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Petr Yan is having such a hard time finding a bantamweight opponent for his next fight that he's calling out flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo.
With the majority of the 135-pound top ten already matched up for bouts over the coming months, Yan has been left the odd man out. 'No Mercy' was champion until an illegal knee against Aljamain Sterling cost him his belt. He dropped a second interim belt to Sterling in their rematch a year later, and now can't find anyone to sign a contract to fight him.
With all these difficulties, he's had to get creative. In a new Twitter post he wrote:
"No one at 135 wants it… Figgy?"
Deiveson Figueiredo is in an interesting spot of his own. The 125-pound champion has an injured hand, which prompted the UFC to create an interim flyweight title fight at UFC 277 between Kai Kara France and Brandon Moreno. That upset Figueiredo so much he said he might move up to bantamweight in response.
If Figueiredo does move up to 135 pounds, a fight with Petr Yan would certainly be a good way to break into immediate title contention. Yan is currently ranked No. 1 at bantamweight, just under champion Aljamain Sterling.
Timewise, the fight makes sense as well. Yan has said he's looking to fight sometime around October, which would give Figueiredo time to recover from his hand injury.
Petr Yan buries Henry Cejudo on social media for ducking him
One of the many fighters Yan called out for a fight was Henry Cejudo. Cejudo recently unretired and re-entered the USADA testing pool with a fall return date in mind. That lined up perfectly with Yan's schedule, but unfortunately 'Triple C' no longer seems interested in a fight. He wrote:
"Only if you had the gold I would have loved to have buried You should go back to Dagestan and learned more wrestling because you got out-wrestled by Division III All-American. That wouldn’t be smart of you taking an Olympic champ after that lose. I’m after gold, hoe."
That led Petr Yan to reply:
"The truth is you retired the day I became number 1 contender and un-retired on the same day I ceased to be the champion. Now you ducking me again only proving those facts."
Even with his recent split decision loss to Aljamain Sterling at UFC 273, Petr Yan is a scary man. It's not a shock at all that few fighters in the UFC are rushing to sign a contract to fight him.
