Ryo Tajima outlasted Ti Haitao by split decision in a bantamweight opening-round bout on May 28 at Galaxy Arena in Macau, a win that pushed Tajima into the tournament’s later rounds and set up a semifinal with Chungreng Koren later in 2026.
Tajima and Ti became the first pair of fighters to reach the third round on the opening night of Road to UFC Season 5, a fight that tilted on timing: Tajima landed timely takedowns when he needed position while Ti attacked Tajima’s lead leg with persistent low kicks. The judges ultimately split on the scorecards and awarded Tajima the victory, advancing him in the win-and-advance format to a semifinal matchup slated for later this year.
The evening delivered other decisive moments. YoungJae Song overcame a second-round point deduction to finish Jin Aoi by submission late in the same round, locking up a rear-naked choke from back mount after working through the penalty. After the fight, Song embraced the rookie label he has been given, introducing himself as "Super Rookie." His finish preserved a perfect night of results for prospects who advance with stoppages and answers questions about his composure when things go against him in the card’s heat.
Also on May 28, Chungreng Koren won by late second-round submission after accepting the fight on short notice, a fact that changes how the tournament’s bracket shapes. Koren, who introduced himself in the cage as "The Indian Rhino," missed weight on Wednesday, a development that injects immediate friction into the Road to UFC narrative: he has momentum from a finish but arrives into the semifinals with a weight miss on his ledger.
That tension—between a fighter who won by measured grappling and positional control and an opponent who took a short-notice bout and failed to make weight—now defines the most consequential matchup left on the card. Tajima’s takedown timing will be tested against a challenger who has already shown he can end fights late in the second round, even under imperfect preparation. The pairing promises a stylistic clash when the semifinal is staged later in 2026.
Road to UFC is a win-and-advance tournament designed to funnel top Asia-Pacific prospects directly into the UFC; Season 5 opened across Thursday, May 28 and Friday, May 29 at Galaxy Arena in Macau with quarterfinals in both the bantamweight and featherweight brackets. Each day of the opening weekend also included UFC bouts on the undercard, headlined by Rongzhu vs. Victor Martinez and Xie Bin vs. Yudi Cahyadi, and the event schedule featured four quarterfinal bouts apiece for the 2026 Road to UFC featherweight and bantamweight tournaments.
For Tajima, the immediate story is simple and serious: he survived a grinding three-round test and kept his path to the UFC intact. For Koren, the questions loom larger than his win—the weight miss and the last-minute acceptance change the terms of the matchup and the public calculus around who benefits most from the advance. The semifinal between Tajima and Chungreng Koren will answer whether Tajima’s grappling and measured approach can overcome a short-notice, heavier challenger who has already proven he can finish opponents late in the second round.
