Bantamweight champion Petr Yan is set to return to action at UFC 333 against Merab Dvalishvili in a third fight to break their 1-1 tie. If Yan wins, he’s got a lot of options for his future, and one of them could be moving up to 145 pounds.
In a recent interview with Full Violence, Yan was asked about the possibility of accepting a challenge against current flyweight champion Joshua Van.
“If someone is going to move up and challenge me, that’s maybe a question for them, not for me,” Yan replied. “But
personally, for myself, moving up, it sounds interesting too. Somewhere in the future, yeah.”
None of that will happen so long as Alexander Volkanovski is holding the featherweight belt. Yan and Volkanovski often train together when Volk is in Thailand, an arrangement that carries back over six years.
“145 champ is my friend Alex [Volkanovski],” Yan continued. “So I don’t want to beat him up.”
Volkanovski is actually competing above Yan vs. Dvalishvili in the main event of UFC 333, and he’ll be taking on young contender Movsar Evloev in what many consider the toughest test of his current 145 pound reign. And while Petr Yan and Movsar Evloev share Russian nationality, “No Mercy” is giving Volkanovski the edge on this one.
“To beat Volkanovski, Movsar will need to either submit him or knock him out,” Yan told UFC Eurasia. “Just those two ways. Volkanovski is good on the feet, he also has good defensive wrestling. What he actually proved in his first fight with Islam, he showed that it’s not easy to control him on the ground.”
“It’s an interesting matchup,” Yan added. “55/45 in favor of Volkanovski. Movsar is younger and more motivated, but he still has to beat today’s version of Volkanovski.”
The UFC 333 double-championship goes down from Abu Dhabi on October 24th.
