"That illegal knee, man. I hate to go back and get stuck on it, but what a career-changing moment. Remember, Yan was genuinely considered one of the absolute best pound-for-pound fighters in the world at that time. He was 15-0. Undefeated. Perfect. He was cruising through Sterling in 2021 when he was disqualified for one of the most egregiously, unforgivable illegal knees in the sport's history. And that single moment stuck with him for two years."
"He dominated Sterling in their first meeting. It was a "trap" kind of title fight, if there is such a thing. After that, a split decision loss to Sean O'Malley appeared to rob him of some of his competitive soul. By the time he fought Merab Dvalishvili in 2023, he was on a 1-3 run and, as he later admitted, injured. And he got run over."
Petr Yan and Joshua Van captured UFC titles, dethroning Merab Dvalishvili and Alexandre Pantoja and injecting upheaval into bantamweight and flyweight ranks. Yan's career trajectory pivoted after an illegal-knee disqualification in 2021 while dominating Aljamain Sterling, which preceded an interim belt, a controversial split-decision loss, a subsequent slump and an admitted injury that preceded a lopsided loss to Dvalishvili. At flyweight, a difficult-to-watch incident produced an injury and engineered a change of guard that could reverberate through the division. Both title changes reset contender hierarchies and create fresh matchup questions heading into the next season.
Read at ESPN.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]