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#4. Aljamain Sterling wasn’t doing too badly in their first fight
Aljamain Sterling’s first fight with Petr Yan last March has largely become one of those fights that is very much falsely remembered in the eyes of the fans.
If you ask most UFC fans, they’d probably tell you that Yan was thoroughly dominating the fight before he was disqualified for hitting Sterling with an illegal knee. However, that wasn’t exactly the case.
Sure, Yan was ahead on the scorecards at the time of his disqualification, but the fight wasn’t a shutout by any means. In fact, many observers gave ‘Funk Master’ the second round of the bout and some even gave him the first despite a semi-knockdown from Yan largely undoing Sterling’s early work.
So while Sterling’s gameplan of using unpredictable movement to set up his wild kicks clearly wasn’t flawless – he never had Yan in trouble standing, nor was he able to secure a takedown – it definitely didn’t get him into the same kind of trouble that the likes of Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber had with ‘No Mercy’.
Therefore, it isn’t like Sterling will need to make massive adjustments if he wants to win this time around. If anything, he’ll probably just need to commit to his striking a little more, putting himself in slightly more danger in order to secure a takedown. If he can do that, then this is a winnable bout for sure.
#3. We still don’t really know much about Petr Yan’s ground skills
Petr Yan has now been with the UFC since the summer of 2018. Over that time, ‘No Mercy’ has definitely established himself as a fighter to fear. He’s beaten the likes of John Dodson, Urijah Faber, Jose Aldo and Cory Sandhagen, and has four octagon stoppages to his name.
However, there is still one big question mark around ‘No Mercy’ and that question mark centres on his ground game. How good is the Russian on the mat? Simply put, we just don’t know.
Obviously, part of this has to do with his fantastic takedown defense. Yan has defended 89% of the takedowns thrown at him in the UFC and has usually been able to spring right back up to his feet when he has been grounded.
However, it’s arguable that against Aljamain Sterling, he’ll be facing the bantamweight division’s most dangerous grappler. ‘Funk Master’ is not only a great wrestler, but he’s also brilliant at controlling an opponent on the ground and is dangerous with submissions.
Cory Sandhagen, for instance, was thoroughly dummied by Sterling on the mat in their 2020 clash, succumbing to a rear-naked choke in the first round.
With that considered, while Sterling did struggle to get Yan down in their first fight, if he can adjust and ground him this time around, then it wouldn’t be a shock to see him dominate the Russian there, leading to a win, maybe by submission.
