After KO’ing Urijah Faber in the final UFC PPV of the year to take his UFC winning streak to six fights, Petr Yan felt he’d done enough to earn a bantamweight title fight, but he’s been left dismayed with the direction the titleholder and UFC brass appear to be heading in instead.
Since the event, current champion Henry Cejudo has been calling out Jose Aldo, who actually lost his bantamweight debut on the same show against Marlon Moraes, albeit by a controversial split decision verdict.
“I don’t respect Cejudo at all,” Yan told MMAFighting.com. “His decision to ask for Aldo is not worthy of a champion. You want to fight someone who’s on a losing streak and not at the peak of his career. You are the champion, and you have to defend your title against the deserving No. 1 contender; you shouldn’t call out someone who just lost. Cejudo is a joke and just showed his true colors.”
“You all can see that ‘Triple Clown’ is trying to avoid the fight with me. He’s even afraid to mention my name. All I see is his mental weakness now. Let’s do it if you consider yourself a champion – try to prove that I’m wrong.”
Yan, who is currently ranked No.3 in the division, also made it clear that he’s not going to be best pleased with the UFC either if they go ahead with that fight and feels it would be damaging to the sport’s credibility.
“If UFC books Cejudo vs. Aldo, I won’t be happy about it, just like millions of real fans around the world. It will be another hit to the sport of MMA…”
Unfortunately for Yan, it may very well be that they do as Dana White seeemed interest in the match-up when speaking to the media after UFC 245.
