Andre Lima Submits Namsrai Batbayar in Round 3 at UFC Shanghai
Andre Lima still got the finish after missing weight. The Brazilian flyweight tapped Namsrai Batbayar with a guillotine choke at 3:03 of round three on the UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song prelims in Shanghai, snapping the Mongolian newcomer’s six-fight winning streak.
Lima improved to 12-1 overall and 5-1 in the UFC. Batbayar fell to 10-2 in his promotional debut.
The bout was not a true 125-pound fight. Lima came in at 127 pounds, one pound over the non-title flyweight limit, and was fined 20 percent of his purse, which went to Batbayar.
Batbayar made 126. The catchweight meeting still opened as the last prelim at the Oriental Sports Center, with Steve Perceval as the referee.
Lima needed the win. He had dropped a unanimous decision to Kevin Borjas on June 20, his first UFC loss, and missed weight in that camp as well.
Another miss, another opponent who could not keep him off the neck. This time he left with a tap instead of a second straight defeat.
Batbayar, 25, arrived as a Road to UFC flyweight tournament winner nicknamed “Steppe Warrior.” All 10 of his wins had ended inside the distance, split evenly between knockouts and submissions, and he had never gone to the scorecards as a professional.
He is 5-foot-4, from Ovorkhangai, Mongolia, and shorter than Lima by about three inches. He tried to make it a brawl anyway.
The first two rounds stayed on the feet. Lima used the jab and a heavy diet of leg kicks, while Batbayar swung hard, missed often, and found more success in round two.
Yahoo’s live desk had Batbayar landing cleaner counters in that middle round after eating kicks early. MMA Junkie’s round-three notes still had Lima comfortably ahead and walking the debutant down.
Then Batbayar slipped. Lima jumped a guillotine, wrapped the neck, swept him over, and adjusted the grip until Batbayar tapped.
411mania’s live report had Lima jumping guard, rolling to mount with the choke, and finishing after a grip change. Getty’s photo caption from the arena also described it as a guillotine.
Official stats from the broadcast graphic showed a striking fight that never became a wrestling match. Lima landed 14 of 20 significant strikes at 70 percent. Batbayar went 12 of 44 at 27.3 percent.
Neither man scored a takedown or a knockdown. The finish came from a scramble, not a long ground sequence.
That matters for both records. Lima is not a high-volume wrestler, and he still found a neck when the debutant’s balance broke.
Batbayar’s power never showed up enough to change the math. He kept throwing, kept missing, and paid for one slip in the third.
A catchweight submission does not wipe out a weight miss. Lima now has two straight camps that failed the scale, including the Borjas fight, and that will follow him into the next booking even after a finish.
It does stop a losing streak before it starts. At 27, with a 5-1 UFC mark and another guillotine on the résumé, he remains a viable 125-pounder as long as he can make 125.
Batbayar’s debut will sting because the path was clean until Shanghai. Road to UFC, a six-fight streak, and a first UFC contract all ran into a veteran who was heavier, longer, and patient enough to wait for a mistake.
He is 0-1 in the Octagon and still untested over a full decision. Nothing in his 10-2 record says he cannot win at this level. This night said he could not solve Lima’s range or survive a neck attack off a slip.
UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song now turns to the main card in Shanghai, with Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Song Yadong still to come. Lima leaves 5-1 in the UFC with a third-round tap. Batbayar leaves with a debut loss and 20 percent of Lima’s purse.