Petr Yan: the Future of the Bantamweight Division
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
“I am the future”. This quote from Petr Yan’s Twitter account was directed at his next opponent, Urijah Faber, but could just as easily been made as a general statement about how the MMA game is evolving and Yan’s own place in the vanguard. Yan’s quick rise up the ranks in one of the sport’s most competitive divisions, the UFC’s bantamweight class, has largely been predicated on the strength of his technical boxing game and defensive wrestling. It’s a style we’ve seen come to the fore in MMA over the last few years as loading up on single power shots and falling into the clinch has given way to tighter, more angular footwork, combination punching in extended pocket exchanges, and layered defense absorbed primarily from Western boxing. Jose Aldo was one of the first fighters to show the effectiveness of this style, but it can also be seen in guys like Max Holloway, Frankie Edgar, Cody Garbrandt, Calvin Kattar, and many others. Unlike most of the fighters who have adopted this style however, Yan brought a deep amateur boxing background to the table, a career which according to UFC commentary (though it’s proven hard to verify) earned him a master of sport title from his home country of Russia. That Yan is a classically trained boxer shows in many of the little things he does which commonly get ignored in MMA where fighters tend to pick up skills in a more sporadic and often incomplete manner.
Boxing
So what sets Yan’s boxing apart from other contenders’? The main differences lie in Yan’s footwork, especially when pressuring, his combination punching, and his general defensive responsibility during and after his attacks. As we’ll see he’s not perfect in any of these areas, but his skills are still far ahead of most of his opponents.
Petr Yan is one of the most defined pressure fighters in MMA, and it all starts with his footwork. It’s not only that he’s moving forward, but that he’s constantly cutting off angles of escape from his opposition. Yan hardly ever chases, rather he takes away your space until your back is against the cage; once you’re square, he throws hard in combination.
Yan walking his opponent Ishihara down. Against this sort of karate fighter it can be very difficult to cut off the cage, but Yan does so methodically by taking small steps at an angle in the direction to which Ishihara wants to circle out. Especially important for maintaining pressure are the small pull steps Yan uses to avoid Ishihara’s offense but without giving significant ground. Many of those pulls are one foot at a time meaning Yan’s defensive reactions don’t give back the space he’s taken away.
Yan’s pressure is very sophisticated. He’s not following his opponents around the cage, he’s slowly eating up ground and forcing them backwards towards the fence. He also shows a strong understanding of the distance from which he’s really dangerous. Muay Thai legend and all time great pressure knee fighter Dieselnoi advises his fighters to ‘not bring your weapons out’ when pressuring, i.e. walk your opponent down, get into range, and only then when their ability to move backwards is compromised do you start attacking. Yan never attacks prematurely as this would provide a window for his opponent to angle out and regain the center of the octagon. Rather, he gets his opponents backed up far enough that their defensive options are limited before unloading.
Yan has his opponent John Dodson backed up against the cage. Against an extremely fast veteran like the Magician, it’s imperative that you don’t over-commit and give your opponent a chance to slip and pivot back to the center. Yan freezes Dodson with a feint and draws his attention down with a quick jab to the body before coming over the top with an overhand. As Dodson moves to his left to get off the fence, Yan slides to his right maintaining pressure before touching Dodson with the left to move him into a right hook.
This sequence is demonstrative of many of the things Yan does well, largely drawn from his amateur boxing background. Going high/low to manipulate an opponent’s guard, using off beat rhythms and fast punches with little power to set up more damaging shots, and moving your man into powerful hooks and overhands are all staples of the sweet science. Yan is not just a meat and potatoes boxer however, he shows some fancier looks as well, most notably his use of the shift.
‘Shifting’ in boxing refers to switching stance as you punch. While there are several different ways to shift, the most common variety and the one preferred by Yan is to move from orthodox to southpaw (or vice versa) as you throw the rear hand. It’s a tactic often used by pressure fighters to take up space as they punch preventing their opponent from running out of range.
Gennady Golovkin is one of the foremost exponents of the shift in modern boxing. Notice how the shift allows him to cross almost half the ring without breaking off his attack.
Yan likes to use the shift not only to cover space in the cage, but also to anticipate his opponent circling out in response to his pressure. One of the cleanest and most effective examples of Yan’s shift was against Jimmy Rivera. At the end of the first round in a fight of the year candidate Yan unleashed this shifting combo to steal a round Rivera arguably was winning up to that point.
Yan pressures Rivera towards the fence. As Rivera steps back Yan throws his cross causing Rivera to angle out to his right and stick his left arm out to post. However, Yan isn’t done and throws the left after shifting his stance catching Jimmy with his chin a little high and his hand low dropping the Tiger Schulmann product.
Yan’s boxing doesn’t only show up in his offense. One of the greatest strengths of boxing within the context of MMA is the way in which offense and defense are intertwined, and Yan shows as much skill when under fire as he does on the attack. His defensive chops manifest most obviously in his proactive defensive movement when attacking and the tight pivots he uses to defuse forward pressure.
In the final round of a banger with Jin Soo Son, Yan shows some subtle defensive awareness. After throwing his left Yan immediately slips to his right avoiding the return shots from Son. This isn’t Yan seeing the punch coming, this is movement that he starts as soon as his punch lands in anticipation of a likely counter.
Closely watching Yan fight shows that he does these sorts of preemptive defensive maneuvers all the time. It’s a large part of why he can stay in the pocket safely for so long. When Yan does want to exit the pocket, he’s adept at turning his opponents and pivoting off to safe angles.
Under pressure against Douglas Silva de Andrade Yan slips and shoulder rolls as DSDA comes forward. When he makes contact with his opponent’s collarbone Yan peels out to his right and turns de Andrade towards the fence neutralizing his attack.
Similarly against John Dodson Yan ducks under the blitz, drop steps, and pivots out to safety.
The Clinch
Yan is mostly a boxer, but as he’s racking up fight camps at Tiger Muay Thai he’s quickly picking up skills in both kicking range (he’s got a nasty left kick, especially from the southpaw stance) and in the clinch. His clinch work is an interesting mix of Muay Thai and dirty boxing. Sometimes Yan will work for wrist control and single collar ties to land uppercuts as here against Son:
Caught in a collar tie after ducking to avoid a punch, Yan peels his opponent’s hand off his neck, lands an elbow as he shifts to a single collar tie, and then lands a hard uppercut before disengaging.
And other times he goes for a more Muay Thai approach with knees and elbows off double collar ties.
Having backed Dodson up to the fence late in the second round, Yan takes advantage of his opponent ducking to secure a double collar tie from which he lands a knee and an elbow before hitting Dodson on the break.
Yan doesn’t look for long clinch exchanges and he seldom wrestles when he finds himself tied up with his opponent. His clinch is designed for striking and as a transition/reset position when his opponent collapses the pocket. He’s very good at disengaging safely and hitting on the break; the clinch is not a resting position for his opponents. As his UFC career has progressed and he’s expanded his clinch arsenal Yan has intentionally gone to the clinch more often, and it will be interesting to see if that’s a trend that continues now that he finds himself in #1 contender and championship fights.
No Mercy is a defined pressure striker, but this is MMA and no one can avoid wrestling and grappling forever. It’s fair to say that wrestling and especially BJJ are the least developed parts of Yan’s game, but his great balance and athleticism combined with natural feel for the scramble mean that getting him down and staying on top is not an easy thing to do.
Wrestling and Grappling
Yan has shown some offensive takedown ability, but thus far in his UFC career he mostly uses it to mix things up and not as a primary weapon. More interesting is his defensive wrestling which has shown significant improvement over his last several fights. The same angles Yan uses so well to avoid punches also serve to defuse shots, and he’s very good at framing on the head and getting back to his feet when opponents do get in on his hips.
Jin Soo Son attempts to shoot in under Yan’s punch, but Yan immediately drops his hips back, whizzers, and pivots out to his right eliminating Son’s grip and following up with more strikes.
Coming after Jon Dodson on the clinch break Yan gets hit with a reactive double that Dodson tries to convert into a knee tap. Whizzering, Yan posts with his left hand on the mat and elevates his hips to slide over Dodson’s right hand knee block before getting back to his feet.
Because Yan is such a come forward striker, it’s common that his opponents will try to shoot reactively under his punches. Every opponent in his UFC tenure has tried at least once, but the combination of Yan’s naturally heavy boxer’s stance, good hips, and scrambling ability have made it rare to see those takedowns completed. When Yan does come out on top in scrambles or knocks his opponents down with punches, his top game is ferocious. Yan doesn’t really look for submissions or BJJ style positional advancement, rather his focus is on keeping his opponents down and landing heavy strikes from top guard positions or wrestling rides against the turtle/referee’s position.
Douglas Silva de Andrade finds himself on bottom and tries to scramble from half guard back to his feet. Yan circles around his opponent as he turtles and secures a wrist which he uses to break DSDA down with a spiral ride. From there he slides his left leg over de Andrade’s ankle pinning him to the mat and lays some heavy leather. DSDA’s corner would throw in the towel at the end of this round.
While Yan is a good scrambler and is dangerous on top, his bottom game can be a little passive. It’s a deficiency he seems to be working on, but it remains one of the few weaknesses in his game which we’ll discuss now.
Vulnerabilities
For someone who hasn’t been training exclusively for MMA for that long, Yan has a relatively complete game. Like all fighters however he does have a few weaknesses. Some of these are inherent to his boxing heavy style, while others are the result of inexperience and likely to be corrected over time. His bottom game is an example of the latter. Yan is hard to take down, but once an opponent is able to settle on top Yan has shown some passivity and lack of urgency about improving his position.
Jin Soo Son gets in on the hips and launches Yan to the mat. Being taken down so cleanly Yan doesn’t have the chance to initiate a scramble, instead opting to play guard. While he lands some hard elbows, the fact that he’s staying flat on his back and not using his legs to create space give Son time to work on top. Yan would spend most of the rest of the round on bottom absorbing damage.
It should be noted that in his more recent fights against Dodson and Rivera Yan showed more urgency on the bottom, so it’s likely that his earlier struggles on the bottom were the result of inexperience rather than lack of ability or ignoring the guard in training.
Having been dropped by a hard shot Yan finds himself under Dodson. Yan immediately loads Dodson up on top of him and uses his legs to create space and start a scramble that sees No Mercy get back to his feet.
While it does look like Yan is patching up the holes in his bottom game, there are a few weaknesses in his style that he seems to have done less to address. The first is his vulnerability to leg kicks. Pressure boxers tend to place quite a bit of weight on their front leg so they can generate power by sitting down on their punches, but doing so makes checking leg kicks difficult. This is less of an issue in MMA than in kickboxing because you can make leg kickers pay either by catching the kick into a takedown or returning fire in a 4 oz glove, but Yan doesn’t do either of these with any consistency. Instead, he has a tendency to just eat the leg kick and switch stance.
Rivera hits Yan with a low calf kick as he’d done several times already in the fight. Yan reacts by switching stances, at which point Rivera promptly punts the inside of his now lead right leg.
In addition to being vulnerable to leg kicks, Yan does sometimes overcommit on his punches and finds himself out of position. His frequent use of the shift and other stance switches exacerbates this as he can be caught in between stances. This is how John Dodson dropped him in the second round of their fight. Finally, while Yan often has very good head movement when attacking, he can sometimes become a little static with his high guard on defense allowing opponents to find routes to his chin.
Jimmy Rivera puts Yan briefly on the back foot. Yan reacts by tightening his high guard, but leaves his left shoulder a little low allowing Rivera to score with a hard overhand.
All in all however these are pretty minor gaps in Yan’s game, and all are entirely correctable. Given the rapid pace of improvement we’ve seen from Yan over his five fight UFC career it’s entirely possible that by the time of his next fight with Urijah Faber and potential title fight thereafter that he’ll have already fixed some of these holes. Combined with his crushing natural power and solid athleticism, his boxing based MMA approach looks primed to take him to the very top of the bantamweight division.