On December 6, at UFC 323 in Las Vegas, Petr Yan will attempt to take revenge on Merab Dvalishvili, and at the same time regain the bantamweight championship belt. In the first fight, the Russian fighter was not the best version of himself and lost without a chance to his opponent.

Overheating of the duel

On March 11, 2023, at the UFC Fight Night tournament in Las Vegas, the second and third ranked bantamweights, Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili, competed in the main fight of the evening. The Russian entered the octagon after a number of fights with controversial outcomes. The failure in the first confrontation with Aljamain Sterling can be left out of the equation, although the Russian fighter then lost the championship belt in the most offensive way, delivering an illegal blow. But the results of the second fight with Sterling, and then with Sean O’Malley, where Yan lost both times by split decision, suggested that Dana White’s organization simply did not need another champion from Russia.

Dvalishvili was approaching his meeting with Yan in the Octagon on the rise. After two losses in the UFC, he won eight fights. He also defeated the former champion of the organization, Brazilian Jose Aldo. But if, on the eve of the rematch, bookmakers are confident in Dvalishvili’s victory, then Peter was called the favorite. The opponent’s impressive series of victories, the failures of Besposhchastny himself, and even the fact that the Russian’s coach was not given a visa to the United States did not particularly influence the forecasts.

During the warm-up of the fight, the fighters overdid it somewhat. Dvalishvili did not limit himself to attacks on Yan and poured slop on Russia as a whole, for which he received the unofficial title of one of the main Russophobes in the UFC. The merciless reminded his opponent that this was a sporting fight, and there was no need to drag in politics, but during the battle of views he could not restrain himself and pushed his opponent away.

Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili / Photo: © Chris Unger / Contributor / UFC / Gettyimages.ru

Hand injury, swollen eye

At the beginning of the fight, Yan tried to work as number one, but it was difficult for him to dominate. Dvalishvili was good at striking, but when it came to wrestling, Peter looked completely unimportant. Besposhchadny had a chance in the stand-up position, but at the end of the first round for some reason he started to fight and ended up ending the five minutes on the canvas under his opponent’s blows.

In the second round, Peter missed several painful low kicks, which directly affected his mobility. Later, the fighter hinted that he entered the fight with an injury. At the same time, the Russian tried not to look like a whipping boy, delivered dangerous blows whenever possible, and at the end of the round he caught his opponent making a mistake, finding himself on top at some point on the ground. In an ideal situation, it would have been possible to end the fight with a series of blows, but in reality the time of the round had expired and we had to abandon the advantageous position.

Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili / Photo: © Chris Unger / Contributor / UFC / Gettyimages.ru

The situation did not get any better for Ian: his eye was swollen, his legs were moving worse, and he was not attacking too dangerously with his hands. The Russian increasingly went into the fight, but Peter did not have to count on much there. Merab confidently worked for statistics, attacking with his legs from a distance and periodically carrying his opponent along the canvas. By the end of the fifth round there was no doubt about the outcome of the confrontation. The Georgian fighter began to celebrate his success without waiting for the judge’s verdict. And if in previous fights Ian could rightly make claims against the judges, then here the result turned out to be objective. Peter has never looked so helpless in the UFC.

We can only hope that our fighter will be in better shape for the rematch and will be able to surprise the current UFC champion.

The UFC 323 tournament will be shown live on the Match TV channel, starting on Sunday at 6:00 Moscow time.