Petr Yan is around a couple of weeks out from his rubber match with Merab Dvalishvili, and a contender in the bantamweight class thinks Yan will win the tiebreaker title clash. Yan vs. Dvalishvili III will fittingly take place at UFC 333 in the co-main event clash on October 24th.
The referenced 135-pound combatant who favours Yan in this looming bantamweight championship bout is Chad Anheliger. ‘The Monster’ returns to the octagon after a near-two-year absence as Anheliger does battle with Steven Koslow at UFC Fight Night: Edmonton on October 17th.
Amid discussing this Canada-based combative contest on Saturday, the Alberta native also gave his assessment of Yan vs. Dvalishvili part three, which transpires later on this month, as Anheliger said [via MMA Canada],
“Yeah, it’s really hard to tell because when you get to that level, especially those guys at the very peak of the division where they’re just so good. The margin for error is so small. Anybody can have a good night and win that belt. So it’s not necessarily one fighter is better than the other. It’s who’s going to show up fight night in the right way and the margin is just so thin. So, I’m excited about it. I think it’s a great fight. I’m a big fan of Petr Yan.”
“So, I’m hoping that he can do his thing and pull it off. But, hey, Merab is hungry as ever without his belt. So, yeah, we’ll see. That’s going to be a really good match. It’s really putting bantamweights front and center more and more. The high-end guys are really doing their job right now for the division. So, yeah, it’s going great.”
Bantamweight has always been a shark tank of a weight category and, when mentioning some recent developments with the likes of Sean O’Malley besting Aiemann Zahabi and Song Yadong halting Umar Nurmagomedov inside the distance, Anheliger stated [via MMA Canada],
“Yeah, skill level is super high. So you’re always going to see these different fighters jockeying for position because like I said, it’s going to be just how the night plays out. Even the [Cory] Sandhagen fight recently with [Mario] Bautista, two very skilled guys. But the fight just went Bautista’s way that way and now he’s in there making some noise. So, it’s just very fluid right now.”
“Anybody could beat anybody and that goes all the way down for a long ways where there’s a lot of high level skill. 135 is; the smaller weight classes are fun that way. Because less and less you see guys just running through people with physicality. At the bigger weight classes, if you’re a freak athlete and hit hard and are super aggressive, you can get a long ways.”
“But no doubt under 155, you need the skills to back it up. That’s what makes these divisions so exciting. Different types of fights, different type of skill sets, different matchups. Yeah, 135 is as exciting as ever, for sure.”
This article appeared first on BJPENN.COM
