Petr Yan spent the first 10 minutes of Saturday’s trilogy fight in Abu Dhabi looking like a man about to hand back a bantamweight title, then spent the next 15 taking it home. That’s his account, anyway. Yan (21-5 MMA, 13-4 UFC) said afterward that he let Merab Dvalishvili spend energy in Rounds 1 and 2 before taking the last three frames and a unanimous decision at UFC 333. Betting your belt on Dvalishvili (21-4 MMA, 14-4 UFC) running low on gas is a strategy I would not recommend to anyone with a mortgage. It worked, though, and Yan now holds the upper hand in the series along with the gold.
The bigger deal is what the win erased. Yan’s first reign ended at UFC 259 in March 2021 when he lost the belt to Aljamain Sterling by disqualification on his first attempted defense, which still makes him the only fighter in UFC history to drop a title that way. Saturday was the first time Yan walked out of a title defense with the belt still his. Mike Bohn made the point in his Sean Shelby’s Shoes column for MMA Junkie that Yan can finally call himself a defending champion, and Bohn’s pick for what comes next is Sean O’Malley. I’m with him, and I think the case is stronger than even Bohn laid out.
Five rounds changes the O’Malley math
O’Malley (20-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) beat Yan by split decision at UFC 280 in October 2022, a result Bohn fairly calls controversial. I’ll go further and say that fight belongs in the folder of three-round scorecards I’d like to have a word with someone about. Close fights produce split decisions, and that’s fine. A split decision in a fight that half the room scored the other way should produce a rematch, and this one has been sitting on the shelf for four years.
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Here’s the part that interests me as an analyst. The UFC 280 fight was three rounds. By Yan’s own description, his UFC 333 game plan was built around Rounds 3 through 5, which is to say it was built around the championship rounds that didn’t exist the first time he fought O’Malley. A fighter who openly concedes early minutes to own late ones is exactly the guy who should get a five-round crack at the man who beat him over 15. If Yan is right about himself, O’Malley has to deal with a version of Yan he never saw. If Yan is wrong, and that slow start against Dvalishvili was a problem dressed up as a plan, O’Malley gets two rounds of runway against a champion who’s spotting him points. Either way the fight answers a real question about both men, and that’s what a title fight is supposed to do.
Song Yadong’s problem is the scoreboard
Song (24-9-1 MMA, 13-4-1 UFC) has people in his corner, and Bohn acknowledges he’s worthy. I don’t disagree with that word. My issue is the order of operations. Yan beat Song at UFC 299 in March 2024. O’Malley beat Song in January at UFC 324. Song’s path to the belt currently runs through two men who have already had their hands raised over him, and the more recent of those losses came against the guy he’d be leapfrogging.
The Song argument usually leans on the fact that the O’Malley decision was debated, and Bohn notes that too. Fair enough. But you can’t hold that against O’Malley while ignoring that his win over Yan was also a debated decision. Either disputed scorecards count against the winner or they don’t. If you think Song deserved the nod in January, you’re making the same argument Yan’s camp has been making since October 2022, and the only fight that settles both disputes in one night is Yan vs. O’Malley 2. Song gets a clean shot at the winner, and he’d have a much easier time selling it if he went out and beat someone new in between.
There’s also the simple fact that the division has a natural pecking order right now and O’Malley sits at the top of it among the non-champions. He holds a win over the champ and a win over the most credible alternative challenger. Booking around that would require a reason, and I haven’t heard a good one.
Bohn wrote that any other title pairing at 135 would be a disappointment. I’d put it more bluntly. The UFC 280 scorecards have been an argument for four years, Yan just showed us a 25-minute game plan, and O’Malley is the one opponent who can tell us whether that plan is genius or a bad habit. Book it for five rounds and let Song wait one fight.
