Scouting Report: Yadong Song

Yadong Song

Born: December 2, 1997 (Age: 24) in Heilongjiang, China
Division: Bantamweight
Height: 5’8”
Reach: 67”
Record: 19-6-1 (8-1-1 UFC)
Association: Team Alpha Male
Stage of Career: Developmental

Summary: Despite fighting in perhaps the most highly skilled weight class in MMA, Song has a decidedly old-school style. He relies on his boxing to beat opponents and largely looks to neutralize any attempts at grappling. The danger comes almost exclusively from his hands, as neither his kicks nor knees provide much worry for the opposition. Yet he is solid enough with his boxing for this approach to work quite well. He is also improving his grappling, shoring up weaknesses in that area and forcing opponents to beat him standing—a far more difficult proposition. His sturdy chin and proven recuperative powers make that even more challenging. He is quite big and muscular for a bantamweight, but that comes at a price, as his cardio is lacking when compared to most elite 135-pound competitors.

STRIKING

• Stance: Orthodox.
• Hand Speed: Above average.
• Jab: Solid but unspectacular. It features nice technique and plenty of power but lacks speed. The fact that he doubles and triples up on the punch enhances its value.
• Cross: A powerful, technical and accurate shot.
• Left Hook: Excellent, with a tight arc, plenty of rotation, suddenness and considerable power.
• Right Hook: A little more straight-armed and telegraphed than his hook from the left side.
• Overhand Right: Another accurate, technical and powerful shot.
• Uppercuts: A sneaky, surgical and concussive blow with which he used to finish off Marlon Moraes.
• Solitary Striker or Volume Puncher: Loves to throw punches in bunches, with some beautiful, technical combinations.
• Favorite Combinations: Favors the 2-3 and 3-2, or right cross-left hook in either order.
• Leg Kicks: Generally serviceable but a little off-balance due to his putting too much weight on his back leg.
• Body Kicks: Rarely throws them and looks rather mediocre when he does, lacking flexibility at times.
• Head Kicks: Sudden and fast, but he often fails to step forward properly with the blow.
• Chains Kicks to Punches: No.

Song possesses excellent boxing—the cornerstone of his style. All of his punches are technical, crisp and powerful, and he loves to throw them in bunches. He especially favors pairing his right cross with the left hook in either order. His overhand right and uppercut are powerful and technical, as well. While he uses them, his kicks are less effective due to some technical issues. Song is himself difficult to hit because of his sound boxing-based defense, including a stellar sense of range, good head movement and capable blocking.

CLINCH

• Physical Strength: Sizeable and muscular for 135 pounds.
• Technique: Decent, with a solid grasp of the fundamentals.
• Knees: Average.
• Elbows: Rarely ever throws them.
• Defense against Knees and Elbows: Sound.

Song does not like being in the clinch, but due to his considerable size and strength for the division, he has frequently managed to extricate himself from danger or push away opponent when he finds himself against the cage.

GRAPPLING

• Wrestling from a Shot: Difficult to say, as we have not seen him attempt one in a long time, but likely average or below average.
• Wrestling in the Clinch: Middling but good enough for him to get by.
• Takedown Defense: Features a nice sprawl and possesses the physical strength to get an opponent off of him.
• Ability to Return to feet: Decent but depends on the round. He excels at exploding back up early, but by the second and especially the third rounds, he becomes more likely to stay on the bottom.
• Submissions: Limited and practically non-existent in the heat of competition.
• Defense and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu from the Bottom: Acceptable, though he can be exploited and dominated by a sufficiently good grappler, as Cody Stamann showed.
• Top Control: Impossible to know since he never takes down opponents.
• Ground-and-Pound: Another unknown, as he finishes opponents on the feet.

Song has worked diligently on his grappling, long a relative weakness of his game. He only seeks to neutralize opponents, and his fundamental takedown defense has proven to be quite good. He can also get back to his feet when taken down, though this ability to do so dwindles later in fights. He has little offensive wrestling or Brazilian jiu-jitsu of which to speak, and we rarely see him engage with ground-and-pound. Still, he appears to be training his grappling more in light of some of the divisional elites he may face.

INTANGIBLES

• Athleticism and General Physical Strength: Not overly athletic but relies on his large size to stop takedowns.
• Cardio: Questionable. He can look badly winded in high-paced fights by the middle of the second round and frequently slows down tremendously—far more than his opponent—by Round 3, as we saw against Stamann, Marlon Vera and Casey Kenney.
• Chin: He can be hurt by significant shots but rarely gets knocked down by them.
• Recuperative Powers: Responds well to taking damage.
• Intelligence: Shows some improvement from fight to fight, but he has been known make some poor decisions in the cage.