Petr Yan’s performance at UFC 323 was nothing short of astounding, the kind of victory that will live on in the annals of combat sports history. It was a technical tour de force, a stunning upset, and the culmination of a Cinderella story all wrapped into one. It’s difficult to convey the magnitude of his title win over Merab “The Machine” Dvalishvili without slipping into cliché, because at its core, it really is a piece of storybook.
Of course, this isn’t their first meeting. Yan and Dvalishvili crossed paths nearly three years ago, back in March of 2023. At the time, Yan was the No. 2–ranked bantamweight, with Merab sitting just behind him at No. 3.
Merab came into the fight riding an eight-fight winning streak, having already put together an overwhelming case for a title shot. The beloved Yan, on the other hand, was in free fall. Just a couple of years earlier, he had been champion. That run ended when he threw a late-round illegal knee against Aljamain Sterling in his first title defense, a boneheaded mistake that cost him the fight by disqualification. He failed to reclaim the belt in the rematch, then skidded to two straight losses after landing on the wrong side of a controversial decision against Sean O’Malley.
Looking to get back in the win column, the Russian fighter entered as a slight favorite against Merab. But Merab had other plans. He dominated Yan, sweeping all five rounds on the judges’ scorecards. In a sense, this was the first true loss of Yan’s career. He had lost razor-close fights to Sterling and O’Malley, but those results were controversial. There was to be no dispute this time around. Yan was outmatched and embarrassed in every respect of the game.
On their collision course to meet again at UFC 323, their paths looked drastically different. Yan rebounded with an unassuming three-fight win streak over mid-level contenders Deiveson Figueiredo, Song Yadong, and Marcus McGhee, slowly chipping his way up the rankings and back to relevance. In that same span, Merab not only claimed the world title but defended it three times in a single year, making light work of some of the most skilled bantamweights in the sport—Sean O’Malley, Umar Nurmagomedov, and Cory Sandhagen—each in more dominant fashion than the last.
Fans and media pundits alike were ready to anoint Merab as one of the UFC’s all-time greats, and with good reason. He was an indomitable force. Merab was not so technically gifted, but rather, he possessed a baffling gas tank, an almost freakish attribute that allowed him to drag opponents into deep waters and drown them across five rounds. Barring a fluky K.O., the keys to beating Merab seemed nonexistent, and it was uncertain whether he would ever meet his match.
His fourth defense of 2025—a rematch with Petr Yan—was seen as a foregone conclusion. Their first fight was particularly one-sided, even by Merab’s standards, and since then he had practically tripled in stature. But Merab was eager to claim another victory in his conquest of the bantamweight division, and the UFC was more than willing to serve Yan up.
Vegas marked Yan as a +375 underdog for UFC 323—steep odds indeed—but even that undersold just how counted out he was. You would have been hard-pressed to find a single analyst who gave Yan a credible chance at victory. Hope waned for Yan’s return to glory; it was to be another effortless 25-minute disposal by Merab, signed, sealed, and delivered.
In one of the greatest performances in UFC history, Petr Yan walked down Merab Dvalishvili, completely and utterly breaking down “The Machine.” From horn to horn, Yan pieced Merab up with crisp jabs at range, cutting up his face and mounting momentum early in the bout. More importantly, Yan stuffed nearly each and every one of Merab’s relentless takedown attempts—a task that had overwhelmed so many great fighters before him, including Yan himself—holding Merab to just 2-for-29. Yan not only held firm on defense but flipped the script, dragging Merab down on multiple occasions and, in one highlight sequence, slamming him square on his head. The judges ultimately scored it four rounds to one, but the large majority of media scorecards—my own included—had it a clean sweep.
At last, Petr Yan is world champion once again. Now, at 32 years old, he makes his case to be remembered as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
