Petr Yan Beats Merab Dvalishvili, Judges' Scorecards, Stats & UFC 333 Highlights

Petr Yan successfully retained his UFC bantamweight crown with a unanimous decision win over Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi.

All three judges scored the fight 48-47 in favor of Yan, who put on a Fight of the Year contender in the view of MMA insider Ariel Helwani:

Dvalishvili was clearly the aggressor over the first two rounds, trying and succeeding to take Yan down on multiple occasions:

However, Yan began to settle in during the third round, appearing to hurt Dvalishvili with a kick to the body and a series of punches:

Yan continued to land some clean strikes in the fourth round, seemingly sending the bout into a decisive fifth round on level terms.

Both Yan and Dvalishvili emptied the tank in the fifth round, and the classic fight fittingly had to be decided by the judges:

Per ESPN, Yan landed 94 of his 206 attempted strikes compared to Dvalishvili landing 139 of his 410 strikes. Dvalishvili also took Yan down five times on 58 attempts, while Yan was unsuccessful on his only takedown attempt.

The win is yet another impressive chapter in a wild redemption arc for the current champion. After starting 15-1 in his career, he went 1-3 over a four-fight stretch from March 2021 to March 2023.

The end of that stretch was a unanimous decision loss to Dvalishvili. Since then, he has re-branded his career with wins over Song Yadong, Deiveson Figueiredo and now Dvalishvili twice.

That kind of career turnaround at 33 is impressive, especially in a lighter weight class.

Now he might have another notable rematch brewing with Sean O'Malley winning back-to-back fights against Aiemann Zahabi and Song Yadong.

"It's just that he's obviously winning," Yan said of his former opponent, per Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting. "He's doing a great job. He's moving forward, and he's definitely proved that he is the next one, or one of the next ones who should be good to fight for the title, but it's not that I'm watching it, and I'm impressed by it, just he's on the right trajectory."

O'Malley beat Yan by split decision in October 2022. A lot has obviously changed since then, but a rematch would draw viewers given O'Malley's following and Yan's current run as champion.

Whether the UFC opts to give the Suga Show the next shot or not, it's clear that the division runs through Yan right now.