Petr Yan prepares for a bantamweight fight against Urijah Faber during UFC 245 (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)
Petr Yan shares details on why the fight against Marlon Vera failed to materialize
Marlon Vera has been on a sensational run and the bantamweight division’s No.1-ranked fighter took notice. Petr Yan was mighty impressed by Vera’s performance against Rob Font at UFC Vegas 53. The Ecuadorian has been calling out for a fight that propels his career straight to a title shot. Vera has sighted a fight against Petr Yan as the perfect opportunity to catapult his legacy to the next level.
Petr Yan lost his rematch against undisputed bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling at UFC 273, and will return to the octagon against Sean O’Malley at UFC 280. Meanwhile, Chito Vera has picked up wins against Font and MMA veteran Dominick Cruz. He had initially called out the Russian for a fight in August. The fight never failed to materialize.
In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Yan spoke about what led to the fight for not being set up:
“ I accepted the fight with him in September. I wanted to fight him in September, but he wanted to fight in August. He couldn’t wait a few weeks to fight me, which means he didn’t put his actions where his words were, y’know. If he really wanted to fight me, he’d wait for me. Three weeks is not a very long time. If you want to fight with the number one ranked, it was a problem on his end.”
Aljamain Sterling laid all doubts to rest at UFC 273, and emerged as the undisputed UFC bantamweight champion of the world. Even though the first round could’ve gone either way with many people scoring it for Petr Yan, Sterling’s dominance in the second and third rounds was enough for him to come out on top in the judges’ scorecards.
Before the fight, many had dismissed the Funkmaster’s chances of beating Yan, but Sterling would make them eat their words, much like many who thought it would be a cakewalk for Yan, with a career-defining performance at UFC 273 that cemented his claim as the true champion.
Although many including the likes of UFC President Dana White score the fight in favor of Yan, Sterling received tremendous support for his victory.
Their first fight, when Yan was the bantamweight champion at UFC 259 ended in controversial fashion after the Russian struck ‘Funk Master’ with an illegal knee. The American could not continue to fight, and became the bantamweight champion by mode of disqualification.
Both fighters are scheduled to fight on the upcoming UFC 280 fight card in Abu Dhabi later this month. While Sterling will face T.J. Dillashaw in the co-main event, Yan will face crowd favorite Sean O’Malley early on in the same night.
Sterling posted a video on social media when he ran into Yan at Abu Dhabi. The pair were surprisingly cordial with each other with Sterling even suggesting a potential trilogy fight in the future.
“Trilogy.”
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