The fight was a good one and it ended in a very bizarre sort of stoppage the likes of which I have never seen before when after 3 rounds and about 10 seconds of dancing after Henry Cejudo complained that he couldn't see out of one of his recently poked eyes, we went to the judges scorecards during the 4th round of a 5-round main-event match.
When it was called in Yadong Song's favor nobody was really surprised because to me and most everyone else that was watching, he was clearly winning the fight. Nobody wanted the fight to end this way including both of the guys that were involved... even the guy that was declared the victor didn't want a win "that way" and immediately called for a rematch while still in the Octagon giving the post-fight interview.
Song (is his surname Yadong or Song?) and Cejudo were both gracious towards one another after the fight and have remained that way since even though social media and news sources keep poking them with sticks to try to get them to say something nasty about one another.
Yadong admitted that he himself, didn't know how a fight gets ruled when it is stopped after a stoppage due to a rule-break and stood in the octagon looking as confused as everyone else when referee Jason Herzog called a stop to the fight early in the 4th.
"But I feel he rested for five minutes, and when he came back, I feel he can see me very clearly, he can avoid any attack. I see his eye, I watch his eye — I knew he can see me very clearly. But I don't know, maybe not.
That was about as rude as Song Yadong got in one of his interviews even though reporters and other interviewers were definitely leading him with their questions trying to get him to say things to create some sort of controversy.
I think a lot of fans kind of saw this fight as a preview of what could be and while I am sure the people in attendance that paid UFC's crazy entry fees to see the thing in person were very unhappy with the result, the world at large was pushing for a rematch, perhaps on a bigger stage such as a pay-per-view.
Well, they say that good ideas are only as good as the boss that runs the company and the boss of this particular company was having none of that.
Dana White is the boss of UFC and immediately shut down the idea of a rematch at a post fight interview. He calmly stated "no, it isn't going to happen," and then moved on to the next question without providing any additional details.
I will say this: Dana is very good at handling the press at these things. He is never bullied into long and drawn out response demands by press members and I am thinking that there must be quite strict rules at these things because nobody ever really challenges him on things like this. He is the top dog in UFC, and often the will of the fans or even the will of his own organization's rules do not dictate decisions that he, himself makes.
I would imagine that since he built UFC from something that nobody was watching and wasn't concerned about into a multi-multi-billion dollar organization that has no rival in the combat-sport world that he probably knows what he is talking about.
But for people out there that would desperately like to see a Yadong/Cejudo rematch there is still some hope. Dana frequently changes his mind and runs things is a completely different direction than he says he is going to so the fight very well could still happen. What I think it going on is that with this win Dana would like to eventually circle back to have Song Yadong fight Petr Yan again, but just not right away. As far as Cejudo is concerned, I think that Dana doesn't particularly care for the guy because he "retired" while on top and then shortly thereafter returned from retirement only to not be nearly as good as he was when he retired. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Dana was now using Henry Cejudo as a stepping stone for other fighters to emerge to the top. He does do this frequently after all.
Song Yadong has come out and publicly states that he "knows" he can defeat Cejudo and if he has to he will organize a charity event at Cejudo's gym to make it happen. Yeah, too bad that is not allowed in your contract with UFC buddy.