3 DAYS TO UFC 280 FIGHT WEEK!!!
The second biggest Bantamweight fight on this historic card is a contest of sorts with the UFC ranked number 1, Petr ‘no mercy’ Yan hailing from Russia with a 16 win and 3 loss résumé. Yan, formerly fought in the Absolute Championship Berkut, where he was a former ACB Bantamweight Champion.
After Henry Cejudo vacated the title, announcing his retirement on May 9th of 2020 , Yan beat the king of Rio for the vacant title at UFC 251 (Usman vs Masvidal) on July 11th, 2020.
He subsequently fought Aljamain Sterling at UFC 259 (Blachowicz vs. Adesanya) on March 6th, 2021 as his first title defense.
Petr dominated the fight, right up until 4 minutes and 29 seconds of the 4th round, where he forfeited his title, due to an illegal knee, handing the title to Sterling by default. This left a bitter pill to swollow amongst Petr fans and the heavily demanded rematch had to be put on hold until Sterling had much needed neck surgery.
Consequently, an interim title fight was made between Yan and Cory Sandhagen at UFC 267 (Blachowicz vs. Teixeira) on
Oct 30th, 2021.
Yan became the victor and the new interim title holder, once again eaglery awaiting his rematch with Aljamain Sterling.
It was at UFC 273 (Volkanovski vs. Korean Zombie)
April 09th, 2022, that Sterling beat Yan, albeit to a split decision via the judges, though some would say it was a very dominant victory.
Yan will now face rising star Sugar Sean O’Malley ranked 12th.
Yes, you heard me correctly ranked 12th, just 3 from the bottom 15.
Some say he has bitten off more than he can chew, fighting way above his station, but hey, when you put your face in the shark tank it’s time to sink or swim!
It reminds me of Dan Henderson vs Michael Bisping 2. Henderson was ranked 13 and there were questions whether he should even get a title shot being so low in the rankings.
Clearly Sugar has the promotions nod and is being fast tracked to the top.
let’s not forget how that ended for Henderson (although in all fairness I thought Hendo deserved the win).
This is a must see fight and Sugar believes he is ready. With such a gargantuan task, a win over Yan would most definetly bring the young star O’Malley in reach of a title shot. There are levels to this game and it is unclear that he has learnt his lessons from the Marlon Vera defeat at UFC 252 (Miocic vs. Cormier 3) on August 15th, 2020 where his head was bounced off the canvas in a shocking defeat in the 1st round.
A defeat to which he denies losing even today, claiming that he is still undefeated!
The fight will be on the 22nd, but FIGHTWEEK starts in 3 days time!!!
Only one question remains.
Will you be a witness ????
