Petr Yan has featherweight on his mind, just not the guy holding the belt there.
The Russian bantamweight said on Instagram this week that he’s interested in moving up to 145 at some point in the future. Then he immediately took the obvious money fight off the table. Yan said the featherweight champ, Alexander Volkanovski, is his friend and that he doesn’t want to beat him up. That line made its way from his Instagram to r/MMA and LowKickMMA within hours on Oct. 7.
So the dream of Yan walking up a division to hunt the champ is shelved. Yan didn’t name an alternate target at featherweight or put a date on any move. He floated the weight class and closed the door on the one name that would’ve sold it.
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And honestly, the timing tells you why it’s a someday thing. Yan has plenty on his plate at 135. He meets Merab Dvalishvili in a bantamweight championship trilogy at UFC 333 on Oct. 24 in Abu Dhabi, and the division is already lining up behind that result.
Sean O’Malley made sure of that. Speaking on The SuGuru Show, O’Malley said a Yan win means a rematch makes sense for him, since he holds a split decision over Yan. Dvalishvili, on the other hand, has beaten O’Malley twice, which O’Malley admits makes a fourth crack at Merab unlikely. That’s where Payton Talbott comes in. Talbott knocked out Deiveson Figueiredo at UFC 332 and called out O’Malley afterward, and O’Malley said he’s happy to fight him if Merab wins. If Yan wins, O’Malley joked, he’ll duck Talbott and take the Yan fight instead.
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“Why would I fight this f*cking tall, lanky, good striker, when I can fight Petr Yan?” O’Malley said.
O’Malley also shared voice messages between him and Yan on Instagram, and they’re the most wholesome trash talk you’ll hear all month. “Hope you beat Merab so I can beat your ass again,” O’Malley told him. Yan answered that he’s coming to Abu Dhabi, promised “I smash Merab,” and told O’Malley he’s next.
So the picture is pretty clean. Yan has a title fight in 17 days, O’Malley is waiting on the winner or on Talbott, and featherweight sits somewhere further down Yan’s calendar without a dance partner.
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My take: I respect the friendship, and I’m not going to call a guy a ducker for refusing to fight a buddy in a division he doesn’t even compete in yet. That’s the opposite of ducking, since nobody offered it. But I’ve been around long enough to know the friendship clause has a shelf life, and it usually expires right around the moment a promoter slides a big number across the table. If Yan smashes Merab like he promised O’Malley, he’s got a hot rematch at 135 and zero reason to think about 145 for a while. If he loses, watch how fast featherweight stops being a someday conversation. Abu Dhabi on Oct. 24 decides which version of Petr Yan we’re talking about.
