Song Yadong suffered a career setback after the ringside physician wouldn’t allow him to continue in the headline bout at UFC Vegas 60 due to a gruesome cut opened by opponent Cory Sandhagen’s elbow.
Elsewhere on the card, Gregory Rodrigues had his forehead sliced by a brutal knee kick, as shown in photos by president Dana White, but rallied on to score a TKO win.
Chinese fighter Sadong said midweek that he expected a shot at the bantamweight title, which will be retained by current champion Aljamain Sterling or snatched away by TJ Dillashaw at UFC 280 next month, if he managed to stop former interim strap challenger Cory Sandhagen.
And while 24-year-old Song started well and evenly matched his opponent for most of the fight, an elbow delivered by Sandhagen in the second round ended up dictating the course of the evening.
The elbow jab smashed Song’s eyebrow and prompted his cutman to work on it with vigor between rounds. After the fourth ended though, the ringside physician had seen enough and decided that Song, who also had swelling on his forehead and around his eye, was unable to continue.
Boasting a respectable 8-1-1 record going into the main event, Sadong was drawing with Sandhagen by a score of two rounds each on two of the judge’s cards, with the third viewing the action 3-1 in Sandhagen’s favor.
While Sandhagen broke a streak of two back-to-back defeats to former division kings TJ Dillashaw and Petr Yan, he was not happy with the way the fight finished with Sadong, who is now 19-7-1 with one no contest.
“I hate that it ended that way,” Sandhagen lamented. “I think he deserved a fifth round. I wanted to see the fifth round. I wanted to see the scorecards to see if I was winning or not. That’s what I care about, winning. I won.”
On social media, fight fans reacted to the outcome and praised Song for his bravery.
“It’s sad because Song was clearly the more skilled fighter between the two and he won the first three rounds,” concluded one.
“It sucks that it ended this way,” said another, echoing Sandhagen’s remarks. “But I’m excited to see what the future holds for Song. He clearly showed the skills to be at the top.”
Elsewhere on the card, Song’s wasn’t the only gruesome cut: Gregory Rodrigues’ forehead was split open by a knee strike that opponent Chidi Njokuani landed in the first exchange of their fight.
Rodrigues was sent wobbling by the huge shot but, unlike Sadong, the Brazilian was allowed to soldier on and eliminated all possibility of medical intervention by scoring a TKO early in the second round.
UFC president Dana White shared a photo of Rodrigues’ battle wound before and after on social media. And while the middleweight brawler could have a scar for life after his stitching has healed, Rodrigues at least went home with a Fight of the Night bonus.