Petr Yan has a new cornerman for his third fight with Merab Dvalishvili, and the kid got the job by asking.
Yan confirmed his son will be Octagonside when the two bantamweights run it back again at UFC 333 on Saturday, Oct. 24. The quote came from a UFC clip that MMA account @DovySimuMMA posted on X.
“He wanted to do it. Who am I to say no? The kid is growing up and plays sports. I think it’ll be good energy for him,” Yan said.
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That’s about as straight an answer as you’ll get on fight week. No mystery, no emoji riddle. The boy wanted in, and Dad said yes.
It’s also apparently not the first time the son has had something to say this week. In another clip shared by the same account, Yan said, “My son told me ‘brother wtf’.” The clip doesn’t explain what prompted it.
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The stakes are about as high as the division goes. Yan (20-5) is the current and two-time UFC bantamweight champion and sits No. 4 in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings as of Sept. 22. He also held the interim belt once, which is the kind of trivia nobody puts on a poster. The Russian came up as a Master of Sport in boxing before he ever stepped into a cage. He won his first MMA fight by third-round knockout in December 2014.
Dvalishvili (21-5) is the former champion and the first Georgian-born titleholder in UFC history. He’s No. 9 pound-for-pound. Yan was one of the former champions he beat during a 14-fight win streak, the fourth longest in UFC history. He also holds the UFC record for successful takedowns with 119, so whoever’s in Yan’s corner is going to spend a lot of time yelling about getting back to his feet. Both men last fought on Dec. 6, 2025.
Fight week has been loose so far. A kid at a fan meet and greet challenged Yan to wrestle, and Yan’s reply was “you want?” Dvalishvili, meanwhile, got bitten by a horse he was petting and took it well, joking that it only got him a little and that he must be delicious, according to a clip posted by Championship Rounds.
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The bout is part of UFC 333, headlined by Alexander Volkanovski vs. Movsar Evloev. Yan’s son will have the best seat in the building for a trilogy fight. Most kids just get a hot dog.
