After defeating Urijah Faber by KO at UFC 245 on Saturday night, Petr Yan found himself confronted by another Team Alpha Male product Cody Garbrandt, but it seems that despite the tension between them it seems the Russian ace isn’t interested in fighting the former bantamweight champion next.
“Cody wrote, ‘Get this MFer,’ on Dana White’s Instagram page, I jokingly replied, ‘You are next, No Chin,’ and he tried to act tough and crossed the line by commenting that he will see me tomorrow and smack me like a little ho,” Yan recalled in an interview on the Eurobash podcast. “You all saw what happened when he saw me face to face: he was hiding his hands behind his back, acting all emotional and didn’t back up his words proving that he is all talk. He is a puppy – he barks, but doesn’t bite.”
Yan went on to state that while Garbrandt may have held the title in the past, he’s no longer high enough up the pecking order for him to be paying much attention to at this moment in time.
“It would just be a matter of time before I can catch him and after that you will see another fall of the man with no chin. Now I understand that he talks big just to stay relevant. He is trying to attach his name to mine because I just won the fight and I’m on the rise. He needs to win a fight first before calling me out.”
Instead, Yan feels that his current six-fight winning streak should earn him a title shot.
“To be honest, at this stage of my career, I’m not interested in this fight at all. I believe I deserve to fight for the title and will talk to UFC about that first. After that we can plan and see what fights will make sense. In the future it’s still possible, I would love to show you Russian boxing style.”
However, it seems that the UFC may be interested in the possibility of current champion Henry Cejudo fighting Jose Aldo next, which is a somewhat curious choice given that he lost on Saturday night, albeit controversially, in his bantamweight debut, but if that does materialize then it remains to be seen what the promotion will decide to do next with Yan.
