UFC Vegas 60 is shaping up to be one of the best Apex Fight Night's of the year, at least on paper. There isn't really a clear second best fight on the card for me, but there are no fewer than 5 fights that could conceivably end up being that after the fact. It's all capped off with another leg in this run of important fights at men's bantamweight with Cory Sandhagen defending his number 4 spot against one of the top prospects in the entire sport in number 10, Song Yadong. This will be, by far, the biggest step up in competition of Song's career and a win here would have him right in the mix for a title shot. Sandhagen is trying to get back on track after a pair of tough losses and get himself back into the title picture. This should be a pretty solid night of competition and will likely be capped off by a tremendous display of talent and skill by two of the best that 135 lbs has to offer.
Song Yadong comes into this fight on a nice three fight winning streak and has been on every list of best prospects or best fighter under 25 list for what seems like forever now. Even then, he is still only 24 years old and should still be getting better with every passing fight. He's shown a skillset that is well beyond his years and is reaching the top of the division potentially before he even enters his prime. He hit a bit of a "rough patch" (rough being relative) right around the time of the pandemic. He fought to a draw with Cody Stamann, edged out a very close fight with Chito Vera that a lot of people scored for Chito, and then suffered his only UFC loss to Kyler Phillips. He picked up a close win over Casey Kenney, but has since looked a lot better when he knocked out Julio Arce and Marlon Moraes in consecutive wins. Song seems to have put that stretch behind him and is on a really nice roll coming into this fight. Stylistically, Song wants to stand and strike as he is very dangerous there. Song's best qualities are his natural athleticism and speed. He is extremely fast and his strikes are noticeably faster than almost all of his opponents. He is primarily a boxer, but he has shown an increased willingness to mix in kicks, especially low kicks. In this matchup in particular, I think those low kicks are going to be important for him. Song moves pretty well on his feet and does a good job of not staying in the pocket for too long. The speed and power really stands out above all else in his game. He's a fairly technical striker, but he is a bit inconsistent sometimes. He's kind of been inconsistent in a few areas, but given his age, I'm not too concerned about it as he is still a growing and developing fighter. The most concerning area of his inconsistency is his pace and cardio. Song sometimes has a tendency to fight at the pace that his opponent wants to fight at. If you go to his UFC stats page, his volume striking seems to be in a good spot at almost 5 strikes per minute. However, if you look at each fight individually and specifically the fights that have gone to decision, he has a tendency to fight really close. If his opponent has a higher output gameplan, he can out volume them, but if he fights a low volume opponent, he matches that as well. I'm not really sure if it is a pace issue with Song or a true cardio problem. It is likely some combination of both, but it is just hard to get a full read on what the issue is at the crux of it. He has slowed down late in fights before, so it could be that his cardio just doesn't really allow him to push a great pace early. As a grappler, I would say Song is more or less average. He's had some problems defensively against guys who are good grapplers and wrestlers who actively pursue takedowns, but he's also had success wrestling offensively against guys who have provided him openings. Song isn't a bad wrestler by any means, but he hasn't always been able to actually control his opponents when he's gotten them down. Combine that with a potential cardio limitation and it isn't a surprise that he has gone away from his wrestling. Song is extremely talented and is already one of the best fighters at 135 lbs. He still has room and areas for growth, but he is plenty good enough to win most fights that can be put in front of him.
Cory Sandhagen enters this fight in the roughest stretch of his career having lost two in a row and three of his last five. It's no coincidence that he started having more mixed results as he started fighting inside the top five of the division against future and former champions. He started his UFC run with five straight wins before losing to current champion Aljamain Sterling, which probably should've been for the title. He picked up highlight knockouts over Marlon Moraes and Frankie Edgar before getting back to a number one contender fight against TJ Dillashaw. I personally thought Sandhagen won that fight, but the judges saw it for Dillashaw. Because TJ was injured in that fight, Sandhagen ended up getting an interim title shot after Aljamain Sterling became unavailable due to a neck injury. Sandhagen and Petr Yan put on a tremendous fight, but Yan's power took over late and Cory never quite bounced back after being hurt and dropped in the middle portion of the fight. Sandhagen doesn't really seem like the kind of guy who lets himself get too high or too low, so I don't know that momentum has the same impact on him that it would others, but I would imagine there is some pressure to turn it around before the losing streak starts to get away from him a bit. Sylistically, Sandhagen is also a striker, but a much more creative and diverse one than Song. Cory is a very tall and long fighter for the division and he uses that length pretty well. He usually does a pretty decent job of using distance to his advantage. He can keep fighters at range when he wants to and then can draw them in for more damaging strikes like we saw against Frankie Edgar. He uses his kicks extremely well and fires them off quickly with very little indication or telegraphing. His most important weapon is his jab as everything else really follows off of that. He uses it to get ahead on volume, keep range, and set up his combinations. Sandhagen's boxing isn't other worldly, but it is pretty clean. His hands don't have tremendous power, but you still have to respect it. A lot of his knockouts, especially those against a higher level of opponent have come from kicks, knees, and other more explosive actions. Sandhagen's biggest weapons are his pace and cardio. He will pump out strikes with volume for a full 25 minutes with virtually no issue. He didn't get the decision, but he should've probably beat TJ Dillashaw based on volume while he was moving backwards the entire fight. I thought that was pretty impressive from a pure cardio perspective. Unfortunately, that leads us right into one of his weaknesses. He is a bit willing to accept the back foot at times and I think he needs to try and resist that as much as possible. He isn't necessarily a pocket boxer either, so it isn't like he's going to just plant his feet and meet someone if they're walking him down. I think he is so willing to go back because his movement and footwork are really good. He has the skill and cardio to actually fight effectively while going backwards for an entire 25 minutes, which isn't a common occurrence, so I think he is a rare breed in that sense. Because no one else really does it much, the judges aren't really sure how to interpret it and the optics of always moving backwards aren't great and probably are the main reason he lost to Dillashaw. Sandhagen's biggest problem has come when facing grappling heavy styles. His defensive wrestling just hasn't been able to hold up against high level wrestlers like Aljo. Once on the ground, I think he has a respectable ground game, but he's nothing sensational on the mat. He does a good job of creating scrambles and using them to get back to his feet. He also has a submission game that you have to respect, but I don't view him as being anything more than just average in that facet. Finally, Sandhagen's durability isn't a concern either. We've seen him get hurt in the past, but he's never been knocked out. We've seen him eat some absolute bombs from both Yan and Lineker and continued fighting just fine. Song has power, but I think his chin should be ok in this one.
In terms of how this fight actively plays out, I lean towards the Sandhagen side and I kind of think he has a lot of the upside in this matchup. He has the advantage in output, cardio, and high level experience. I think there is an outside chance that we see that Cory Sandhagen is simply on a different level than Song Yadong. I'm not predicting that will be the case, but I do think it is in the range of possible outcomes. I feel fairly comfortable in the kind of performance we can expect from Sandhagen at this point. He's going to throw a ton of strikes, he's going to move really well, and he won't get tired. Song is bringing a vast majority of the unknowns here and that what makes things difficult to figure out. There are really two fights that I see as worrisome for him coming into this matchup. The first is the Chito Vera fight. There's no shame in being competitive with Chito because he's obviously a very good fighting. The way he won is concerning because he was basically fighting Chito strike for strike. For as good as he is, Chito is not a high volume fighter and if Song is going to bring that kind of pace, he's going to fall way behind. Sandhagen is going to bring a ton of volume, so if Song can't or won't fight at a similar pace, he's just going to be behind on strikes from the jump. That brings us to the cardio concerns for Song. He's largely shown himself to be fine through two rounds, but he has slowed down from that point on. Two rounds of cardio simply isn't going to cut it against Sandhagen. Even if Song were to be able to win the first two, if he gasses out, Sandhagen is going to volume him out of building late. That assumes that Song actually wins the first two rounds, which is far from a given in my opinion. He'll be at a volume disadvantage most likely, but he should have a power advantage to make those rounds close. I didn't mention it above, but Sandhagen isn't the cleanest defensive striker, so he will present opportunities to be hit. If Song can time his combinations off of a Sandhagen jab, he has the speed and power to do damage there. There is the potential for Song to wrestle as well and that could be the difference to sway early rounds in his favor. However, I just don't know that the cardio is in a good enough spot for him to wrestle consistently over five rounds. The other fight that really concerns me for Song is how he lost to Kyler Phillips. The movement of Phillips gave Song a lot of issues and limited how much he was able to land. If Song is going to struggle that much with the movement, I think Sandhagen could really pull away in this one. Song is at his best when his opponent is standing in front of him and willing to engage, which Sandhagen just isn't going to do. I think the most likely outcome of this fight is that we see the first two rounds be somewhat competitive, but then Sandhagen really starts to pull away over the back half of the fight. Song certainly has the power to finish the fight early, but we haven't seen anything from Cory that leads me to believe his durability will be an issue. He took all of Yan's shots and didn't get finished, so I don't really foresee Song's power all of the sudden giving him issues. I don't think Song is without hope though as he does have the skills to compete early on. If he can land low kicks early, he could limit Sandhagen's ability to move. If he forces Sandhagen to be more stationary, then that should even the playing field a bit cardio wise and force Sandhagen to engage more in the pocket. I think we need to see Song's cardio drastically improved in this fight if he wants to have a real chance in this one though. He can't come out expecting to win fights consistently (whether it happens here or not) in the first two rounds at this level. He's going to have to push hard for four and five rounds and we just don't have the evidence that he will be able to do so. I hope for his sake that he is prepared for that type of fight, but I have a feeling that the cardio difference will ultimately be the deciding factor in this fight. Sandhagen has the cardio to push a high pace for all five rounds, where Song fights at an ok, but slower pace for two rounds. I do expect Sandhagen to have a ton of success late as long as he doesn't sustain too much damage early and win via late stoppage or decision.
What do you guys think? How do you expect this fight to play out? What do you think are the keys to victory for either side? Leave any thoughts and predictions below. Thanks for reading and have a good one. My picks and bets will be out tomorrow.
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