Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is just one day away from the upcoming UFC Shanghai mixed martial arts (MMA) event, which is set to go down tomorrow (Sat., Aug. 23, 2025) on ESPN+ from inside Mercedes-Benz Arena in China. UFC Shanghai features a light heavyweight main event between Johnny Walker and Zhang Mingyang, a five-round showdown with possible title implications for late 2025 and beyond.
Before we dive into the main and co-main events, which include the catchweight collision between former
135-pound champion Aljamain Sterling and two-time featherweight title challenger Brian Ortega, check out Andrew Richardson’s “X-Factor” breakdown for the rest of the UFC Shanghai main card by clicking here. Get all the latest “Walker vs. Zhang” odds and betting props courtesy of FanDuel right here.
205 lbs.: Johnny Walker vs. Zhang Mingyang
Johnny Walker
Record: 21-9, 1 NC | Age: 33 | Betting line: +280
Wins: 16 KO/TKO, 3 SUB, 2 DEC | Losses: 6 KO/TKO, 1 SUB, 2 DEC
Height: 6’6” | Reach: 82” | Stance: Orthodox
Significant Strikes Landed Per Minute: 3.87 | Striking accuracy: 53%
Strikes Absorbed Per Minute: 3.12 | Striking Defense: 44%
Takedown Average: 0.45 (100% accuracy) | Takedown Defense: 57%
Current Ranking: No. 13 | Last fight: Knockout loss to Volkan Oezdemir
Zhang “Mountain Tiger” Mingyang
Record: 19-6 | Age: 27 | Betting line: -355
Wins: 13 KO/TKO, 6 SUB, 0 DEC | Losses: 3 KO/TKO, 2 SUB, 1 DEC
Height: 6’2” | Reach: 75” | Stance: Orthodox
Significant Strikes Landed Per Minute: 10.91 | Striking accuracy: 64%
Strikes Absorbed Per Minute: 4.55 | Striking Defense: 53%
Takedown Average: 0.00 (0% accuracy) | Takedown Defense: 50%
Current Ranking: No. 14 | Last fight: Technical knockout win over Anthony Smith
Johnny Walker competed twice in 2024 — and he got KTFO both times. You can forgive the loss to Magomed Ankalaev because “Big Ank” is the light heavyweight champion and to be fair, Volkan Oezdemir has heavy hands and double-digit knockout wins across his 14-year MMA career. That said, Walker has now been stopped seven times in nine losses and hasn’t seen the win column in over two years. There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the Brazilian had the attention of then-champion Jon Jones after jumping out to three straight wins, but then Walker collapsed and is 4-6 in the years that followed with one no contest. It seems Walker struggles against opponents who are not intimidated or at least know how to deal with his enormous frame and flashy offense. That doesn’t include the issues with his chin, which are unlikely to improve as the damage accrues in the second half of his career. Walker could be in danger of losing his job with another loss tomorrow in Shanghai, especially if he’s finished.
“I’m happy with my career so far,” Walker told Sherdog.com. “Between victories and losses, there were many lessons learned. I’ve been a ranked fighter in the UFC for some six years. When I joined the promotion in 2018, I had three fights in about four months. I was already fighting ranked opponents. There was a lot of learning since I’m the first fighter in my family. I had no mentor to guide me, to get me this far. I was my own laboratory. I learned on my own.”
I’m sure his coaches will be thrilled to hear that.
“I am looking forward to my last run at the belt,” Walker continued. “I know I have the potential to be champion. I see myself fighting for the belt after another two or three wins. With good knockouts and good submission wins, I can put myself in the right place for a title fight. I’m in the best possible place for my career. I’m surrounded by high-level people who will be helping me score another victory.”
It’s easy to get excited by what we’ve seen thus far from Zhang Mingyang. The hard-hitting “Mountain Tiger” blasted his way through the promotion’s “Road to UFC” tournament and has since racked up three straight wins under the UFC banner, all by way of first-round knockout. Unfortunately, Brendson Ribeiro and Osman Diaz do not have winning records in UFC and Anthony Smith was basically a 205-pound zombie on his way out the door, so it’s not like Zhang was tearing through the Top 10 of the division. That’s my issue here, despite the lopsided odds, because we haven’t seen the 27 year-old knockout artist put to any kind of test inside the Octagon. Walker has not been lighting the world on fire, but at least he’s been facing the best light heavyweights in the world. For tomorrow’s headlining affair, Zhang will give up four inches in height and seven inches in reach, significant stats for what it likely to be an all-striking affair.
“Johnny fights in a very unorthodox way,” Zhang told MMA Junkie. “So even for me, for this camp, I need to bring many different training partners to help me kind of mimic Johnny’s style because you cannot find one individual fighter who can fight like Johnny. The only reason I took this fight is because everybody who beat Johnny became the champion. That’s the reason I took this fight. Other than that, I would say no.”
“I never chase a first-round finish in all my previous fights,” Zhang continued. “I always prepared for either a three-round or five-round fight. But when I step into the cage, when the fights starts, if I see any openings or any holes from my opponents, I will catch it.”
Zhang has 25 professional fights and 22 of them have ended in the first round, so don’t expect “Mountain Tiger” to play it safe on fight night. I’m not going to completely overlook his work on the international circuit, comprised of wins over such stellar names as the 2-5 Changsheng Huo, or the 5-11 Caibao Zhang, but I’m certainly not going to use them to build a case against Walker. The Brazilian has his problems and he seems to fold too easily under pressure, I just think he’s got a style — along with a physical presence — that Zhang has never seen and is ill-equipped to handle.
Prediction: Walker def. Zhang by technical knockout
145 lbs.: Aljamain Sterling vs. Brian Ortega
Aljamain “Funk Master” Sterling
Record: 24-5 | Age: 36 | Betting line: -300
Wins: 3 KO/TKO, 8 SUB, 12 DEC | 1 DQ | Losses: 2 KO/TKO, 0 SUB, 3 DEC
Height: 5’7” | Reach: 71” | Stance: Orthodox
Significant Strikes Landed Per Minute: 4.41 | Striking accuracy: 52%
Strikes Absorbed Per Minute: 2.21 | Striking Defense: 58%
Takedown Average: 2.51 (29% accuracy) | Takedown Defense: 42%
Current Ranking: No. 7 | Last fight: Unanimous decision loss to Movsar Evloev
Brian “T-City” Ortega
Record: 16-4, 1 NC | Age: 34 | Betting line: +240
Wins: 3 KO/TKO, 8 SUB, 5 DEC | Losses: 2 KO/TKO, 0 SUB, 2 DEC
Height: 5’8” | Reach: 69” | Stance: Switch
Significant Strikes Landed Per Minute: 4.08 | Striking accuracy: 37%
Strikes Absorbed Per Minute: 6.59 | Striking Defense: 49%
Takedown Average: 1.07 (26% accuracy) | Takedown Defense: 55%
Current Ranking: No. 5 | Last fight: Unanimous decision loss to Diego Lopes
Aljamain Sterling abandoned his post at 135 pounds after getting knocked out by Sean O’Malley at UFC 292, which felt like the right time to make the move. He already reached the top of the 135-pound mountain and “Funk Master” is now in his mid-thirties, making the cut down to bantamweight increasingly difficult. Sterling seemed to pick up right where he left off by cruising past Calvin Kattar at UFC 300; however, Movsar Evloev — one of the top contenders at featherweight — proved to be a formidable road block on Sterling’s path to a second title. No question a loss to Ortega would put an end to those dreams, or at least stall them for the foreseeable future. While every fight is a “must win” in combat sports, I would imagine it’s discouraging to endure a hellish training camp (as well as punches to the face) with no end goal or nothing but a paycheck waiting on the other side.
“This is a huge fight,” Sterling told MMA Fighting. “I think this is a crossroads fight for both of us, just at our age, what we both accomplished and where we’ve both been in our divisions. I don’t want to say this is a make it or break it fight for me, but I’m not interested in fighting up and coming contenders just for a paycheck. Maybe I will consider that at some point, but I don’t have that mentality right now. That’s not what I’m looking to do.That doesn’t get me up in the morning and make me want to go train to fight these young 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds who don’t have a name. They’re trying to make the name off of me, they’re trying to make their name off Ortega.”
“I would like to fight for another title, God willing, [if] I get a big win,” Sterling continued. “It’s going to be hard to top a spinning-back elbow, but we are fighting five rounds. I’m hoping that’s some type of direction of what things might come from this. So I’m just trying to be positive about the whole thing and may the best man win. At the end of the day, if I’m not good enough, then I’m not good enough at this point, and I think maybe it could be due to the size, it could be due to the age. It could be due to so many different things. But at the end of the day, I’m still in the training room. I’m still kicking young guys’ asses, so that makes me feel good.”
Brian Ortega was always the underdog heading into this contest but that line has increased dramatically after “T-City” failed to make the featherweight limit, forcing the promotion to change the UFC Shanghai co-main event to a 153-pound catchweight contest. During the official staredowns, Ortega looked visibly weak and unable to stand while backstage rumors claimed the former featherweight title challenger was hooked to an IV. That does not bode well for a combatant who is facing a tireless wrestler across 25 minutes of action. Ortega is certainly the better striker of the two, or at least hits harder, but may not have the gas to survive more than one or two rounds, depending on his recovery from the brutal weight cut, coupled with the extreme change in time zones.
“Hired one new coach,” Ortega told MMA Junkie. “It’s striking. I rehired someone that we had … not a bad fallout, but we went our own ways and then we had a good conversation about things in the past. We just talked it over and fixed that and patched that. The boxing coach, it was new. We gave him a shot, and I started learning things all over again. My striking has evolved and then talking to the wrestling coach about who should we bring in as partners. We just started bringing in high-level wrestlers, NCAA champs and stuff like that.”
“If it was my choice, we bang it out,” Ortega added. “Simple as that. You see me, I kind of rarely shoot in. I’m not really the guy to shoot in. So, if it was up to me, we would bang it out on our feet and give the fans a hell of a fight. But something’s telling me he’s going to shoot in. He’s good at keeping his distance and his range with those kicks, but yeah, it’s something that we’ve trained for. We watch the fights, we study film.”
Ortega has looked unmotivated and listless in recent fights, even when he makes weight. The threat of a one-punch knockout remains, I just find it hard to pick a fighter who would probably have been ruled medically unfit to competes had the promotion been staging its event under the more discerning eyes of a stateside athletic commission.
Prediction: Sterling def. Ortega by technical knockout
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To check out the latest and greatest UFC Shanghai news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive here. For the updated and finalized “Walker vs. Zhang” fight card and ESPN+ lineup click here.
