UFC bantamweight champion Petr Yan has revealed that he’s recovering after recently undergoing back surgery.

“Don’t lose me. I’m in rehab for a few months,” Yan said in Russian on an Instagram story video.

The 32-year-old Yan underwent lumbar surgery on Monday, which required him to spend nine hours under anesthesia.

As a general rule after surgery like this it takes around 4-6 weeks before the patient can start to undergo light activities again.

For now though Yan isn’t putting too firm off a timeline on when he’ll be back on track, simply stating that he expects his condition to improve in, “a few months.”

Yan only won the 135lb title back in early December of last year by avenging a previous loss to reigning champion Merab Dvalishvili.

It was an impressive performance in which Yan largely dominated Dvalishvili and was able to shut down his notorious wrestling game, and has propelled ‘No Mercy’ up to No.6 in the UFC pound-for-pound rankings.

This isn’t Yan’s first reign as champion as he also held the belt back in 2020 after beating Jose Aldo.

He then lost the title in his next fight against Aljamain Sterling after being disqualified for an illegal knee, and though he did win the interim belt next time out against Cory Sandhagen, a split-decision loss in his rematch with Sterling proved to be a big setback.

Yan would end up losing three fights in a row, but has since rebounded and is currently on a four-fight winning streak.

With Yan out for the time being, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with the other top contenders, as Dvalishvili had been hoping for an immediate trilogy fight, while the likes of Umar Nurmagomedov and Sean O’Malley are also eager to get back into the title reckoning.