#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Russian UFC fighter Peter Yan lost the fight with American Aljamein Sterling for the bantamweight title (up to 61.2 kilograms). In the fourth round of the fight, half a minute before the end, Yan hit his opponent with a knee in the head when he had three points of support. After getting injured, Sterling was unable to continue the fight. For this technique, Yan was disqualified by the judges.
Sterling is the new UFC bantamweight champion. After the winner was announced, he took off his championship belt and threw it into the ring. After the fight, Peter Yan wrote the following on his Twitter:
“I apologize and wish Sterling a quick recovery. I didn’t want to strike illegally, I made a big mistake and paid for it”.
It is interesting that, according to the judges, Peter won two rounds out of three – two judges gave the victory to Yan at the end of the first round, and three of them – at the end of the third one. Thus, before the start of the third round, Peter Yan defeated Sterling by split decision – 29-28, 29-28, 28-29.
Aljamain Sterling, who became the first fighter in UFC history to win the title due to the disqualification of the champion, announced his readiness to give revenge to Peter Yan:
“This is not how I wanted to win this fight”, the American wrote on Twitter after UFC 259 in Las Vegas. “It was a close, competitive and action-packed confrontation. I felt the knee kick was deliberate, especially after the referee said out loud that I was a grounded opponent and I didn’t expect the kick”.
UFC president Dana White has already announced that the fighters will have an immediate rematch, the date of which will be determined in the near future.
Text: Maria Sokolova, Photo: sport-express.ru