Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Bantamweights

5. Petr Yan

The bantamweight lists of Sherdog contributors showed far greater variance than any previous installment in this series, and no fighter displayed this more than Yan. This is someone who was as low as No. 10 on some lists and as high as No. 2 on others. It will come as little surprise for those who read my columns that I had him second; he is my favorite fighter right now, and I have written an article praising him to the moon. This list was also assembled before the robbery Yan suffered against Sean O'Malley, one where almost 100% of media members, 25 out of 26, scored the bout for Yan, many by a clean 30-27 sweep.

Regardless, Yan is the only man on this list who has never been decisively defeated. His early loss at 23 years old to undefeated, highly skilled Magomed Magomedov, still a top bantamweight to this day, was a split decision that could have gone either way. Yan was dominating and easily winning the first fight against Aljimain Sterling before an errant knee to the head and then lost a split decision to Sterling in the rematch that also could have gone either man's way. Meanwhile, Yan has defeated an insane murderer's row of elite contenders and champions that surpasses that of anyone else on this list except for the No. 1 inclusion. That includes his pre-UFC fights, like defeating Murad Kalamov by decision, decisively beating Magomedov in their rematch and handing him his first loss, then beating undefeated Mattheus Mattos by knockout. In the UFC, he stopped Douglas Silva de Andrade, utterly dominated John Dodson and Jimmie Rivera, knocked out legend and previous inclusion Urijah Faber, then knocked out the greatest featherweight ever, Jose Aldo, in Round 5 for the title. Has there been a more impressive five-fight stretch getting to and winning a championship? Oh, and Yan had perhaps his most impressive victory after the first Sterling fight, defeating the insanely good Cory Sandhagen, who had a seemingly unbeatable striking style aided by his insane height and reach, in one of the best bantamweight bouts ever. Still only 29 years old, Yan can certainly win the championship again and move up the list. Let's just hope he isn't the victim of more absurd robberies when he has arguably won every round of the fight.

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