She walked away from a guaranteed career twice. Once to chase boxing, once to chase cages. Both times the people around her told her she was mad.
The Lowdown
Chinese. Born 12 January 1988 in Weishan County, part of Jining in Shandong province. Five foot five. Fights at Women’s Strawweight. Known everywhere as “The Panda”.
A professional MMA record of 19-3, with 10 knockouts and exactly one submission win, and that one came in her debut back in 2014. She has never been finished by strikes. Former weightlifting prospect. Former Chinese national team boxer. Brazilian jiu jitsu brown belt. The first Chinese fighter of either gender to win a recognised world title in mixed martial arts.
Trains out of Bali. Signed with the UFC in April 2026 at the age of 38, after ONE Championship folded the division she had ruled for six years.
A Sports School and a Barbell
Chinese provincial sports schools hoover up promising kids and slot them into whatever discipline fits their frame. Xiong got weightlifting. She was good at it, good enough that a scholarship at an elite college was sitting there waiting for her, with her parents fully behind the plan.
Then she found boxing and the whole thing fell apart.
Her father had watched fights with her when she was small, which is where the interest came from in the first place. She joined the Shandong women’s boxing team at 18, took third at the 2007 National Women’s Boxing Championship and worked her way onto the Chinese national squad. She kept the switch from her parents for a while, waiting until she had something concrete to show them.
Then she did it again. Salaried, housed, representing her country, and she found mixed martial arts in 2013 and threw the lot away to start from scratch. ONE Championship later published a feature on the sacrifices Xiong made to become a world champion, in which she recalled her coach pointing out that she already had achievements in weightlifting, and that switching meant beginning again from zero.
“I wanted to see a new, different me,” she said of the decision.
Kunlun, and the Only Blemish Nobody Talks About
She turned pro on 31 August 2014, submitting Inna Hutsal in the first round. It remains the only submission win of her career, which is a strange footnote for a fighter who later earned a brown belt under Alex Silva.
The early years were spent entirely inside Kunlun Fight, the Chinese promotion better known for its kickboxing. She built a 10-1 record there. The single loss came to American veteran Colleen Schneider on the judges’ cards, an unremarkable-looking line on a database that is easy to skim past. It is also the last time anyone beat her for the next four years.
From September 2015 she ripped off nine straight wins.
Four Rounds With Tiffany Teo
ONE signed her and she made her debut on 9 December 2017, stopping April Osenio inside a round. Six weeks later she was fighting for a belt.
On 20 January 2018 she met Tiffany Teo for the inaugural ONE Women’s Strawweight World Championship and broke her down over four rounds. Worth understanding the weight here, because it trips people up constantly: ONE’s Strawweight limit is 125 lb, and ONE’s Atomweight is 115 lb. The division Xiong now competes in under the UFC banner, at 115 lb, is the one ONE called Atomweight.
That night made her the first Chinese world champion in MMA history, and the first Chinese woman to hold a major world title in the sport.
The Angela Lee Trilogy
Three fights, spread across three and a half years, and they defined both careers.
The first came on 31 March 2019 in Tokyo. Lee was unbeaten, moving up in weight to try to become a two-division champion, and Xiong spent four rounds hammering the body before finishing her in the fifth. MMA Junkie’s report on the night Xiong became the first fighter to beat Angela Lee captured a result almost nobody had predicted.
Lee got it back in October at ONE’s centenary event, this time with her own atomweight belt on the line. Xiong dropped down, ran into a rear naked choke in the fifth and lost. That remains one of only three defeats on her record.
The trilogy bout landed on 30 September 2022. Xiong took a unanimous decision and retained. It turned out to be the last fight of Lee’s career.
Seven Defences and a Division That Disappeared
Between Teo and the end of the reign she defended the strawweight title seven times, tying Bibiano Fernandes and Nong-O Hama for the most consecutive title defences in ONE history. She also finished her run holding the record for most total fight time in the promotion, which tells you plenty about the kind of fights she took.
Teo again in 2020, surviving a late charge. Michelle Nicolini in 2021, refusing to give up a single position on the mat to one of the best grapplers in women’s MMA. Ayaka Miura in 2022, comfortably.
In September 2023 she took a special-rules striking bout against Nat “Wondergirl” Jaroonsak, punches only, four ounce gloves. She made weight but failed the hydration test, the bout went ahead at a Catchweight of 129 lb and part of her purse went to her opponent. She stopped Wondergirl in the third anyway.
Then came the frustrating stretch. A 2024 defence against Stamp Fairtex was scrapped when Stamp got injured. She returned in March 2025 at Lumpinee, dropping to Atomweight to outpoint Meng Bo over three rounds.
And on 26 March 2026 the Bangkok Post reported that ONE had shut down its Women’s Strawweight MMA division and released Xiong. Inaugural champion, final champion, no division left to defend.
Bali, and the Gyms That Built Her
She represented Phuket Top Team for her ONE debut before moving her base to Indonesia. The bulk of her work now happens at Bali MMA, with additional training at The Block Combat, also in Bali. She represents Evolve MMA out of Singapore and previously fought under the Alliance China banner.
Her jiu jitsu came along quickly enough that she took gold at the 2017 China Open. Sanda, boxing and grappling, stacked one on top of the other over more than a decade.
She has said the values she absorbed from Chinese martial arts films as a kid, particularly The Swordsman, shaped how she carries herself. Standing up for people who cannot stand up for themselves. Her father taught her the same thing.
The Octagon Does Not Do Ceremony
The UFC signed her in April 2026 and matched her with Angela Hill for a debut on 30 May at Galaxy Arena in Macau, on Chinese soil, in front of a crowd that wanted a coronation.
Hill gave her nothing. The 41 year old American set a pace Xiong could not match, pressured her into the fence, mixed in a takedown in the second and kept hunting until the horn. Cageside Press’s report on Hill turning back the debuting ONE star laid out the damage. All three judges gave Hill every round.
Six years without a loss, gone in fifteen minutes.
The reaction online was predictably vicious. Plenty of it missed the point that Hill has the most wins in the history of the division and had just snapped a two-fight skid of her own. Xiong, for her part, had been clear about what she came for.
“It is a dream come true, but the goal is to become UFC world champion,” she told the UFC.
What Is Next
Xiong is booked to face Brazilian Julia Polastri on 29 August 2026 at UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs Song, the promotion’s return to Shanghai. It is her second Octagon appearance and her second in China inside four months.
At 38, with one professional career behind her in Kunlun, another in ONE and a third barely started, she is doing what she has already done twice. Starting again.
Jingnan Xiong MMA Record and Fighter Stats
Name
Jingnan Xiong
Nationality
Chinese
Weight Class
Women’s Strawweight
Date of Birth
12 January 1988 (Age 38)
Height
5’5″
Pro Record
19-3. 10 wins by KO, 1 win by submission
UFC Record
0-1
Recent Fight Record
DateEventOpponentResultMethod
30-May-26UFC Fight NightAngela HillLUnanimous Decision
14-Mar-25ONE Friday Nights 100Bo MengWUnanimous Decision
30-Sep-22ONE Fight Night 2Angela LeeWUnanimous Decision
14-Jan-22ONE ChampionshipAyaka MiuraWUnanimous Decision
3-Sep-21ONE ChampionshipMichelle NicoliniWUnanimous Decision
👉 Explore: Fightomic Rankings | Fightomic Women’s Strawweight Rankings