Peter Yan gave a brilliant fight at the UFC 323 tournament, beating champion Merab Dvalishvili for 25 minutes. The bloodied Georgian could do nothing to oppose the machine of destruction from Russia and was left without a title.

“I’ll try to knock him out”

The last time Yang lost in the UFC was more than two years ago. The loss to Dvalishvili ended his streak of unsuccessful fights. After that, the Russian fighter confidently won three fights, albeit only by unanimous decisions. This was enough to get a rematch against Merab.

The fight happened largely due to the Georgian fighter’s great desire to make the fourth defense of the bantamweight champion belt in a year. Merab, who entered the octagon in early October, could well have taken a longer break in his career. But after defeating Corey Sandhagen, the Georgian called Yan, clearly expecting an easy victory.

A great desire is associated with the opportunity to set a promotion record. No one in history has ever made so many title defenses in one calendar year. The entire promotion of the fight was based on expectations of a brilliant victory for the Georgian. He was very confident in his own superiority over all the fighters in the bantamweight category.

— Yes, I want to focus on performing in my division. I don’t want to jump back and forth between weights. I intend to completely clear the division. If the UFC wants me to change weight classes, we’ll talk about it later. Right now I’m focused on Petr Jan. I know that he wants to defeat me, but my task is to prevent this,” Dvalishvili said at a press conference.

But the Russian urged not to write him off, because in the first fight he provided worthy competition to his opponent. Moreover, Ian entered the fight having health problems.

— In the first fight I was injured. Now you will see me in better shape. I just feel great. Yes, I’ll try to knock him out,” the Russian said at a press conference before the fight.

Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili / Photo: © Jeff Bottari / Contributor / UFC / Gettyimages.ru

“This is my life”

At first the fighters were very careful. For 30 seconds, the audience did not see a single blow. Dvalishvili was the first to join in. He quickly found a convenient distance for strikes and looked much more dangerous. Peter responded with rare jabs.

The Russian came to his senses closer to the end of the starting segment. A powerful two to the head forced the Georgian with a broken nose to immediately fight. Merab took his opponent’s back in a standing position, but it was not possible to gain much advantage from this.

At the beginning of the second round, Dvalishvili did not come up with a new idea, immediately rushing to fight, but Peter coped with it brilliantly, not allowing his opponent to drop himself. In the middle of the round, after a short period of standing, something incredible happened. Yan knocked down the UFC takedown king.

By the end of the segment, the champion’s nose had turned into a bloody mess. During the one-minute break, the bleeding could not be stopped. At the beginning of the third round, Peter also literally stuck the Georgian’s head into the floor with a spectacular throw. Merab responded with a series of takedowns. In the end, Yang was noticeably hit in the liver.

In the fourth round, the advantage of the Russian fighter was the most noticeable since the start of the fight. Dvalishvili’s wrestling simply stopped working. The vaunted cardio simply evaporated. But the blood did not evaporate from the Georgian’s face. With each precise blow it only became larger. At the end of the five-minute period, Yan delivered another precise blow to the body, forcing his opponent to grab his liver.

Peter also got involved in the decisive period. He was no longer so active, but Dvalishvili did not look any better against his background, as he had in previous title defenses. After the siren, Merab first ran outside the cage to suck up to UFC boss Dana White in the hope of saving the belt. But there was something to save. The Georgians were able to carry out a measly two takedowns in 25 minutes. But this did not save Dvalishvili from defeat. All three judges awarded the victory to Yan – 49-46, 49-46, 48-47.

“I’m very happy to stand here with the champion belt.” Thank you very much to all the fans. I prepared and worked for a very long time. This is my life. “I want to give credit to their team, I fought Sterling twice and Merab twice, they have a strong team,” Yang said after the victory.

Peter Yan created real history. There have never been fighters in Russia who have regained the UFC championship title after a defeat.

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