Cory
Sandhagen
wants nothing more than to stop the bleeding in a
cutthroat
Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division where the
faint of heart need not apply.
The
Elevation Fight Team standout will seek his first win in 19
months when he takes on
Yadong Song
in the
UFC Fight Night 210 headliner on Saturday at the UFC Apex in
Las Vegas. Sandhagen enters the cage on the heels of back-to-back
losses, both of which were contentious in nature. He last appeared
at UFC 267, where he wound up on the wrong side of a unanimous
verdict against
Petr Yan in a
failed bid to capture interim gold at 135 pounds on Oct. 30. Song,
meanwhile, finds himself on a three-fight winning streak. He last
competed on March 12, when he punched out former
World Series of Fighting champion
Marlon
Moraes a little more than two minutes into their UFC Fight
Night 203 encounter.
As Sandhagen and Song approach their pivotal clash in Sin City, a
look at some of the numbers that have accompanied them to this
point:
30: Years of age for Sandhagen, who was born on April 20, 1992 in
Aurora, Colorado.
6: Sandhagen victories by knockout or technical knockout,
accounting for 43% of his career total (14). His list of UFC
victims:
Frankie
Edgar,
Marlon
Moraes,
Iuri
Alcantara and
Austin
Arnett. Sandhagen holds three other victories by submission
(21%) and five more by decision (36%).
169: Significant strikes landed by Sandhagen his aforementioned
loss to Yan. It established a personal benchmark for “Sandman” and
marked third time he had surpassed the century plateau in the
category since he joined the UFC roster four-plus years ago.
2: First-round finishes inside the Octagon for Sandhagen. He
submitted
Mario
Bautista with an armbar 3:31 into their UFC Fight Night 143
pairing on Jan. 19, 2019 and wiped out Edgar with a flying knee 28
seconds into their UFC Fight Night 184 confrontation on Feb. 6,
2021.
.818: Cumulative winning percentage between the four men—Yan,
T.J.
Dillashaw,
Aljamain
Sterling and
Jamall
Emmers—who have beaten Sandhagen. They sport a combined record
of 72-16.
24: Years of age for Song, who was born in Heilongjiang, China, on
Dec. 2, 1997.
8: Song wins by knockout or technical knockout, accounting for 42%
of his career total (19). His list of UFC victims: Moraes,
Julio Arce,
Alejandro
Perez and
Felipe
Arantes. Song owns three other wins by submission (16%) and
eight more by decision (42%).
5,124: Miles between Song’s hometown and where he trains under the
Team Alpha Male lights in Sacramento, California.
65: Seconds needed for Song to put away
Makoto
Yoshida with knees to the body and follow-up punches at a Wu
Lin Feng show on Oct. 28, 2017. Nearly five years later, it remains
his fastest finish to date.
84: Combined victories between the five men—
Kyler
Phillips,
Renat Ondar
(twice),
Alexey
Polpudnikov,
Giovanni
Moljo and
Xian Ji—who have
defeated Song. They boast a .667 cumulative winning percentage at
84-40-2.