optimism that, while Moraes appears done as a contender, he can still hang around for an effective back end of his career - but the nature of some of these finishes do just as much to kill those good vibes. Up next for Moraes is top prospect Yadong Song in a fight that figures to either be exactly what Moraes needs or exactly what he doesn't.

Somehow still just 24 despite a few years on the UFC roster, Song separated himself as a prospect almost immediately upon his UFC debut. One of a slew of Chinese prospects signed for the UFC's debut on the mainland in 2017, Song impressed each time out on one of the UFC's trips to Asia, finishing Bharat Kandare and Felipe Arantes before putting a consistent win over Vince Morales. That, in turn, led to a 2019 stateside debut that went about as well as possible; facing the effective but neutralizing style of Alejandro Perez, Song absolutely ran through his most impressive competition to date, scoring an impressively brutal knockout just two minutes into the fight. Since then, Song has been equal parts impressive and frustrating, as he's clearly established himself as a top-15 or so bantamweight while also seeming capable of more. Despite his power and physical gifts, Song has a patient approach that makes things closer than they need to be; it's still gotten him a draw against Cody Stamann and win over Marlon Vera that each felt a bit lucky, but also cost him his first UFC loss against Kyler Phillips last March. Song's last win, a November knockout of Julio Arce that essentially came about during the flow of the fight, does provide some hope that Song is channeling his power into a better finishing rate, and he gets a chance at a big breakthrough win here. With Moraes skidding and facing one of the stoutest young athletes in the division, the immediate urge is to predict that the former contender will continue his slide, but there are some things about this stylistic matchup to like. Namely, that's Song's patience; with the effectiveness that Moraes showed early on against Dvalishvili, there's the chance that Song gives Moraes enough breathing room to recapture some of his old form and hit some effective offense while working at his own pace. So it wouldn't be a surprise to see Moraes build a bit of an early lead. But everything does come back to the fact that, frustrating as his approach may be at times, Song still hits really hard, and Moraes does seem to be at the point where any huge moments of effective offense from his opponents are enough to send things careening off the rails. The pick is Song via second-round knockout.

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