Petr Yan is not letting the first Merab Dvalishvili fight sit in the record book without a nasty little asterisk. With the bantamweight rivalry rolling toward another high-stakes meeting, Yan says his flat 2023 showing came with a damaged right hand that left him fighting like the controller had one button missing.
The first meeting was a grinder from hell. Dvalishvili swarmed Yan for five rounds at UFC Fight Night 221, attempted a record-setting 49 takedowns, and walked away with a clean unanimous decision. Yan has lived with that tape for years, but the former champion is now putting more weight on what he says was happening under the hood.
Here is the source clip that started the latest round of Yan-Merab debate:
Petr Yan said he looked bad in the first fight against Merab Dvalishvili because of his hand injury #UFC
“In the first fight I landed 4 punches with my right hand.
I couldn’t push him back, control him, and wrestle him.
📸 Via Tacticmma pic.twitter.com/QKzupQdsST
— The Combat Sport Poll Guy (@PollGuyUFC) August 23, 2026
Of course, I made adjustments after our first fight. In the first fight I landed 4 punches with my right hand in a 5 round fight. Of course, I couldn’t push him back, control him, and wrestle him. I couldn’t use my right hand because of my injury. Merab is a strong athlete, he’s a strong fighter. He proved it with his fights. What did surprise me? I wouldn’t say something surprised me. Because I was ready to fight him. To wrestle with him and strike with him.
Yan Wants The First Fight Reframed Before UFC 333
That is a pretty wild claim when you remember what Dvalishvili did that night. Merab did not just win minutes. He turned the cage into a treadmill, forced Yan to defend over and over, and made one of the division’s sharpest boxers look stuck in mud. If Yan really had one reliable hand, that explains why he could not make Dvalishvili pay on the entries.
It also adds more spice to the third fight. Yan’s side now gets to argue that the first loss came with a broken weapon, while Dvalishvili’s side can point at the scorecards and say pressure is pressure. The matchup was already boiling before this, with Dvalishvili previously sounding confident that a runback with Yan would keep the bantamweight division busy.
Yan enters this stretch with the belt and a chance to make the trilogy feel less like a debate and more like a closing statement. Dvalishvili, meanwhile, gets the cleanest possible rebuttal available in this sport. No injury footnote, no Twitter courtroom, and no waiting game like the one Sean O’Malley discussed before the bantamweight title picture shifted again. Just five more rounds, a locked cage, and a chance to make the other guy eat every word.
