Yan was counted out by many after a dramatic losing skid, but he silenced those doubters after regaining his bantamweight title last December
Oct 23, 2026 at 3:00 pm ET • 5 min read
Somewhat lost in the pageantry and historical relevance of Saturday's UFC bantamweight title trilogy in Abu Dhabi is the fact that two-time champion Petr Yan is in the midst of one of the greatest comeback arcs in recent memory.
Yan (20-5), who regained the title from Merab Dvalishvili (21-5) last December in their rematch via upset decision, will be the betting favorite when the two meet for a third time in the co-main event of UFC 333 inside Etihad Arena. And the current standing of the pound-for-pound ranked native of Russia is a far cry from where the 33-year-old Yan was just a few years ago.
In 2020, Yan was on top of the MMA world after stopping Brazilian legend Jose Aldo in the fifth round of their vacant 135-pound title bout. With a 15-1 record, a well-rounded game and an intimidating mean streak, Yan looked like the long-term future of the division.
All of that would drastically change, of course, in his next fight when poor decision making led to him losing his title to Aljamain Sterling via disqualification for an illegal knee to a downed opponent in a fight he was winning.
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Even though Yan responded by outpointing Cory Sandhagen just seven months later to claim the interim title at UFC 267, few could've predicted the immediate three-fight losing skid that followed, as just about everyone declared Yan as no longer being an elite threat.
Merab Dvalishvili looks to make history in trilogy bout with Petr Yan at UFC 333: 'Age is just a number'
Brian Campbell
The only one who didn't count Yan out, apparently, was the fighter himself. And beginning in 2024, he set course on a four-fight win streak that now has him back and seemingly better than ever.
"It's just something that you want to say to all of the people in the world, anybody who doubts themselves or anyone who says maybe I can't accomplish it or maybe I can't achieve it anymore," Yan told CBS Sports on Tuesday, through an interpreter. "It's not to doubt yourself but to keep doing what they do and keep moving forward and keep believing in themselves."
Not all losing streaks are the same, and in hindsight, Yan's falloff was just as much about stubbornness and disputed decisions against elite opponents as anything else.
Yan began his losing skid with consecutive split decisions against Sterling (in their title rematch) and future champion Sean O'Malley. And the third straight defeat, against Dvalishvili in their first meeting in 2023, was a fight in which Yan was severely hampered by a pre-existing broken right hand.
"If you go back, my manager wanted to take me off the fight. He wanted to say no but I said, 'Absolutely not. We are going forward with it,'" Yan said. "If you look at the five rounds of the fight, I think I threw my right hand maybe twice. It was basically a non-working hand that I came out there with. This was something that we carried on through and something that we overcame. You saw the difference in the second fight and now is the time to put a big, fat exclamation point on this thing."
In the first fight, Yan was taken down 11 times as Dvalishvili, who was in the midst of an incredible 14-fight win streak that would see him become champion, set a UFC record with 49 takedowns attempted. But everything changed two years later when a healthy Yan quickly reset the terms of their rematch at UFC 323.
Not only did Yan get up quickly from the only two takedowns secured by Dvalishvili, he was able to use his own offensive wrestling to take "The Machine" down five times, which is the highest amount surrendered by Dvalishvili in 17 UFC bouts. And after neutralizing the two most dangerous weapons in Dvalishvili's game – his cardio and his wrestling – Yan began to take it to him on the feet and had his opponent badly hurt in Round 3 thanks to a pair of liver kicks.
"Obviously, [Dvalishvili] had that huge winning streak, but I think that everyone is beatable," Yan said. "He was basically a tanker truck before and I brought him back to being human."
The one thing Yan doesn't hold on to is regret as he enters a fight in which the winner would have a strong claim for consideration as the best and most accomplished bantamweight in UFC history. Asked whether he would go back and change the result of the Sterling disqualification loss in 2020 if he could, Yan leaned upon the wisdom he has acquired throughout this journey.
"I think it was important to me to go through all of those trials and tribulations and all of that hard time," Yan said. "There's a proverb that we have, or a saying, where we can't change our past, but we can dictate how our future is going to go."
Yan will also get support on Saturday from an unlikely place in the form of his oldest child, his 10-year-old son Daniil, an aspiring martial artist himself, who will serve as a cornerman for the first time.
Daniil first became known to UFC fans in 2024 when, after Yan defeated Deiveson Figueiredo in Macau, his son spoke during the postfight interview of how proud he was of his father, who had won his second straight fight following the losing skid. A smiling Daniil also interjected himself into his father's interview with CBS Sports this week, making sure to let it be known that he's predicting a knockout of Dvalishvili.
"[My sons] are young sportsmen themselves right now," Yan said. "The oldest one is 10, and the youngest one is six. They are doing MMA and working on stuff. I think for a few years now, they have been watching my fights, so they fully understand what I do. They understand what this is all about and I think it's a great example I can set for them going forward."
Interestingly enough, Yan echoed his son's prediction of a finish on Saturday and said he will do so by knockout.
"I miss my vocation, I miss the fighting. I want to come out and put on a beautiful show," Yan said. "I want to show a master class of MMA on Saturday. I'm going to smash him."
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