Petr Yan earns praise from Matt Brown, Dominick Cruz and Diego Lopes after defeating Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 333 and calling out Song Yadong.<\/p>\n
Petr Yan\u2019s performance<\/a> against Merab Dvalishvili <\/a>at UFC 333 <\/a>has earned widespread praise from fellow fighters, with several stars celebrating the bantamweight champion\u2019s victory and the quality of their trilogy. After five competitive rounds in Abu Dhabi, Yan retained his title by unanimous decision and immediately turned his attention toward potential challengers, declaring, \u201cGive me Song Yadong, give me King Kong! Give me anybody!\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Brown, Dominick Cruz and Diego Lopes React<\/p>\n Former UFC welterweight Matt Brown captured the excitement surrounding the contest with his reaction: \u201cCan we just watch Yan and Merab fight once a month??\u201d<\/p>\n Recommended Stories<\/p>\n Former bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz also praised both men, writing, \u201cTop class performance from both the champions Yan and Merab.\u201d Meanwhile, featherweight contender Diego Lopes offered a shorter but equally enthusiastic response: \u201cWhat a great fight! \ud83d\udd25\u201d<\/p>\n Former UFC welterweight Matt Brown captured the excitement surrounding the contest with his reaction: \u201cCan we just watch Yan and Merab fight once a month??\u201d<\/p>\n Former bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz also praised both men, writing, \u201cTop class performance from both the champions Yan and Merab.\u201d Meanwhile, featherweight contender Diego Lopes offered a shorter but equally enthusiastic response: \u201cWhat a great fight! \ud83d\udd25\u201d <\/p>\n Belal Muhammad also weighed in, joking, \u201cAt some point I gotta see Van vs Yan,\u201d suggesting a potential matchup between bantamweight champion Yan and flyweight champion Joshua Van. Rising contender Payton Talbott added his own reaction with a brief \u201calright then\u201d post.\u00a0<\/p>\n Not everyone agreed on the decision. Former UFC fighter Jessica Penne wrote, \u201cI\u2019m not a judge. But I had Merab winning. Regardless, it was an incredible fight!\u201d The judges, however, unanimously scored the contest 48\u201347 for Yan.<\/p>\n Yan Takes the Lead in Rivalry With Dvalishvili<\/p>\n Yan’s latest victory puts him ahead 2\u20131 in his ongoing rivalry with Dvalishvili. Their first clash took place in March 2023, when Dvalishvili came out on top, but Yan claimed the rematch in December 2025, successfully defending his title in the process.<\/p>\n Across their three five-round encounters, the two fighters spent a combined 75 minutes battling it out inside the Octagon over their three five-round bouts. Yan’s knack for withstanding Dvalishvili’s relentless wrestling while delivering sharp, precise strikes was key to his success in their most recent fight.<\/p>\n Now, with names like Song Yadong on his radar, Yan has made it clear he’s eager for his next challenge. It’ll be interesting to see if the UFC decides to set up that matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Petr Yan earns praise from Matt Brown, Dominick Cruz and Diego Lopes after defeating Merab Dvalishvili at UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[155615,49,48,641,21903,638,18235,141661,82,640,317919],"class_list":["post-946484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-bantamweight","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-merab-dvalishvili","tag-mma","tag-petr-yan","tag-song-yadong","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-333-volkanovski-vs-evloev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946484","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=946484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}