Song Yadong Submits Former Champ, Casually Asks 'Who Doesn't Know Jiu-Jitsu?'

Song Yadong submitted Deiveson Figueiredo via guillotine choke at UFC Macau on May 30, 2026. That's a technical fact. Here's the other one: in his post-fight interview, Song said, "Who doesn't know jiu-jitsu? I just don't want to show it. I would like to knock people out, use my boxing."

He just beat a former world champion by applying a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu submission. Then dismissed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as something he "just doesn't want to show."

This is not a new contradiction in MMA. Strikers win via submissions and credit boxing. Wrestlers win via submissions and credit wrestling. The grappling gets the win; the interview gets the ego. But Song's version is particularly raw because it's not even a rationalization—it's just contempt dressed up as preference.

Who Figueiredo Is (And Why This Matters)

Deiveson Figueiredo was the UFC flyweight champion. Not a grappler-turned-striker. Not a wrestling-focused fighter who happened to be in the fight. Figueiredo held the 125-pound belt, competed at the highest level of combat sports, and while he's evolved as a complete fighter over his career, the baseline expectation is that a former champion—especially at a lower weight class where technical precision is the sport's currency—knows how to recognize and defend a well-set guillotine choke.

And Song Yadong, a bantamweight (135 lbs), still got him in the position. Not by luck. Not by accident. By understanding spacing, control, and the mechanics of a submission from guard position. That's jiu-jitsu.

The victory itself is significant. Figueiredo's striking is crisp. His footwork is educated. His fight IQ is tested and proven. Song just beat that by pulling guard and finishing from a position of apparent disadvantage. In the hierarchy of combat sports, that's not a lucky punch. That's a demonstration of technical superiority in a specific domain.

What a Guillotine Choke Actually Is

Here's the technical reality: a guillotine choke is one of the highest-percentage submissions in grappling and MMA. It doesn't require perfect position. It doesn't require you to be significantly stronger. It requires:

1. Understanding how to get inside the opponent's posture (usually from clinch or guard) 2. Locking your hands around the neck with the arm positioned across the carotid artery 3. Applying pressure perpendicular to the spine (not a choke across the front—a choke diagonal, squeezing blood flow on both sides) 4. Timing the application before the opponent establishes full top control

The guillotine works in UFC because strikers don't train it deeply. They see a guard pull or a clinch and don't recognize the window. By the time they realize what's happening, their vision is narrowing and they're already committed to the wrong defense.

Song Yadong recognized that window. He set the position. He applied it. He finished a former champion with a submission that requires deep understanding of grappling mechanics—the kind of knowledge you can only get by training jiu-jitsu seriously.

Then he said he "doesn't want to show" it.

Team Alpha Male and the Grappling Context

Song trains at Team Alpha Male, one of MMA's most successful camps. The organization has produced elite strikers and has increasingly invested in grappling coaching. The fact that Song finished with a guillotine suggests that whoever is coaching him on the ground is sharp. The positioning was clean. The timing was right.

That's not instinct. That's instruction. Someone taught Song Yadong how to set and finish a guillotine choke at the highest level of the sport.

And Song's response in the interview is essentially: "Thanks for teaching me the thing I just won with, but I don't want to talk about it."

The Dismissal

Song's quote is worth sitting with: "Who doesn't know jiu-jitsu?"

This is contempt dressed as a question. It's implying jiu-jitsu is obvious, basic, ubiquitous. Everyone knows it. The corollary is: why would you credit it? Why would you focus on it? It's not special. It's not impressive.

But if everyone knows jiu-jitsu, why is Song the only one in the octagon who just used it to beat a champion?

The answer is that everyone doesn't know jiu-jitsu. Strikers know of jiu-jitsu. They know they should avoid certain positions. They know a submission is "bad." But they don't know jiu-jitsu the way Song just demonstrated—recognizing leverage, timing, pressure, and finishing with control against a world-class opponent.

What Song actually meant is: "Jiu-jitsu is useful, but I don't want to be known for it. I want to be known for striking. I want knockouts. I want to be a boxer who fights in MMA, not a grappler who sometimes hits people."

That's a coherent preference. But it's not coherent to act on it while simultaneously demonstrating the opposite on a major UFC card.

The Pattern

This isn't new. Anderson Silva spent his career dismissing wrestling and grappling while getting taken down repeatedly. Israel Adesanya built a career on striking while getting pressured by wrestlers. Conor McGregor talked down to Khabib's wrestling while losing to it, repeatedly, to the point where he eventually retired.

The pattern: strikers downplay grappling until they lose to it. Then they downplay it even harder, as if diminishing the art that just beat them somehow makes the loss less real.

Song is doing this preemptively. He won, so his dismissal has a different texture. He's not rationalizing a loss. He's announcing his preference before the community can celebrate his technical excellence. It's a flex disguised as indifference.

What the Grappling Community Hears

The BJJ community is used to this. We're used to watching our sport be the tool, not the art. We're used to strikers using leg locks and submissions and chokes to finish fights, then crediting it to "good coaching" or "instinct" or "my boxing coach told me to do this."

What we're not used to—what we should be talking about—is how effectively MMA has weaponized grappling while refusing to teach or respect it as a discipline.

Song Yadong just proved something: you don't need to be known as a "grappler" to finish with a submission. You need to understand the position, the pressure, and the timing. That's technical knowledge. That's jiu-jitsu.

The moment he finishes with that choke, he becomes a jiu-jitsu guy, whether he wants to be or not. And the dismissal in the interview reads like he knows it.

The Real Question

If jiu-jitsu is so beneath him, why didn't Song finish with strikes? If he's that confident in his boxing, why did he pull guard or close the distance for the submission?

The answer is: because it's the highest-percentage finish at his disposal. Because it's effective. Because Figueiredo's defense was compromised and Song's technical timing was superior.

That's not a flex on boxing. That's a flex on grappling. Everything else is just a guy who won trying to reshape the narrative before anyone else does.

What Comes Next

Song Yadong is now a submission finisher on a major card. That's his record. That's his reputation in MMA, whether he likes it or not. The next time he fights, that guillotine choke attempt will be studied. His opponent will know it's coming. His coaching staff will build defensive rounds around it.

And if he dismisses jiu-jitsu again after his next fight, the community will notice. The pattern will be clear: he wins with grappling, then talks about not wanting to grapple. He's not fooling anyone. He's certainly not fooling Deiveson Figueiredo, who just lived through it.

Figueiredo's perspective on jiu-jitsu probably shifted in the 8 seconds it took him to lose consciousness. He knows exactly what Song Yadong just showed the world. So does everyone else who trains. And they'll be watching his next fight knowing that the guillotine is in his arsenal, whether Song wants to admit it or not.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

• Song Yadong vs Deiveson Figueiredo — UFC Macau Results, May 30, 2026
• Song Yadong Post-Fight Interview: 'Who Doesn't Know Jiu-Jitsu? I Don't Want to Show It'