As expected, Petr Yan vs. Cory Sandhagen in a fight to crown the interim bantamweight title was exactly what he was hyped to be.
The two fighters met in a bout on Saturday (October 30, 2021) at the UFC 267 pay-per-view event from Abu Dhabi at the Etihad Arena. Sandhagen looked strong early as he was doing a nice job of mixing up strikes and kicks. At the end of the first round, Sandhagen looked for a single leg takedown, but Yann put a stop to it.
Yan came alive at the end of the second round. Again, Yan stuffed a takedown this round. The third round was wild as Yan dropped him and swarmed him with strikes, but Sandhagen managed to recover and got back to his feet. After stunning him in the fourth round, Sandhagen was taken down, but got right back up. Yan really came on this round as he walked him down. Yan landed a big head kick in the final round. A great fight. In the end, it was Yan winning by unanimous decision.
This was an important contest for both guys as the winner will get the next crack at current bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling, who won the title from Yan by DQ thanks to an illegal knee strike.
Peep the highlights of the fight courtesy of the UFC’s official Twitter account:
Yan won the vacant bantamweight title when he scored a TKO win over Jose Aldo at the UFC 251 pay-per-view event but lost it in his previous fight by DQ to Aljamain Sterling when he hit him with an illegal knee strike at UFC 259. Before that, he had been on 10–fight winning streak with his previous three fights seeing him beat Urijah Faber by KO at the UFC 245 pay-per-view event, John Dodson by decision at the UFC on ESPN+ 3 from the O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic and Jimmie Rivera at the UFC 238
Sandhagen entered this fight after losing to TJ Dillashaw by decision at UFC Vegas 32 in July 2021. Before that, he had his seven-fight winning streak snapped when he got choked out by Aljamain Sterling at the UFC 250 pay-per-view event. He rebounded with a KO win over Frankie Edgar in February 2021 and a TKO win over Marlon Moraes at the October Fight Night event.
Let’s see how the fighters reacted to the outcome of this fight:
UFC 267 Results: Jan Blachowicz vs. Glover Teixeira, Petr Yan vs. Cory Sandhagen
MMA News is providing ongoing coverage of UFC 267. We’ve got you covered with live results, video highlights, and post-fight tidbits.
