Yadong Song's boxing coach called the finish weeks before fight night.
Song stopped Umar Nurmagomedov in the second round at UFC Shanghai earlier this week, landing the precise uppercut his team drilled throughout camp. According to Sherdog, the Chinese bantamweight's corner identified Nurmagomedov's vulnerability to that shot long before the bell rang. Song said his team noticed the Dagestani dipped his head left when shooting and built counters around that tendency.
"My boxing coach, Rudy Hernandez, he already told me, 'You gonna get the knockout tonight with uppercut,'" Song said after the win. "We've been working on that. We know he gonna shoot from the left side and we find the uppercut."
The finish puts Song in line for a title shot at 135 pounds. He told reporters he could finish everyone in the division, including Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili. Song lost decisions to both Yan and Sean O'Malley in previous bouts but believes rematches would end differently.
Song fights next when the UFC returns to Asia later this year.
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