Sean O’Malley Survives Early Trouble, Edges Song Yadong in Razor-Close UFC 324 Decision

Song’s leg kicks and grappling control built a real lead, but O’Malley’s late accuracy and visible damage swung the optics — and the judges — in a tense co-main that felt balanced on a knife edge.

By Swikriti • UFC 324 • T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas

Sean O’Malley had to earn every inch of it, and he knew it. In the UFC 324 co-main event, the former bantamweight champion absorbed two rounds of pressure from Song Yadong — heavy leg kicks, clinch work, and just enough top control to make the fight feel like it was slipping away — before finding a cleaner, sharper third round to secure a unanimous decision.

The scorecards told the story of a fight that was close, but not confusing. Song’s best work came early, when he committed to the legs and refused to let O’Malley settle into rhythm. O’Malley’s best work came late, when he finally began landing the straighter punches down the middle and ended the bout looking like the man doing the damage — the kind that sticks with judges when the minutes feel decisive.

The first round was Song’s kind of fight: disciplined, physical, and built around taking away O’Malley’s mobility. The kicks landed with real intent, and when Song mixed in a takedown, he bought himself the kind of control time that reads cleanly on a scorecard. O’Malley threatened just enough to avoid panic, but he spent long stretches reacting instead of dictating.

Song carried that momentum into the second. A sharp kick knocked O’Malley off balance early, and the pressure stayed consistent. Even when O’Malley tried to answer with teeps and single shots, Song’s counters and clinch control kept the exchange tilted. The takedown and top position didn’t have to be dominant to matter — it simply had to be clear, and it was.

Then the fight changed. O’Malley’s third round wasn’t a wild sprint, but it was the cleanest striking of the bout. He began threading left straights and right hands through the openings Song had offered while chasing. Song still kicked, still pressed forward, still looked for entries — but O’Malley’s timing started meeting him at the door. The visual cues shifted too: Song’s mouth bloodied, his reactions slower in the final exchanges, the last minute belonging to O’Malley’s accuracy rather than Song’s volume.

It’s the kind of round that doesn’t need fireworks to feel decisive. O’Malley was throwing one shot at a time — not a flood, but a needle — and the cleaner connects landed when the fight felt most alive. In close bouts, judges often lean toward the fighter whose strikes look more damaging and whose moments feel more consequential. That third round gave O’Malley exactly that.

For Song, the frustration won’t be in the strategy — the blueprint was sensible — but in the margins. When he had O’Malley thinking about the legs, he was winning minutes. When he slowed on the entries and the chase became more predictable, O’Malley’s counters started to find their home. The difference between “control” and “control with damage” can be a thin line, and O’Malley made sure the ending carried the sharper impression.

The bigger takeaway is what it does to the bantamweight picture. O’Malley didn’t get a soft landing here; Song is durable, technical, and difficult to look clean against for three full rounds. Winning this kind of fight — the one where you have to solve a problem live and do it under pressure — matters as much as the highlight-reel nights, especially when the title conversation is crowded.

UFC 324 itself was staged as a landmark event for the promotion’s new broadcast era, and the co-main delivered the type of tense, rewatchable competitiveness that sells a division. If you want the official event listing and card context, the simplest reference point is the official UFC event page.

O’Malley won’t pretend it was comfortable, and he shouldn’t. He had to survive the kind of early grinding pressure that can drown a striker’s confidence. But he stayed composed, banked what he could, and then did the most important thing in a close fight: he finished with the cleanest, most memorable work of the contest. In a three-round chess match that turned into a late sprint, that was enough.

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