post-fight press conference<\/a>. \u201cWith rematches, as I said before, I do better. It\u2019s like I\u2019m more intelligent in rematches. And, of course, this [belt] is the motivation.\u201d<\/p>\nHeading into the bout, Dvalishvili had already amassed three title defenses and had many calling him the greatest bantamweight of all time. As such, most expect \u201cThe Machine\u201d is likely to get an immediate rematch, but Yan isn\u2019t commited to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Merab should really just get into the Jacuzzi, think about it, and then we\u2019ll see,\u201d Yan said when asked about a trilogy fight.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 You saw the fight of Merab vs. Umar [Nurmagomedov]. You saw the way that fight went. So, who\u2019s more dangerous? They can rematch, and then we can see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
While there certainly is some tension between Yan and Dvalishvili that likely plays a role in Yan\u2019s position, there\u2019s also the matter of Yan\u2019s experience. After losing the title to Dvalishvili\u2019s teammate Aljamain Sterling via disqualification, Yan then lost the rematch with Sterling and a decision to Sean O\u2019Malley. After that, Yan had to win three in a row to get back in line for a title shot, and he seems to have an issue with the long road back to the belt.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnderstand the fact that for me to get the opportunity to fight for the belt again, the UFC made me go three more fights before I was able to get to the contender position again,\u201d Yan said.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, though, it seems Yan is prepared to defend his title against whoever the UFC puts in front of him, and adopted one of the catchphrases of his fellow Russian champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov, to show his intentions as a champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care. I flew 30 hours to get here,\u201d Yan said. \u201cI don\u2019t care. Put me in Alaska, anywhere. Twelve-hour time difference, completely different climates, continents, just tell me where, that\u2019s it. Give me location.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Petr Yan is relishing his new title after UFC 323. On Saturday, Yan authored one of the best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-332108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}