Rivalries: Petr Yan

Once the toast of the weight class, Petr Yan has drifted into a state of purgatory in perhaps the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s deepest division.

The former bantamweight titleholder will look to pick up some momentum when he takes on Deiveson Figueiredo in the UFC Fight Night 248 main event on Saturday at Galaxy Arena in Macau, China. Yan has lost three of past four bouts. The 31-year-old Russian last saw action at UFC 299, where he outstruck Yadong Song to a unanimous decision on March 9 and stopped the bleeding from a three-fight losing streak.

As Yan approaches his high-stakes showdown with Figueiredo in the UFC Macau headliner, a look at a few of the rivalries that have helped shape his career to this point:

Magomed Magomedov

Yan exacted a measure of revenge and captured the Absolute Championship Berkut bantamweight title when he outpointed his countryman to a unanimous decision in their ACB 57 main event on April 15, 2017 at the Luzhniki Palace of Sports in Moscow. All three cageside judges scored it 48-47. Yan—who had dropped a contentious split verdict to Magomedov a little more than a year earlier—applied consistent pressure from the center of the cage and called upon clean punching combinations, a healthy amount of dirty boxing in the clinch and bulletproof takedown defense. Magomedov had his moments, a deep fourth-round guillotine choke chief among them, but never fully turned the corner. The supremely conditioned Yan extricated himself from danger, got back to business and maintained a steady pace down the stretch in a performance that served as a springboard to stardom.

Jose Aldo

The relentless Yan waded through a decent amount of adversity, buried the Brazilian icon with an avalanche of fifth-round ground-and-pound and laid claim to the undisputed Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight title in their UFC 251 co-feature on July 11, 2020 at the Flash Forum in Abi Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The curtain fell 3:24 into Round 5. Aldo was effective at the start, as he focused on the Russian’s body with hooks from both hands and attacked his legs with repeated kicks. However, his pace slowed midway through the match. After a lopsided fourth round, Yan set his sights on a finish in the fifth. An uppercut prompted Aldo to retreat to the mat, where he was met with a sustained burst of strikes. Elbows, punches and hammerfists flowed from Yan and ultimately forced the stoppage.

Aljamain Sterling

The Serra-Longo Fight Team star was awarded the bantamweight crown in a most unexpected manner when Yan was disqualified after landing what was deemed to be an intentional illegal knee strike in the fourth round of their UFC 259 attraction on March 6, 2021 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The stoppage was called 4:29 into Round 4. Yan appeared to have all the advantages once the fight reached the championship rounds. Sterling pushed a frantic pace for the first 15 minutes. He threw every strike in his arsenal at the unshakable Russian—to the point that his typically smooth movements became visibly labored due to fatigue. Yan’s airtight defense only heightened the sense of urgency in his counterpart’s corner. Sterling whiffed on another takedown late in the fourth round, as the champion employed an effective sprawl. With one of the challenger’s knees still clearly on the mat, Yan fired the fight-ending strike to the side of the head. The impact was devastating, and it left Sterling in a compromised state and in no position to move forward. The loss was Yan’s first in nearly five years. They met again 13 months later and Sterling once again emerged victorious, this time by split decision at UFC 273.

Sean O'Malley

Straight punching combinations and a late surge spurred the MMA Lab export to a split decision over Yan in a three-round UFC 280 bantamweight showcase on Oct. 22, 2022 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. All three cageside judges scored it 29-28: Vito Paolillo for Yan, David Lethaby and Ben Cartlidge for O’Malley. Yan marched down the Dana White’s Contender Series graduate with his educated hands, mixed in takedowns and amassed nearly six minutes of control time. Both men were hurt in the second round, where they traded crushing left hands in the center of the cage. Yan appeared to do more damage, but his inability to procure a stoppage proved costly. O’Malley delivered the most impactful strike of the match in the third round, where he sent a knee crashing into the Russian’s face and opened a horizontal gash across the entire length of his right eyebrow. Yan, his DNA coloring the canvas red, managed to secure two takedowns in the waning moments of the match, but those efforts were not enough to curry the necessary favor on the scorecards.