Julia Polastri KOs Xiong Jingnan With Head Kick at UFC Shanghai
Julia Polastri needed one clean kick to change the night in Shanghai. The Brazilian strawweight knocked out former ONE champion Xiong Jingnan with a head kick at 3:06 of the first round on the UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song prelims.
The finish came at the Oriental Sports Center and gave Polastri her most emphatic UFC win to date. Xiong went down immediately, and referee Steve Perceval did not need follow-up shots to wave it off.
Polastri improved to 15-6 overall and 3-3 in the UFC. Xiong fell to 19-4 and 0-2 since leaving ONE Championship.
The bout was booked as a women’s strawweight fight, then moved to catchweight after both missed the limit. Xiong weighed 117 pounds, one pound over, and Polastri came in at 118.5, two and a half pounds heavy.
Neither fighter was pulled, and the contest still opened the second prelim slot after Cam Nelson’s debut win. What followed lasted barely three minutes.
Polastri pressed from the center while Xiong answered with counters, a body kick, and a spinning attack to the midsection. The Chinese veteran also landed hooks downstairs and got her jab going before the fight turned in the clinch.
Polastri grabbed a collar tie and drove knees to the body and chin. Xiong came out throwing, but her hands dropped, and Polastri stepped into a head kick that ended the night on impact.
Official stats backed the sudden finish. Polastri scored the fight’s only knockdown, landed 16 of 25 significant strikes at 64 percent, and never needed a takedown.
Xiong threw more, going 16 of 42 on significant strikes at 38.1 percent, and landed the same 16 total strikes on 44 attempts. Neither woman attempted a takedown or a submission.
The result is a hard one for Xiong at home. The 38-year-old Shandong native, nicknamed “The Panda,” was ONE’s longtime strawweight titleholder and made seven consecutive championship defenses before the promotion closed the division.
She signed with the UFC in April and lost a unanimous decision to Angela Hill in her debut on May 30 in Macau. Saturday was supposed to be the reset in China, and instead it became the first knockout loss of her professional career.
Polastri, 28, came in with a different kind of pressure. The Duque de Caxias fighter, nicknamed “Psycho,” had gone 2-3 in the UFC and dropped a unanimous decision to Talita Alencar in April.
She had already shown this weapon. In October 2025 in Rio de Janeiro, she stopped Karolina Kowalkiewicz with a third-round head kick and punches, the biggest win of her UFC run to that point.
This one was cleaner and faster. There was no follow-up swarm, just a shin on the chin and a former champion on the canvas.
Polastri had said before the fight that she wanted to stop trying to impress people and go back to her natural style. “I’m gonna get in there to have fun, be myself, and get out of the fight proud of myself,” she told UFC.
She also framed Xiong as a fellow striker and a titleholder who had earned her reputation. “I think she’s an amazing fighter because she defended her title so many times,” Polastri said.
Her prediction was close, only earlier than she mapped it. “I think that we’re gonna really get into a war, probably in the first round, probably with a lot of blood,” she said, adding that she was looking for a knockout or a submission.
The war never reached a second round. Polastri found the finish at 3:06 and walked out of a hostile building with a highlight that will travel far beyond this card.
For Xiong, two UFC losses in three months raise an obvious question at 38. A decision defeat in Macau can be explained as a tough debut. A first-round knockout in Shanghai is a different problem.
For Polastri, the win squares her UFC record and puts her back in the conversation as a dangerous 115-pound striker. She is not ranked, and one knockout does not rewrite the strawweight title picture, but it does change how matchmakers will look at her.
UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song continues in Shanghai, with Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Song Yadong still to come in the main event. Polastri leaves China with a 3-3 UFC mark and a finish that will be replayed all week.