Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
UFC 245’s Petr Yan snubs possible fight with Cody Garbrandt.
After his knockout win over Team Alpha Male (TAM) head honcho Urijah Faber at UFC 245, Russian bantamweight Petr Yan got into a bit of an altercation with Faber’s teammate and friend, Cody Garbrandt, backstage at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena.
After picking up a victory over Urijah Faber, @PetrYanUFC had to be separated from Faber’s teammate @Cody_Nolove backstage at #UFC245 (via sayatus/IG) pic.twitter.com/Z4VXSgeKQb
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) December 15, 2019
Yan claims the incident stems from a comment ‘No Love’ No Chin made on Dana White’s Instagram page.
“Nothing really happened,” Yan said of his face-off with Garbrandt, per MMA Fighting’s Peter Carroll.
“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. 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.”
Despite their run-in last weekend and ongoing back-and-forth on social media, Yan (14-1 MMA, 6-0 UFC) claims he has no interest in fighting Garbrandt anytime soon, as the No. 3-ranked bantamweight feels he’s deserving of a title shot against Henry ‘Triple C’ Cejudo.
“Maybe he has speed and power, but he can’t take a punch,” Yan said.
“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.”
“To be honest, at this stage of my career, I’m not interested in this fight at all,” Yan added. “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.”
Yan could be waiting a while for that title shot, as reigning bantamweight and flyweight champ Cejudo is expected to be out of action for the foreseeable future due to injury and, when he does come back, ‘The Messenger’ is expected to defend his flyweight belt.