Sterling Believes Dvalishvili Won Early Rounds in UFC 323 Loss to Yan

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LAS VEGAS — Aljamain Sterling had a unique perspective on his teammate Merab Dvalishvili’s UFC 323 title fight loss to Petr Yan. Sterling, who was in Dvalishvili’s corner for the bout at T-Mobile Arena, thought his friend may have edged out the first three rounds of the fight, even as the judges ultimately awarded Yan the victory. Two judges scored the fight 49-46 in favor of Yan, with the third judge giving a closer 48-47 margin. Speaking on his YouTube channel, Sterling explained his view of the fight: “I will say in real time, I thought it was possibly us winning the first three rounds even though I knew that they were close, I just thought we edged it out…Round 5, we knew [Yan] was starting to get the better of that round, so I figured it would be 3-2 us. But it ended up being 4-1 and 3-2 for Yan, which 3-2 I’m not super mad about.” Sterling praised Yan’s performance while noting that Dvalishvili may not have been at his best. “Close fight. Yan, he did great, can’t really say anything about it. I do think Merab didn’t quite look himself…It could have been a little bit of both. A little bit of a bad night and also one guy was just on another level that night.” Dvalishvili was attempting to make history by recording four successful title defenses in a single year, which would have been unprecedented in UFC history. Despite the loss, he congratulated Yan in his post-fight interview. Sterling also reflected on his teammate’s strategy, noting Dvalishvili may have stood in the pocket too much to entertain fans, despite attempting 29 takedowns.

“All in all, I thought fun fight for the fans…We kind of started to tell him in between rounds, ‘Hey, now he’s thinking that we’re willing to trade with him. Now let’s start to add in that wrestling and that should be the X-factor to help us pull apart and pull away and create some distance in the scoring,’” Sterling said. Sterling added that the fight presented learning opportunities for Dvalishvili. “Definitely a couple of things we could learn from and grow from with this fight…really just don’t think that was the best version of Merab with what we’ve seen out of him in basically all his fights.” With the victory, Yan begins his second reign as undisputed bantamweight champion. He may face a third fight with Dvalishvili or potentially take on a new challenger, such as Umar Nurmagomedov, Sean O’Malley, Deiveson Figueiredo, or Song Yadong. Sterling remains hopeful for a trilogy matchup.

“Overall, for what I think was an off day, I think Merab still fought relatively well and probably would have beaten a lot of people still…Yan, it was just his night, better man that night, and now they’re one fight apiece and I really hope they make the trilogy fight,” Sterling concluded.