UFC Shanghai: full card picks and predictions

Thirteen fights from the Oriental Sports Center in Pudong, prelims at 3:00 AM Eastern and the main card at 6:00 AM, which is 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM if you are lucky enough to be watching it in Shanghai. Six of the twenty six fighters on this card are making their UFC debut, which is what a China card looks like in 2026, and it means the prediction business is harder than usual. I have made my peace with that.

Our model has a corner-matched probability on all thirteen bouts, which it only does inside 48 hours of a card, so this is the first moment all week the numbers are worth quoting. Where I disagree with it, I will say so. Where the model and the sportsbooks disagree, that is usually the most interesting sentence in the section.

Full card, times and how to watch here.

Main card

Photo: ホタテマン0010 / CC BY 4.0

Umar Nurmagomedov (20-1) vs. Song Yadong (23-9-1), bantamweight, five rounds

The number three bantamweight against the number six, and the widest line on the card: Umar at -675, Song at +475. Our model gives Umar 74 percent, which is meaningfully kinder to Song than the market's implied 87.

I think the model is right and here is the short version of why. Umar wins by holding people against the fence, not by shooting through them, and Song's takedown defense is a different animal in open space than it is on the cage: Henry Cejudo went 0 for 3 on him with zero control time in 2025, and Cory Sandhagen went 0 for 12 across three rounds in 2022 and still banked two minutes of control anyway. Song is not going to get wrestled. He is going to get walked backwards. Whether he can avoid that for 25 minutes is the entire fight, and Umar's only professional loss came the one night he had to fight going backwards himself.

I wrote the long version of this separately if you want the round splits.

Prediction: Umar Nurmagomedov by unanimous decision.

Yan Xiaonan (19-5) vs. Denise Gomes (12-3), women's strawweight

The best model-versus-market gap on the card. The books have Yan, ranked fourth at 115, as a -160 favorite over the fourteenth-ranked Gomes at +135. Our model has it backwards, giving Yan 37 percent.

I lean with the model, and not just to be contrary. Yan is 4.69 significant strikes landed per minute at 45 percent with 60 percent defense, which is a good statistical profile for a fighter who wins on volume and range. Gomes is 4.43 at 49 percent, a muay thai base out of Brazil, and she is 26 to Yan's 37, on a curve that Yan, at this stage of a long career, is not. Ranking gaps are lagging indicators. This one is nine spots wide and I do not believe it.

Prediction: Denise Gomes by unanimous decision.

Aoriqileng (26-13) vs. Kai Asakura (22-6), bantamweight

Asakura is the most decorated man on this card that the UFC audience knows least: two-time RIZIN bantamweight champion, Zendokai karate black belt, jiu-jitsu purple belt, and a man who won a four-fight one-day tournament as an amateur in 2014. The books have him at -480 and the model at 74 percent, which for once is close agreement.

Aoriqileng is the harder read. He is 4.40 landed per minute at 49 percent accuracy, which is genuinely busy, but 46 percent striking defense is a bad number to carry into this matchup, because Asakura is a karate counter-puncher who feeds on people walking in straight. The path for Aoriqileng is grappling, and his 1.11 takedowns per fifteen minutes says he does not really go there.

Prediction: Kai Asakura by TKO, round two.

Sumudaerji (19-7) vs. Alex Perez (26-10), flyweight

Perez is the eleventh-ranked flyweight, a JUCO All-American wrestler out of West Hills College Lemoore, and a +185 underdog to an unranked opponent in front of a Shanghai crowd. That happens when you are 34 and your last few years have been injuries and short-notice title shots.

Sumudaerji at -220 is the taller man with the longer night in him: 4.40 landed per minute, 63 percent striking defense, 73 percent takedown defense. Model has him at 60 percent, the market at 69. I am splitting the difference and taking him, but Perez's 2.07 takedowns per fifteen is the one thing on this card that can make a Chinese kickboxer look ordinary, and +185 is a wider number than that skill deserves.

Prediction: Sumudaerji by unanimous decision.

Ce Liu vs. Levi Rodrigues Jr., light heavyweight

Here is the fight I am least confident about and most excited for. Ce Liu is making his UFC debut and his kickboxing resume is not a resume, it is a monument: winner of the K-1 World GP 2023 30th Anniversary openweight grand prix with three knockouts in one night, K-1 cruiserweight world champion in 2024, K-1's 2024 MVP, four-time Liaoning provincial sanda champion. He also has four professional MMA fights.

Rodrigues lost his own UFC debut by TKO to Felipe Franco in July. The market says Ce Liu at -190. The model says 48.9 percent, which is as close to a coin flip as anything on this card.

Two men who can end it, one of whom has barely ever done this with small gloves and takedowns in the rules. I will take the K-1 champion and I will not enjoy the two minutes before the first exchange lands.

Prediction: Ce Liu by KO, round one.

Bilal Hasan (9-0) vs. Nilson Rojas (8-0), flyweight

Hasan beat Mridul Saikia by TKO on August 11. That is eighteen days ago. He is fighting again on Saturday, which in 2026 is close to unheard of, and he is a -850 favorite doing it. Our model, sensibly, is far more cautious: 63 percent.

I do not know what a fighter looks like on eighteen days' turnaround because almost nobody does it anymore, and Rojas is 8-0 and debuting. A -850 line on a man who took a fight this fast against an undefeated unknown is the market pricing a name it recognizes, not a performance it has seen.

Prediction: Bilal Hasan by decision, and the model's 63 percent is the honest number here, not the market's.

Prelims

I will be brisk. It is 3:00 AM.

Namsrai Batbayar (10-1) vs. André Lima (11-1), flyweight. Lima at -280 is the better all-rounder: 3.94 landed per minute at 56 percent, 75 percent takedown defense, and a 7-0 professional kickboxing record most people do not know about. Batbayar has 2.85 takedowns per fifteen and 100 percent takedown defense on a small sample. Model gives Lima 72 percent. Agreed. Prediction: André Lima by unanimous decision.

Rei Tsuruya (11-1) vs. Kevin Borjas (11-5), flyweight. Tsuruya is 24, started wrestling at three, was a Greco-Roman cadet World Championships entrant for Japan at 55 kilograms, won the Abu Dhabi World Pro juniors as a fourth grader, was King of Pancrase, then won the Road to UFC season two flyweight tournament. His 5.03 takedowns per fifteen minutes is second only to Lawrence Lui's on this card. -800 and the model at 78 percent, which is one of the rare spots where I think the market is closer to right than the model. Prediction: Rei Tsuruya by submission, round two.

Jack Jenkins (14-4) vs. Sean Woodson (13-2-1), featherweight. The closest line on the card, and the sneaky good fight. Woodson is 5.57 landed per minute with 84 percent takedown defense, which is a beanpole's dream statline; Jenkins counters with 61 percent striking accuracy, the best figure on this card among anyone with real mileage, and 1.98 takedowns per fifteen. Model 58 percent Woodson, market -145 Woodson. If Jenkins gets to the legs early this flips fast. Prediction: Sean Woodson by split decision.

Xiao Long (27-11) vs. Francesco Nuzzi (11-2), bantamweight. Xiao Long is 5.06 landed per minute with 82 percent takedown defense and 38 professional fights of knowing where he is. Model 65 percent, market -177. Prediction: Xiao Long by unanimous decision.

Lawrence Lui (8-1) vs. Hector Santiago (6-1), bantamweight. Lui posts 5.30 takedowns per fifteen minutes and has not been taken down yet. Santiago is debuting with an unusually crowded background: amateur MMA, professional boxing, kickboxing and one professional karate bout. Model 72 percent Lui, market -290. Prediction: Lawrence Lui by unanimous decision.

Xiong Jing Nan (19-3) vs. Julia Polastri (14-6), women's strawweight. The former ONE strawweight champion, who beat Angela Lee twice, lost her UFC debut to Angela Hill by decision in May. She is a +205 underdog here and the model has her at 41.5 percent, which is nine points friendlier than the line. Polastri is the higher-volume fighter at 6.22 landed per minute. But 34 percent striking accuracy is Xiong's number and it has been her number for a decade, and she has still won 11 of 13 tracked fights, because she is a body puncher who eventually arrives. This is the underdog I actually like. Prediction: Xiong Jing Nan by unanimous decision.

Ding Meng vs. Cameron Nelson (7-1), welterweight. Ding is 0-2 in the UFC, having dropped a split decision to Jose Henrique in May and a unanimous one to Rami Hamed in 2024. Nelson debuts at +125. The model likes Ding at 57 percent on the strength of a much longer professional career; I do not, because the two fights we have watched him have in this promotion both went the distance and both went the other way. This is the one bout where I am flatly overruling the model. Prediction: Cameron Nelson by unanimous decision.

The short version

Nine of thirteen I am siding with the model. The four where I am not, or where the model and the books are miles apart, are the ones worth your attention: Gomes over Yan, Ce Liu as a near coin flip the market has priced at -190, Bilal Hasan on eighteen days' rest at -850, and Xiong Jing Nan at +205 in a fight the model thinks is much closer than that.

Prelims 3:00 AM Eastern, main card 6:00 AM. I will be awake. Come tell me which of these aged worst.