When China's Zhang Weili beat Joanna Jedrzejczyk to retain the UFC women's strawweight championship at UFC 248 this year, she put the whole division on notice. It wasn't simply because she defeated Joanna, who up to that point was considered the best strawweight fighter, it was the manner in which she did it. Joanna fought at her absolute best, with high volume, high precision kickboxing – and Zhang managed to overmatch her in every respect.

Every name in the UFC's rankings for the women's strawweight division is a person Zhang or Joanna has beaten or whose skillset simply doesn't match. The current No. 1 and former champion Rose Namajunas, for example, has a puncher's chance but is far too slow and simple to mount a real challenge to Zhang's crown.

The only real contender is currently ranked eighth and swiftly rising. Yan Xiaonan is seemingly the next in this generation of female Chinese fighters; as with champion Zhang, Yan has only one loss and both are on double-digit win streaks. In the UFC, Zhang is 5-0 and so was Yan when she faced Claudia Gadelha at UFC Fight Night: Santos vs. Teixeira.

For a long time Gadelha was considered the second best in the division behind Joanna – her only losses come to Joanna, Jessica Andrade and Nina Ansaroff when they were all in their prime, meaning this was likely to be Yan's toughest test yet.

This didn't show on either woman as the two started the fight with some quick-fire stand-up. The smaller cage of the UFC Apex forces fighters into close quarters and this immediately took the form of a battle between Yan's sanda vs. Gadelha's always improving Muay Thai. Then Gadelha saw an opening and sprung for a takedown. If there is a weakness in Yan's game, it's here; she managed to defend herself well enough that Gadelha couldn't do much damage, but she burned a lot of energy doing it and, when the women were back to their feet, the Brazilian took her down again and finished the round from this position.

That said, if this is the biggest hole in Yan's game, she knows it too. Round 2 began akin to the first, only with Yan taking a lead in the striking due to her incredible speed. After the first minute – roughly the time when Gadelha took Yan down in the first frame – Yan switched up and instead of trying precise combinations, she began to move in and out, leaping in to sting Gadelha with a jab and then moving back again.

Not only did this perpetuate her striking dominance, it prevented Gadelha from utilizing her famous Brazilian jiu-jitsu and visibly frustrated her. Gadelha knew she couldn't compete on speed so started clumsily swinging for the fences. With 2:17 remaining in the round, Gadelha threw a haymaker that never had any chance of hitting anybody and this may have been the most obvious sign to the fighters in the cage that Yan had the upper hand. From here on out, if Yan landed clean with her opening jab, she could follow with a straight or be willing to absorb a clunker from Gadelha while landing several of her own in the mixer.

With only a few seconds remaining, Gadelha charged and tried a takedown but Yan stuffed it. The grappling should have been the Brazilian's trump card in Round 2 but Yan kept it at bay up until it became a last resort.

Getting peppered by strikes and being unable to get anything to the ground had clearly taken its toll on Gadelha. In Rounds 1 and 2, in terms of significant strikes, Yan had outstruck Gadelha by nine both times (19 to 10, 26 to 17) but increased her work rate where she had gone from throwing only 10 more (36 to 26) to being almost double (78 to 43); this probably explains why Gadelha looked incredibly tentative at the start of Round 3.

Knowing she was going up against a fighter who would not stop moving and continually throw punches or feint them, Gadelha repeatedly tried to close the distance and impose her wrestling. As with the striking where she was second to the punch, she had now exposed herself as being reliant on the double underhook as a set up for a takedown and Yan stayed on her feet each time, landing great combinations on the way out too.

At the end of the fight, both women were still standing, but one looked like she had been in a fight and the other looked like she was done with sparring for the day. Yan Xiaonan won a unanimous decision 30-27 and takes a step closer to setting up the "China Derby" against champion Zhang Weili.