Petr Yan deserved to lose his UFC bantamweight title. He deserved the criticism and humiliation that came with it. When he knocked Aljamain Sterling silly with one of the most blatantly illegal knees in the history of mixed martial arts – by my reckoning, the single stupidest move of all time – he set himself up for every single consequence he received.
Yan’s biggest enemy throughout his MMA career has been himself. His only two losses came as a direct result of fouls he committed: the illegal knee DQ against Sterling, and a low-blow point deduction against Magomed Magomedov that turned a win into a loss in 2016. But every time Yan is in the ring, he reminds us of something: his biggest enemy is himself, because there’s seemingly no one on Earth that can beat him.
Once Yan progressed to the point where he was fighting five-rounders every time out, he became a nearly unsolvable problem. And as he showed Saturday against Cory Sandhagen, there’s nobody better when the bright lights are on.
Yan-Sandhagen promised to be an absolute feast of technical MMA striking, and it lived up to every bit of the hype. It was a brilliant fight against two of the world’s best. And while it was Sandhagen who got off to the fast start, it was Yan – like he almost always does – who closed the fight.
Fighters have gotten out ahead of Yan before. Jose Aldo did it. Sterling did it. Sandhagen did it on Saturday. But Yan doesn’t typically go in there worrying about winning the first round. He almost always ends up nullifying his opponent’s momentum by making expert reads and adjustments and taking over through the middle rounds, as he did against Sandhagen.
He started cautious, defensive, fighting behind a high guard. Sandhagen was in his flow, circling, taking potshots at a more stationary Yan, throwing a ton of volume at the former undisputed champion. Yan wasn’t bothered – when it was go time, he went. By the third round, Yan had decided he wasn’t going to let Sandhagen set the pace anymore. Yan pushed forward, using some of the cleanest boxing in the UFC to open Sandhagen up, nailing him with some of the best combinations you’ll ever see and taking the fight over.
Some of his best moments have made the rounds on social media in the days following the fight – the spinning backfist followed by the swinging left hook that dropped Sandhagen in the fourth round, and the unbelievably quick combo into the spinning back kick that closed the fight in the final seconds. But what won Yan this fight was what wins him every fight: his problem-solving skills, his hands, and his deceptively strong grappling.
Sandhagen had the right idea – get out to the fastest possible start you can and just hope you can sustain the momentum and volume across the first few rounds, since every round that a fight goes on, the chance of Yan winning goes up. Sandhagen is one of a few fighters who can sustain a pace like that for five rounds. Still, it wasn’t enough in the end. As we saw against T.J. Dillashaw earlier this year, Sandhagen may be lacking a true big-moment gear that can separate himself in the eyes of the judges in a close, competitive fight like this. And Yan is the Terminator – he always hunts you down in the end.
If Aljamain Sterling couldn’t take him down, Sandhagen wasn’t going to – Sandhagen succeeded on just one of six attempts, earning a grand total of 20 seconds of control time. Sandhagen came out slightly ahead on total strikes landed, but Yan was nearly 20 percentage points ahead on accuracy – he was more measured, controlled and powerful. There was a difference in the thud when these two men connected. The biggest moments of the fight all belonged to Yan, and they all came late in the fight.
Again, what makes Yan so formidable is that he may the single best championship-round fighter in the sport today. We saw Sterling get out to a hot start, but Yan had completely taken that fight over by the time the knee hit in the fourth. We also Aldo bedevil Yan early with his amazing technical striking, but Yan wound up beating him down en route to a fifth round stoppage.
I have little doubt that Yan will beat Sterling in a rematch – I thought he proved last time around that he was a superior fighter, regardless of how it ended. He’s beaten Sandhagen, one of the best in the world. He’d have an advantage over T.J. Dillashaw or probably anyone else you can name. And while Sterling may still be the nominal UFC champion, it’s clear that his time is coming. Petr Yan is still the best in the world.
The Big Fight 