UFC Fight Night 221 Beforemath: Will Dvalishvili End Yan’s Title Hopes?

This weekend, Petr Yan returns to the Octagon to face Merab Dvalishvili in a crucial matchup in the talent-laden Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division. Yan is looking to snap Dvalishvili’s eight-fight winning streak. Dvalishvili, on the other hand, will aim to hand Yan his third straight loss. With such a high-level matchup, today’s Beforemath will be a fun one. We are going to break down the path to victory for both Yan and Dvalishvili.

Yan: Back to What He Does Best

Yan has seemingly fallen off a cliff. From looking almost invincible in his rise to going 1-3 in his last four, he has seen better days. The string of losses doesn’t tell the entire truth, though. Yan hasn’t looked bad in those fights. He just lost. He is still very dangerous as a fighter and isn’t past his prime just yet, although at 30 years old that is rapidly approaching.

A fight with Dvalishvili is a winnable one for Yan but also could be a bit of a trap. Dvalishvili’s teammate is Aljamain Sterling and the two are the Wonder-Twins of grappling in the bantamweight division. Yan can be sure that Dvalishvili and Sterling have been working together in this fight extensively. With Yan being so great in the clinch and with the cardio, this fight could be tailor made for a throwback performance, but I worry about Yan’s commitment after his comments calling to be released from the UFC after his loss to Sean O’Malley. Having one foot out the door could spell for disaster for Yan and is something to be considered.

Let’s look at how Yan can win, though. The clinch is one of the best areas of Yan’s game and the relentless pursuit of grappling Dvalishvili brings to a fight can play right into Yan’s offensive skill set.

Against Urijah Faber in 2019, Yan put on a clinic in the clinch to ultimately set up the high kick that would put away Faber. In the first figure, we see (1) Faber and Yan clinching up. Looking at Yan’s left hand, you can see he has wrist control on Faber. This controls the power shot of Faber and allows Yan to move Faber around freely. With the wrist controller, (2) Yan will pull Faber’s hand across his body which opens the lane for a strike on Faber’s right side. With this setup, (3) Yan lands the elbow. Yan can use Dvalishvili’s clinch-happy game and really land some damaging blows to keep the tide in his favor.

Dvalishvili may be the best-equipped fighter to handle Yan’s trademark late-fight surge. Dvalishvili appears to have the gas tank to keep going in a five-round fight, but has actually never gone five full rounds nor been scheduled for that length of fight. Working on the gas tank of Dvalishvili can really drag the Georgian fighter into untested waters where Yan thrives. Yan has fought for full five rounds twice, not to mention his fight with Jose Aldo, where he finished the Brazilian legend late in the fifth.

Yan works the body quite well against almost all his opponents. Hooks and kicks to the body are an integral part of his game. Against Cory Sandhagen, Yan blasted the body and slowed the normally fast paced Sandhagen down to a more manageable pace later in the fight, when Yan does his best work. Against Dvalishvili, this could lead to more of of Yan’s traditional modus operandi where he puts his foot on the gas later and overwhelms his foes.

With Dvalishvili practically refusing to take a step back, Yan will also have the opportunity for some of the cool sweeps he’s fond of. Yan is no stranger to fighting off the back foot, though he prefers forward pressure. He should eventually find himself being the aggressor once his body work and elbows from the clinch start to take their toll, but in the early stages of the fight, Dvalishvili will come forward with reckless abandon. Those beautiful outside leg sweeps from Yan will come in handy and help him slow down the forward onslaught from the Georgian “Machine.”

In the first fight against Sterling, before that fateful knee, Yan was putting on one of the best performances of his career. (1) Like Faber, Sterling wanted to clinch with Yan. Yan doesn’t have wrist control, but Sterling keeps his hand across the body to block any oncoming knees that Yan had been pounding all fight. With his right arm across the chest of Sterling, (2) Yan steps around the right side of Sterling to set up the sweep. (3) To complete the sweep, Yan kicks the leg of Sterling out from under him and pulls Sterling’s head and body towards the kick. This puts Sterling off center and Yan can (4) complete the takedown.

The clinch is one of the best tools in Yan’s toolbox. With Dvalishvili being so clinch-heavy, I expect to see some of Yan’s best work if he can get over his phobia of fighting off the back foot. To do that, he has to punish Dvalishvili and make him hesitant to come forward. If he can get to the clinch on his terms, Dvalishvili could be in for a rude awakening.

This fight is a must win for Yan. Going 1-4 in his last five would be a bad look on someone who looked rather invincible in his early UFC run. If he loses, one fateful knee to a grounded opponent would be seen as what did Yan in as one of the best fighters the bantamweight division has seen; any hopes of another title shot would be years away. At 30 years old, that’s essentially a 20-year prison sentence handed to a 76-year-old. It’s do-or-die come Saturday night.

Dvalishvili: Opportunity of a Lifetime

The chance to fight a former UFC champion is the golden ticket to the top of a division in the matchmaking brass of everyone’s favorite fight company. Dvalishvili is getting a shot to face a highly regarded ex-champ and can catapult himself a step closer to a title shot in a crowded division. But Yan is no walk in the park and Dvalishvili will want to adopt a similar game plan to Sterling in their second fight.

Dvalishvili has all the skills to beat Yan this weekend, but as we’ve seen in the past with Yan, having the skills and having the fight IQ are two different things. Should Dvalishvili go out guns blazing, he can shoot himself in the foot and cost himself the fight. We have seen Dvalishvili tailor his game to his opponent, as he did in his last fight against Aldo. At elevation, Dvalishvili took it slower against the MMA legend and controlled the fight without getting wild.

With Yan being as skilled a striker as anyone in the division, control will be key for Dvalishvili. With Sterling and Dvalishvili being teammates, we can look to Sterling’s adjustment against Yan in the second fight to deduce some clues to how Dvalishvili can approach this matchup. Forcing Yan to work to defend takedowns and pressure against the fence worked well for Sterling. Making Yan work will eat away at the spectacular gas tank of his and cause him to start making poor decision in the standup and allow Dvalishvili get to the clinch and legs of Yan.

Knowing that about Yan, getting to the clinch will be much easier after Merab Dvalishvili has taken him deeper in the waters with his pace. In the rematch with Sterling, we saw a tired Yan get taken down and backpacked for the majority of two rounds. Sterling had a good read on Yan by the third round and we see (1) Sterling read the load up of Yan’s right hand. He will slip to the left side and into the body of Yan to get to the clinch. (2) Now that Petr Yan is overextended on the drawn-out strike from Sterling, Sterling is free to go in and under Yan for a takedown. With the open lane, (3) Aljamain Sterling was able to get to the single leg and eventually the takedown. With Dvalishvili and Sterling being so close (I feel like I’m beating a dead horse), Dvalishvili will likely look for similar opportunities against Yan.

Dvalishvili has some wild punches. He likes to loop around the side and that’s a bad idea against a straight puncher like Yan. He will need to mind these punches and make sure to set them up with level changes and do his own fair share of straight punching. Keeping Yan honest and in front of him will need to happen for Dvalishvili to get through this fight. The overhands aren’t all useless, however. Threatening with the big punches can be useful and a way to set up the takedown for Dvalishvili. One prime example that Dvalishvili uses often is the knee tap.

The knee tap is a bit of misdirection and a bit of actual striking. In our last figure, we see (1) Dvalishvili deep in the commitment of a huge, loaded-up overhand right. But his left hand, if you watch, is the sneaky one and will go at the knee. (2) The right hand “misses” and is in the perfect place for the knee tap. Notice how Dvalishvili snuck his left hand in low and by the knee. This is so effective because Lopez, the opponent in the graphic, is so fixated on the huge right coming his way. (3) Dvalishvili now has his right hand across the body of Lopez and his left hand scooping up the knee. Similar to the way Yan took down Sterling earlier when we discussed his outside leg trip, Dvalishvili will pull Lopez’ head over the elevated leg and (4) secure the takedown.

With Yan’s high guard and proclivity to stay in the pocket to look for offense of his own, Dvalishvili can look for the knee tap in transition from range to the pocket to get on the leg of Yan and to the ground or to even make him work. But he needs to express caution doing this. These wide looping punches are what Yan feasts on and Dvalishvili needs to not rely on them but mask them in the torrent of the rest of his offense.

At the end of the day, there’s a lot at stake for Dvalishvili in Las Vegas this weekend. Unlike Yan, he’s not backed into a corner and has much less pressure on him than his Russian counterpart. A win will line him up with a shot at the title. While how that looks has yet to be determined, Dvalishvili is right on the cusp and a win on Saturday will put him over.