A women’s strawweight title fight between current champion Weili Zhang and Yan Xiaonan has been announced for UFC 300 in Las Vegas on April 13th.
The fight will go down as as the first title fight in UFC history to feature two Chinese fighters, and it’s also worth noting that despite it being a five-rounder with a belt on the line it doesn’t appear to be either the main or co-main event for the stacked card.
The 34-year-old Weili is currently on a three-fight winning streak that began with a KO victory over Joanna Jedrzezjcyk in 2022, before going on to win the 115lb title for the 2nd time in her career courtesy of a rear-naked choke submission finish of Carla Esparza.
Since then she’s successfully defended the belt by earning a unanimous decision victory over Amanda Lemos, and is currently ranked No.2 on the women’s pound-for-pound rankings.
Meanwhile, the also 34-year-old Xiaonan is coming in off back-to-back victories, having earned a majority decision win over Mackenzie Dern in 2022 followed by knocking out Jessica Andrade in the 1st round back in May of last year.
Prior to that Xiaonan had actually suffered a couple of losses in a row against Marina Rodriguez and Carla Esparza, but her overall UFC record stands at 8-2 and she’s currently the No.2 ranked contender at strawweight.
As things stand Weili vs. Xioanan joins a UFC 300 card that also features the likes of Charles Oliveira vs. Arman Tsarukyan, Jiri Prochazka vs. Aleksander Rakic, Aljamain Sterling vs. Calvin Kattar and Bo Nickal vs. Cody Brundage.
So there’s certainly going to be strength-in-depth on this card, but while Weili vs. Xioanan is a title fight worth making, this latest announcement isn’t likely to appease fans who are clamouring for blockbuster match-ups to justify the hype and anticipation surrounding the UFC 300 pay-per-view event.
That being said, Dana White has promised that “at least two more fights” will be announced later on Thursday, so it will be interesting to see if the main and co-main event are finally unveiled.
A welterweight title fight between Leon Edwards and Belal Muhammad or possibly Shavkat Rakhmonov seems a likely option for the co-main event spot, but that would still leave the headliner up for grabs.
The problem is that many potential headliners either already have big fights booked on other upcoming PPV shows, like middleweight champ Sean Strickland at UFC 297 later this month, Alexander Volkanovski fronting UFC 298 in February and Sean O’Malley at UFC 299 in March.
On top of that, Conor McGregor claims he’s fighting Michael Chandler in June, Islam Makhachev is also aiming for an early June return against Justin Gaethje and Jon Jones is still out injured.
That means the UFC brass has limited options left at their disposal. Light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereira doesn’t have a fight booked yet, but the latest update from current No.1 contender Jamahal Hill’s camp is that he might not return from injury until the summer.
Given that Israel Adesanya also doesn’t have a fight in the works then a 205lb showdown between Pereira and him appears to be the most buzz-worthy match-up that the UFC could put on, but Izzy doesn’t seem to be in a rush to return and has generally shied away from the prospect of facing his rival yet again, so that might be challenging to put together.
It’s also possible that the UFC waits to see the outcome of UFC 297’s Strickland vs. Du Plessis middleweight title fight in a little over a week’s time with the hope that the winner emerges healthy enough to go on to defend the belt against Adesanya at UFC 300.
Meanwhile interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall could be another option the UFC turns to, though there’s not a clear match-up there that would suggest blockbuster PPV sales other than Pereira moving up to fight him (which he hinted at recently, before quickly reaffirming his focus on defending the 205lb title).
Let’s hope Dana White’s further announcements later today bring clarity to the situation.
