Song Yadong submitted Deiveson Figueiredo in the second round at UFC Macau, but the win did not lift him from No. 5 in the UFC bantamweight rankings. Figueiredo dropped two places to No. 9 after the loss, while Mario Bautista and David Martinez each moved up one spot.
That made Song the clearest winner on the 13-fight card and the only Chinese fighter to have his hand raised, yet the rankings told a narrower story than the finish did. In a division where movement depends on who beats whom as much as how they win, a victory over a lower-ranked opponent can still leave a fighter parked if the rest of the field is not moving with him.
The UFC’s latest trip to Macau produced several official rankings changes, and Song’s result sat at the center of them. He beat Figueiredo in the bantamweight main event, but the update left him exactly where he started. The gap is simple: a strong performance does not always override the existing order, especially when the opponent was already below him and the card’s other results created only small shifts around the top five.
The same card also brought a no contest for Sumudaerji and Alex Perez after a groin strike in the second round, with Perez dropping one spot to No. 12 in the flyweight rankings. Angela Hill also defeated Jingnan Xiong by unanimous decision over three rounds and climbed two spots to No. 12 at strawweight, while Denise Gomes and Alexia Thainara each slipped one spot. The picture from Macau is clear enough: the UFC moved quickly to update the books, but Song’s win was judged more as confirmation than a leap forward.
For Song, the next question is not whether the finish mattered. It did. It is whether the UFC will treat the result as enough to push him into a new tier the next time the rankings move, because after UFC Macau he remained a contender with a statement win and no promotion to match it.
