UFC: Yan Xiaonan has one eye on Carla Esparza – and one on ‘China Derby’ with Zhang Weili
- Chinese strawweight star returns to action on May 22; win, and title shot against Zhang Weili looms
- ‘I will win and then we will fight. It will be a Chinese Derby and that is what we are all waiting for,’ Yan says
Yan “Fury” Xiaonan is coming off a career-best victory that resulted in the Chinese fighter‘s rise to a ranking of No 3 in the UFC’s strawweight division, and yet she’s still not convinced the world has seen her at the peak of her powers.
The price for that may well be paid by the fourth-ranked American Carla Esparza when the pair meet at UFC Fight Night 192 on May 22.
“I will beat her down,” Yan told SCMP MMA this week. “Carla is very experienced in the UFC so I’m looking forward to fighting her. She’s on a 4-0 run and she’s very good at taking people down. But I’ll be ready. I’ll practice my takedown defence a lot – she’ll see a lot of improvement in me.”
Yan says she’s focused on Esparza, first, but admits that very thought is lingering somewhere there at the back of her mind.
“I don’t know if my ranking will rise if I win but for sure this is the big moment ahead for me – to challenge for the title,” she says. “It’s step-by-step, training every day, and all of that gets me closer to the championship.
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“I expect Weili to win, if she does her best. I think she has more power than Rose. I will win and then we’ll fight. It will be a Chinese Derby and that’s what we’re all waiting for.”
The 31-year-old Yan (13-1, one no contest) has just this week emerged from quarantine in Shanghai, during which time the bout with the 33-year-old Esparza (17-6) was confirmed.
That lockdown came after an extended, Covid-19-enforced stay in the United States that had culminated in a comprehensive win over Brazil’s former title challenger Claudia Gadelha (18-5) at UFC Vegas 13 on November 13.
While happy enough with that success, there was a lingering sense of dissatisfaction simmering while Yan was locked away inside a small hotel room.
Yan says she managed to shift her bed up against a wall and create enough space for daily workouts while in quarantine. But there was time – far too much time – spent in repose, and with nothing much at all to do, when the distractions of streamed films, social media chat and wacky pet clips weren’t enough to keep Yan’s mind from wandering.
“Actually I don’t think I did very well in that fight with Claudia,” she says. “But in the second and third round she tried but she couldn’t really take me down. So that made me think the work I’d been doing in training was working. Takedowns are one of Claudia’s great strengths but I was able to fight her off so I know I’ve improved.”
When Yan was finally set free – from that hotel room and from her thoughts – there was a feast of spaghetti, milk tea, chicken wings, and dessert. Lots of dessert. And then there were preparations for the Esparza bout to plan.
What Yan has brought back with her from that extended stay in the US are some new ideas about how to develop her fight game, and new training regimes shared by Team Alpha Male in Sacramento.
With help from Hall of Famer Urijah Faber (35-11) and his team of fighters and coaches, Yan was able to deep dive into the mystical arts of grappling – and takedown defence. The results of that have already been put on show – though there is more work ahead as she preps herself for Esparza, and beyond.
“I did a lot of work and really enjoyed it,” says Yan. “There was a lot of progress. The people [at Team Alpha Male] are all very smart and there are a lot of top fighters there. Training with them has made me smarter.
“The other thing is the technical skills. I could watch how they trained and this opened a new window for me in terms of just technique. I have brought that back with me to China.”
