UFC Shanghai card changes: Junior Tafa out, Rodrigues in
Junior Tafa is off UFC Shanghai and Levi Rodrigues Jr. steps in on five days notice. Our change log counts 15 alterations to this card since August 2.
Junior Tafa is off Saturday's UFC card in Shanghai, and the man replacing him against Ce Liu has one UFC fight to his name, which he lost by knockout six weeks ago.
That change landed on Monday at 20:00 UTC, five days before the card. It is the fifteenth recorded change to this event since August 2.
Photo: ホタテマン0010 / CC BY 4.0
Levi Rodrigues Jr., 29, is a Brazilian light heavyweight whose only appearance in our records is a second-round TKO loss to Felipe Franco on July 18. That is six weeks of turnaround, into a five day notice booking, against Ce Liu in front of a Chinese crowd. Tafa, who was booked opposite Liu since at least early August, had gone 3-6 in his last nine and was knocked out by Iwo Baraniewski in the first round on June 6.
The Liu bout has now been cancelled twice. It went down on August 11 at 02:00 UTC and came back ten hours later at 12:00 the same day, with Tafa still attached, before the opponent swap on Monday finished the job.
It is not the only fight on this card that has died and come back.
Jack Jenkins vs Sean Woodson was added on August 2 at 18:16 UTC and removed at 20:00 the same evening, a lifespan of one hour and forty four minutes. It reappeared on August 6, promoted from the prelims to the main card.
Bilal Hasan vs Nilson Rojas was added on August 19 at 00:16 UTC, cancelled at 02:00, and reinstated at 16:00 that afternoon. Fourteen hours off the card, then back on it, and also moved up from the prelims.
Three prelims went on the card in a single batch on August 21: Xiao Long vs Francesco Nuzzi, Lawrence Lui vs Hector Santiago, and Ding Meng vs Cam Nelson. All three were booked eight days out.
The start time moved too. On August 6 the event shifted three hours earlier, from 10:00 UTC to 07:00 UTC. The prelims now open at 07:00 UTC with the main card at 10:00 UTC, which is 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Eastern. Anyone who set an alarm in early August set it for the wrong fight.
For his part, Kai Asakura has stayed exactly where he was put, third from the top against Aoriqileng, and he is the shortest price on the card at -453.
None of this is unusual for an international Fight Night in the back half of a calendar year, and it should be said that the top of the card has been stable throughout: Umar Nurmagomedov against Song Yadong has not moved since it was announced, and neither has Yan Xiaonan against Denise Gomes underneath it.
What is worth noting is who absorbs the churn. Every fight that was cancelled and reinstated on this card, and the one that got a new opponent on five days notice, sits at the bottom half of the running order. The main event never wobbles. The prelim fighters find out on a Monday who they are fighting on a Saturday.
UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs Song takes place on Saturday, August 29 at the Oriental Sports Center in the Pudong District of Shanghai. Prelims start at 07:00 UTC, the main card at 10:00 UTC. It streams on Paramount+ in the United States and on Migu in China; the full country by country breakdown is on our how to watch page.