With both athletes coming off a loss, Amanda Ribas is calling on Xiaonan Yan to take a fight with her following the Chinese contender’s loss to Carla Esparza last month.
The #11-ranked strawweight Amanda Ribas is ready to return to the Octagon after her last fight against Marina Rodriguez ended in a second-round TKO. Despite the hardships, the 27-year old blue-chip contender is looking for a fight, and it seems Xiaonan Yan is on her radar after a loss to “The Cookie Monster” in late May got her attention.
Prior to Ribas’ loss to Rodriguez, she was gaining massive momentum within the promotion and was on a five-fight win streak. The Brazilian’s string of wins included a divisional staple like Randa Markos, but more impressively, the bubbly Ribas managed to outwork grappling sensation, Mackenzie Dern.
Following those victories, Ribas established herself as a contender with a decisive finish victory over Paige VanZant via armbar back in July of 2020.
“Heyy @yanxiaonan how are you? I was thinking..almost all fighters in our weight division have a scheduled fight..How about schedule ours too?I think it would be a GREAAT fight.” Amanda Ribas posted.”
Xiaonan Yan is ranked #4 in the UFC strawweight rankings, so it makes sense that Ribas is calling for a fight. After all, it would be a big push in the rankings. In addition, a win against Yan would further her quest towards a title, should the Judo/Jui-Jitsu blackbelt Ribas pull off the victory of course.
Similar to Ribas’ momentum, Yan was on a massive 12-fight unbeaten streak before running into the former strawweight champ Esparza. China’s Yan has not lost a fight in over a decade (2010) prior to the Esparza fight. So it stands to reason that intrigue will be on the minds of many as we see how she handles adversity for the first time in her UFC career. Certainly, the fight sounds good on paper, so hopefully, Yan is interested in mixing things up with Ribas.
Who do you think would win a potential matchup between Amanda Ribas and Xiaonan Yan?
