Sean O'Malley takes decision over Song Yadong.
Wow, O'Malley looked like crap. Personally had it 2-1 Yadong but that first was a swing round.
Just very little confidence through the first 12 minutes of this fight. Lots of lateral movement and feints. Landed some nice 1-2s as Yadong was planted at range but he also ate a lot of leg kicks. In fact, when Yadong stopped throwing leg kicks is when O'Malley finally got to open up. My criticism comes because Yadong should be an ideal stylistic match up for O'Malley. Sure he's explosive and powerful, but he's also basic and foot slow. He can be caught out at long range and once you adjust to his speed, he's particularly simple to time. That's why he's struggled so much against good athletes that can either fight at range or manipulate him into standing still. But O'Malley didn't look comfortable doing that until the very end of the fight. Maybe it's confidence after losing two straight like he did. Maybe Yadong just had a better handle on his limitations than I thought, but this wasn't the big splashy win O'Malley or the UFC wanted.
