Saturday's co-main event in Shanghai pairs the No. 4-ranked women's strawweight against the No. 13-ranked one, and the stakes run in opposite directions for each woman. Yan Xiaonan needs to prove she still belongs near the top of the division after back-to-back losses to elite competition. Denise Gomes needs a win over a former title challenger to turn her win streak into a real case for the top 10.
Yan Xiaonan: rebuilding after two tough losses
Yan Xiaonan has already done the hardest thing in the division — she challenged for the title, losing a decision to Zhang Weili at UFC 300. Since then, the results haven't gone her way: she dropped another decision to current No. 3-ranked Virna Jandiroba at UFC 314 in April 2025, and hasn't fought since. That's a 16-month layoff heading into Saturday, against two losses to two of the best strawweights alive.
Neither loss was a blowout — both went the distance against ranked, elite-level competition — but rankings and title runs don't care about margins. A third straight loss, even a competitive one, would put Yan's spot near the top of the division in real jeopardy. A win puts her right back in the mix behind the true contenders.
Her path to that win is volume. Yan lands nearly 4.7 significant strikes per minute and defends 60% of what comes back at her — a fighter built to win rounds on output and pressure rather than a single highlight-reel finish. Eight of her 19 career wins have come by knockout, so the power is there if an opening appears, but her game plan is built around out-working opponents over a full fight.
Denise Gomes: the biggest name on her resume
Gomes is 26, already ranked 13th, and riding a four-fight win streak that includes stoppages of Elise Reed and a decision over veteran Karolina Kowalkiewicz. What she hasn't done yet is beat someone who has fought for the belt. Yan Xiaonan is that name.
Gomes's calling card is power most strawweights don't have — seven of her 12 career wins are knockouts, well above the norm at 115 pounds. She also lands more strikes than she absorbs (4.43 landed to 3.16 absorbed per minute) and has already shown she can finish a durable veteran, which is exactly the kind of opponent Yan is. The concern for Gomes is durability on the other end: her striking defense sits around 52%, noticeably lower than Yan's, against an opponent who has gone 15 rounds combined with two of the sport's most decorated strawweights and rarely looked badly hurt doing it.
The layoff factor
There's a wrinkle neither fighter can control: Yan hasn't fought in 16 months, the longest gap of her UFC career. Long layoffs cut both ways. Sometimes a fighter returns sharper after time to address whatever went wrong last time out; sometimes the first fight back exposes rust that doesn't show up on paper — slower reactions, a step behind on distance management, the kind of small timing issues that a durable veteran can usually paper over but that a young, aggressive striker like Gomes is built to punish.
Gomes, by contrast, is fighting for the fourth time in under two years and has never had to answer the layoff question herself. If Yan looks even a step off her usual pace early, Gomes's power and volume are exactly the tools to make her pay for it before the fight reaches the championship-experience territory where Yan has historically done her best work.
Why this matters beyond Saturday
| Yan Xiaonan (No. 4) | Denise Gomes (No. 13) | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 19-5-0 | 12-3-0 |
| Current run | Lost 2 straight (Zhang, Jandiroba) | Won 4 straight |
| Path to win | Volume and pace over 3 rounds | Power before Yan's pace takes over |
| What's on the line | Staying in the top-5 conversation | A signature win, a push toward the top 10 |
A Yan win keeps her ahead of Gomes and restores her as a live threat to the true contenders at the top of a stacked division. A Gomes win does more than move one spot up a list — it gives her a genuinely notable name on her resume and the kind of result that gets a 26-year-old talked about as a future title challenger rather than just a prospect with heavy hands.
For the full breakdown of how the two styles actually match up, see the fight page for Yan Xiaonan vs. Denise Gomes. The complete Shanghai card, including the Umar Nurmagomedov–Song Yadong main event, is on the UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song card page.
The takeaway: this is a fight where both women need the same outcome — a win — for completely different reasons. Yan Xiaonan is fighting to prove two tough losses weren't the start of a decline; Denise Gomes is fighting to turn a quiet win streak into a genuine résumé. Whoever gets it moves noticeably closer to the top of a division that's currently missing a clear No. 1 contender behind Zhang Weili, Tatiana Suarez, and Jandiroba.