Fights
Mayhem in the UFC! Petr Yan sent his opponent to the hospital, but was left without the title
One of the biggest scandals of the decade in the UFC.
Early in the morning of December 7, Petr Yan will have to fight for the bantamweight belt with Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 323. Championship fights are nothing new for our athlete. But, unfortunately, not all of them turned out positively for the Russian.
Heated confrontation
Yan made a powerful entrance into the UFC, going from rookie to champion in just seven fights. The Russian was scheduled to make his first defense of the belt in December 2020. The matchmakers assigned American Aljamain Sterling as his opponent. The experienced fighter was on a streak of five victories over strong opponents.
But it was not possible to organize the fight on the first try. Only in March of the following year did the fighters reach the Octagon. Their fight became the co-main event at the UFC 259 tournament. The warm-up of the confrontation turned out to be truly hot. The champion and challenger regularly exchanged barbs at each other and constantly declared their own superiority.
– He talks a lot. I’m just waiting for the day when they finally bring us together. If I hit him several times, everything in his head will change,” Yan said in a video on the UFC Russia YouTube channel.
“I only need one takedown.” Father’s plan. Believe me, I moved bigger guys with stronger wrestling,” Sterling wrote on his social networks.
At the press conference, the fighters also had a fiery battle of views. There was no assault, but in a verbal skirmish the athletes promised to break each other.
“I just made a big mistake”
The first two rounds were very close. Sterling constantly tried to carry out takedowns, but Peter defended himself well against them. The Russian was good at striking. But Yan managed to achieve a big advantage due to blows only in the third round, where he completely defeated the American in the standing position.
The fourth round was also dictated by Ian. Aljamain missed heavy blows over and over again, but still tried to counterattack. While attempting a takedown, Sterling made a mistake, allowing the Russian to grab his neck. In an attempt to free himself, he knelt down. Yang misjudged the situation, thinking that the opponent was squatting and struck an illegal blow. The American got hit in the head with a knee.
This episode became fatal for Ian. The referee immediately stopped the fight, and Sterling began to roll around on the floor, showing with all his appearance how much pain he was in. The referee gave Peter’s fans three minutes of hope, expecting that the American would recover, but after a meeting with the doctor, a decision was made to stop the fight and disqualify the Russian.
“I didn’t want to throw an illegal blow.” “I just made a big mistake and paid for it,” Yang commented on the incident on his social networks.
Sterling became a champion, but was not particularly happy about the fact that he became the first UFC belt holder after an opponent was disqualified. After the results were announced, Aljamain even cried and gave up the title.
“Everything I worked for ended like this.” But I think the fight was close. This is not how I wanted to win and how I imagined it. “I tried to fight even in this condition, I was in bad shape,” the American said after the fight.
After the fight, Sterling was taken to the hospital feeling unwell. He required further examination after being hit by a knee. A month later, the new champion even underwent neck surgery, but it was also associated with an old injury received in college. The revenge was an even bigger disappointment for Russian fans, because many rightly believed that Yan won. Unfortunately, the judges thought differently.
A live broadcast of the UFC 323 tournament on the night from Saturday to Sunday will be shown on the Match! TV channels. Fighter” (from 2:00 Moscow time) and “Match TV” (from 06:00), as well as the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.
Source: Sportbox
