Two sensational grapplers will be going at it this Saturday, as Kyung Ho Hang faces off with Rani Yahya, who is eyeing a place in the history books. Check out our preview of this bantamweight bout below.
Kang will be making his way back to the Octagon after a long while. He last fought in the UFC in December 2019, winning via split decision against Liu Pingyuan. That extends his win streak to three fights, having previously defeated Brandon Davis (split decision) and Teruto Ishihara (submission). A Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner, Kang has 11 wins by way of submissions. He’s been submitted just once. Kang also has a 2-1 T/KO record. Kang will come into Saturday’s fight with a significant six-inch reach advantage over Yahya. Although both fighters love to fight on the ground, Kang could get some points standing up, as he does seem to be better than Yahya when it comes to striking. The 33-year-old Kang is averaging 2.52 significant strikes landed per minute in the UFC on 44 percent accuracy. He’s got an efficient takedown accuracy of 59 percent and is hard to bring to the mat with a 71 percent takedown defense.
Once Yahya steps into the Octagon this weekend, he’s not eyeing just a win against Kang. He’s gunning for UFC history. If Yahya could submit Kang, he will be the UFC’s all-time bantamweight leader in submission victories. He tied Urijah Faber with his sixth submission win in the MMA organization when he submitted Ray Rodriguez in the second round of their fight last March. That was a nice recovery win too for Yahya after drawing with Enrique Barzola in March 2020. Yahya, who has won three of his last six fights, has way more than just six submission wins in his pro MMA career, though. In fact, he has 21 of them overall. Yahya has a 2.89 takedown average per 15 minutes in the UFC and 2.0 submissions per 15 minutes — both figures better than Kang’s.
