The crown went on Petr Yan’s head about as fast as the referee pulled him off Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 333. Within days, the win had become a referendum on history, and the people who had actually held that belt started asking for receipts.
Aljamain Sterling, a former bantamweight champion, pushed back on the idea that Yan is now the greatest bantamweight ever, according to a Sportskeeda report. The question he put to the room was blunt: “What do you consider GOAT?” It’s a fair thing to ask, and I think the answer most people are giving right now is the wrong one.
The case for slowing down
Henry Cejudo made the argument with numbers on the Pound 4 Pound show, in a clip shared on X. “Petr Yan just defeated Merab, and now everybody’s saying that with 1 title defense, he’s the greatest bantamweight of all time,” Cejudo said. He then ran down the list of men he thinks have a stronger claim: Dominick Cruz, Sterling, and, with a familiar dig at TJ Dillashaw, “TJ Epo Shaw.” His verdict was short. “I think that’s, that’s too premature.”
View post on X
The detail in Cejudo’s argument that should stop people cold is the one he tossed off in passing. He described Sterling as the man “who beat him twice.” Whatever you think of how those fights played out, a GOAT case that has to step around two losses to a contemporary in the same division is a case with a hole in it. You can explain losses. You can’t erase them from a resume, and resumes are the whole argument here.
I’ll grant the obvious objection, which is that Sterling has a stake in this. Of course the guy whose name sits on Yan’s record would like the record read in full. That doesn’t make him wrong. It makes him the person best qualified to point at the part everyone is skipping.
Skill is a different conversation
The GOAT talk is coming from somewhere real. Yan looked brilliant against Dvalishvili, and even Sean O’Malley, who wants a crack at him, sounded moved by the fight. O’Malley told Ariel Helwani he felt honored to watch it, framing the bout as a contest for the all-time title as much as the belt. On pure technique, he said, “Petr Yan’s up there. He’s that guy.” In the same breath he gave Dvalishvili credit for something harder to film, the habit of grinding out wins when the fight gets ugly.
View post on X
That split is exactly where the GOAT debate goes sideways. People watch Yan’s footwork and his shot selection and his patience in the pocket, and they conflate the best fighter to watch with the most accomplished one. Those are two separate lists. Yan may already top the first. The second gets built one defense at a time, and Cejudo’s point is that Yan has made one.
Cruz, Sterling and the others on Cejudo’s list earned their places by turning back challengers again and again, through styles that didn’t suit them and nights when they weren’t sharp. One huge win over a great champion is a spectacular entry on a resume. A single entry, however spectacular, doesn’t make it a resume.
The fix is on the calendar
The good news for Yan is that the argument settles itself if he keeps winning, and the line of contenders is already forming. O’Malley told Helwani that Daniel Cormier reached out on Instagram after leaving his name off the list of possible next opponents during the post-fight interview, and that the two ended up having a cordial talk in which Cormier said O’Malley deserves the shot. O’Malley also mentioned a contender named Song as someone others might consider deserving.
O’Malley’s pitch is about size. He said he doesn’t think Yan is scared of him or will duck him, but believes the matchup looks different from Yan’s recent fights. He pointed out that he isn’t 5-foot-5 like Song or Merab, and that he stands 6-foot-3. “I’m a big guy,” he said. He described their previous meeting as “a close fight, it was a tough fight.”
View post on X
That’s the kind of fight that builds a GOAT case properly. A rematch with an opponent who has already taken him to the edge, then another defense after that, then maybe another. Stack those on top of the Dvalishvili win and nobody will need to ask Sterling’s question anymore.
Until then, Sterling and Cejudo are right, and I’d rather the sport wait for the evidence than crown a man off one great night. Yan himself seemed in no hurry to campaign for the title. Two days after the fight, he was on social media sharing a photo of himself with Volk.
