Zhang Weili Needed Just 42 Dominant Seconds To Become The First Chinese UFC Champ

This May, Jessica Andrade won herself the UFC strawweight championship with one of the most overwhelming displays of athleticism you’ll see all year when she picked up Rose Namajunas and slammed her on her head. Andrade lost the first round of that fight, yet once she picked up on Namajunas’s timing and movement, she was able to leverage her undeniable athletic advantage and get a brutal KO.

All of which is to say, she isn’t the type of fighter one would expect to get bull rushed and finished within a minute, and yet the defending champ lasted only 42 seconds to the pressure of Zhang Weili, whose 20th straight win earned her China’s first UFC belt.

Less than 30 seconds into the fight, Andrade waded too far into Zhang on an exchange, and she caught a counter right clean to the jaw. Zhang smelled blood in the water, and she battered Andrade with half a dozen solid knee strikes before the Brazilian crumpled. It was a completely dominant performance in front of the home crowd.

She concluded her octagon interview by saying, in English, “My name is Zhang Weili. I am from China. Remember me!”