Daniel Cormier Defends Usman Nurmagomedov After UFC Shanghai Cage Jump
Daniel Cormier pushed back Saturday on the loudest criticism of the UFC Shanghai main event. After Song Yadong knocked out Umar Nurmagomedov, the Hall of Famer said Usman Nurmagomedov was not attacking the winner when he climbed into the cage.
The clip spread quickly. Usman, Umar’s younger brother and a cornerman for the bout, vaulted the fence and crossed paths with Song as the Chinese fighter sprinted around the octagon in celebration.
Fans accused Usman of loading an elbow. Cormier, reviewing the sequence on his YouTube channel, described a different picture.
“Song Yadong is running in the direction of Usman, Usman reaches to stop him, like they were gonna make contact together.”
That read matters because the moment was already turning into something uglier online. Multiple angles made it look, to some viewers, like Usman came close to striking Song as the two men met in the chaos.
Cormier said that version of the story is wrong.
“He did not elbow him, let’s stop making conspiracy theories out there people, he did not elbow him. He did not attack Song Yadong.”
The former two-division champion did not pretend the optics were clean. He argued the instinct behind the cage jump was simpler than the outrage around it.
“If there’s anyone that you care about immensely and you wanna rush to their side in that moment, it’s your brother.”
Cormier also made a separate point that undercuts any idea he was waving the whole thing away. Entering the cage in that spot, he said, is still against the rules.
“What he did was try to get to his brother,” Cormier said. “Now, that in itself is not allowed. We are not allowed to do that.”
The Unified Rules back that up. Corners are not supposed to touch a fighter after a knockout until a doctor has examined him, and Usman reached Umar while the scene was still unsettled.
The knockout that set it off came at 1:48 of Round 2 at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. Song, a sizable home underdog, timed a right uppercut as Nurmagomedov dipped for a takedown and finished the former title challenger on the canvas.
Song moved to 24-9-1 overall and 13-4-1 in the UFC. Nurmagomedov fell to 20-2 and 8-2 inside the promotion, absorbing the first stoppage loss of his career.
Usman is not a random figure in that corner. The 28-year-old is the PFL lightweight champion, sits at 22-0 with one no contest, and recently finished the last fight on his PFL contract.
He has been the most discussed free agent in the sport for weeks, with a UFC move widely rumored after he turned down a reported $2 million offer to stay with PFL. Nothing is signed, and the promotion still holds an exclusive negotiating window.
That is why the Shanghai clip carried extra weight. A PFL champion linked to the UFC climbing into a UFC cage and brushing the winner of a main event was always going to draw a second look.
The situation did not turn into a brawl. Khabib Nurmagomedov, working the same corner, was later shown wiping blood from a cut over Song’s eye as the two teams spoke after the fight.
MMA Fighting reported that Usman shoved Song and appeared close to an elbow as the winner kept running. ESPN wrote that Usman appeared to throw an elbow in Song’s direction.
Cormier’s film study landed on the opposite conclusion. In his view, Song was coming toward Usman, Usman reached to keep them from colliding, and no strike was thrown.
Those two accounts can sit next to each other without the article picking a winner. The footage is messy, the cage was crowded, and the only undisputed facts are that Usman entered illegally and that Song was not dropped or injured in the exchange.
No disciplinary announcement had been made by the UFC or the athletic commission as of Saturday evening. Whether the cage jump costs Usman a fine, a warning, or nothing at all remains unanswered.
Umar’s next fight is not booked either. The loss knocks him out of the immediate title lane at bantamweight after a two-fight winning streak that had put him back in that conversation.
Usman’s future is a separate file. If he does reach the UFC later this year, the first thing many fans will remember is not his PFL title defenses. It will be the night he went over the fence in Shanghai.
Cormier’s defense will not end that debate. It does, at least, put a veteran voice on the record that the brother in the corner was trying to reach Umar, not start a second fight with Song.