UFC Shanghai already had the bantamweight title-shot pressure turned up with Umar Nurmagomedov and Song Yadong at the top of the bill. Then Friday’s scale session decided to throw a wrench into the undercard before anyone even got a glove taped.
Three fighters missed their marks for Saturday’s card in China. The headliner survived clean, with Umar Nurmagomedov at 135.5 pounds and Song Yadong at 136 pounds, but Andre Lima, Xiong Jing Nan and Julia Polastri all came in heavy for preliminary-card bouts.
Watch the official UFC weigh-in reel below.
The Main Event Made Weight But The Undercard Got Messy
Lima hit 127 pounds for his flyweight fight with Namsrai Batbayar, who made the limit at 126. That is one pound over the non-title flyweight allowance, and it lands right before a matchup where Lima is trying to steady himself after his first pro loss.
The strawweight bout between Xiong Jing Nan and Julia Polastri got even weirder because both sides missed. Xiong came in at 117 pounds, while Polastri checked in at 118.5 pounds. That is not exactly the kind of clean paperwork you want when a former ONE Championship queen is making another walk into UFC waters.
The good news for the card is that the marquee pieces stayed intact. Yan Xiaonan made 115.5 for her co-main event against Denise Gomes, who weighed 115. Aoriqileng and Kai Asakura both came in at 135.5, while Alex Perez and Sumudaerji also hit their flyweight window.
That matters because this card has been sold around a very obvious bantamweight question. Nurmagomedov is still chasing his climb back toward the title picture, and Song is trying to use a home-country main event to kick the door open. After their testy UFC Shanghai faceoff, the last thing the promotion needed was scale drama touching the main event.
The scale still managed to bite the prelims, though, and that is the weekly reminder that fight week is undefeated. One day everyone is talking trash, the next day three athletes are staring at numbers they badly did not want to see.
UFC Shanghai takes place Saturday, August 29, at Pudong Development Bank Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. The early start means coffee and chaos for viewers in the United States, with the prelims scheduled before dawn and the main card built around Nurmagomedov vs. Song. The latest miss comes one day after a Road to UFC Shanghai weigh-in mess, so apparently the scales in China are having themselves a full villain arc this week.
