Song Yadong was quite critical of himself after an illegal knee cost him a win on the scorecards against Cody Stamann at UFC DC.
Washington, D.C. — It wasn’t a loss, but his draw with Cody Stamann certainly had Song Yadong feeling blue after their UFC DC bout.
That’s mainly because it’s a fight he might otherwise had won. While Stamann believed he’d been robbed in the fight, Yadong (15-41-1, 1NC) certainly would have won it on the scorecards, such as they were, had he not landed an illegal knee early. The foul came in the opening round, when Stamann was clearly a grounded opponent, one knee on the canvas.
“Since the first round, after I knew I had the point deducted, it was a huge influence straight away,” Yadong said after the fight, speaking to media outlets including Cageside Press. It affected his game plan, and soon, the bantamweight added, he was disappointing himself. “It was huge for me.”
The lesson learned is to “Never make the same mistake anymore” in his career.
In explaining the illegal knee, Yadong explained that it was “because [of] the angle, I didn’t see the guy’s knee was on the floor. I only saw the foot on the floor.” That’s why he tried to wrench Stamann’s neck up in order to connect with the knee. In fact, Yadong had spoken to the ref about that exact situation before the match.
When the scores were read, Yadong’s thought was mainly that he just “didn’t fight very well after the point deduction.” In fact, the Chinese fighter was surprised to have even made it to that point. “I thought the fight was going to stop after that. I thought I lost already because of the foul.”
Moving forward, Yadong said he wouldn’t mind fighting Stamann again, or fighting another opponent. “Right now I just want to fix my technical problems in training,” he added. With that, he’s not looking to rush back into competition either.
While visibly down in the dumps, TAM head Urijah Faber tried to his fighter’s spirits up, telling him to “keep it going forward, you did a good job.”
Watch the full UFC DC post-fight press scrum with Song Yadong above!
