The UFC Champion Who Fought In Nightclubs For Money

Before Pyotr Yan ever touched UFC gold he'd already taken some of the best and worst the sport of MMA had to offer. With an origin story akin to an underground martial arts film, the origins of No Mercy had him go from an upbringing in the Arctic Circle to scraping a living battling in nightclubs in the heart of Russia. And from those dark beginnings he somehow managed to transform himself into one of the most dangerous and complete martial artists of all time to truly understand what created one of the most violent forces bantamweight has ever seen we have to go back to the beginning and the unbelievable story that forged a two-time UFC champion I'm Balian from MMA on Point and make sure to check out the official UFC gear through our link in the description below using code 0.10 for 10% off all products and rep your favorite fighters with the UFC store. Pyotr Yan grew up one of eight children and has called his mom a legendary woman. I can't imagine what it was like trying to keep everyone fed and sheltered and at first he was raised in a village and experienced a rural life in Siberia. There wasn't really much to do but it was at 12 years old where his family instead moved to Dudinka, a remote Arctic port city in North Siberia Now this was a pretty harsh place to grow up, north of the Arctic Circle where the average annual temperature sits around minus 9.4 Celsius it also experiences 45 days of polar night in winter but more importantly apparently also had numerous sports clubs all over the place and this was the first time Piotr could really try them out his friend's mum worked at an acrobatics gym that opened at 6am and he and his friend would go there every day before school even if it was just to jump around on the trampolines but along with all those other sports came football taekwondo weightlifting and eventually boxing it was really though his older brother Alexei who was four years older than Pyotr who'd bring him into this world Pyotr had already grown up watching his brother come home all beaten up from fights and absolutely exhausted now normally that might make someone a bit concerned but the way Yan tells the story it actually kind of made him jealous he'd been doing all these other sports but they weren't testing him in the same way his brother was clearly getting tested in all these fights and one day he decided to secretly follow his brother to the gym and unknowingly it would be the start of his combat sports career. The gym was apparently in a rundown basement, and he immediately loved it. According to his coach, it was only after a few weeks of training that Piotr signed up for his first fight, and he won beating a kid with way more experience. That same coach said that Yar had a natural ability to be calm, present, to study his opponents rather than fighting on instinct and emotion, which is so common in beginners getting into the sport. As he learned to fight though, this apparently started spilling out into his social life, getting into altercations at school, according to him, almost every lunch break. By the time he reached 15, though, he had truly turned into a prodigy of the sport. In the ninth grade while at school, he competed in the all-Russian boxing tournament and won the whole thing. Around this time, though, Yar had also been working from a young age. The docks where he'd grown up were in constant use for trade, and as a teenager, he was loading these huge sacks alongside grown men, all while trying to earn enough money for his family and to get this boxing career going. Once he was done with school, the plan was to go to college and study something maybe related to the industrial sector, and even got a place, but it was his coach that instead pushed him to a career in boxing. He sent him to Omsk. Now there was a coach named Yuri Demchenko, and he'd turn young Pyotr into an absolute weapon. After growing up in a northern Arctic circle remote town, he'd be heading to a city of roughly 1 million people. He got there and was supposed to enter the Olympic reserve boxing team, but enrolment had apparently just ended, so he had a choice go back home or just stay anyway and so he did but now his training partners were two-time Olympic champions and other international level pros and still only at 16 Yar obviously wasn't beating these guys but he was leveling up fast while training in Omsk though and studying physical education he had to make a living somehow and found work at a rough bar on the city outskirts as security but being only 60 kg and five foot seven apparently that also meant If there was trouble, he was the guy the drunk customers would pick a fight with, which would always turn out to be a bad idea. I'm not very smart with strangers, that's why I had to come here. There were all sorts of moments, sometimes I had to train in the morning and work all night. The security didn't let me sleep, sometimes I had to fight several times in the same place overnight. He described those scraps though as valuable experience, and that wasn't the only way he was earning money after dark. Every Tuesday at the prestigious nightclub Atlantis in the center of Omsk, the dancefloor would transform into a kickboxing ring, with fighters from all different backgrounds competing. Sounds a bit like On Back, doesn't it? Yarm was apparently paid around 4,000 rubles per fight, which is about 50 dollars and had to fight multiple times at night mostly under kickboxing rules and then after the fights were done the ring would be dismantled and everyone would go back to dancing he was also still competing in boxing and would sometimes fight at night then in the morning show up to weigh in for the regional championships and then the next day he would have to fight something he ended up winning four years in a row the way he tells it though sometimes his legs were so battered from kickboxing he could barely move around the ring the guy though was super disciplined despite being in nightclubs he wasn't drinking or smoking just getting experience and a bit of cash and occasionally apparently having a dance lack of sleep or not he would always show up for training the next day after seven years in boxing he was awarded the title of Master of Sport as he began to also fight at a national level but according to him boxing was starting to get a bit repetitive and he could see no path to earning the money he needed to help support his family. It just so happened that at the same time MMA was exploding all across Russia with multiple regional promotions popping up all over the place and an offer came his way to compete. His opponent Murad Bakaev was a combat Sambo medalist and his coach had according to him tried to talk him out of it but he was offered 5,000 rubles for taking the fight and another 15k if he won. This was just the kind of opportunity Jan had been looking for. With just 10 days notice, he started preparing for his first MMA fight. Pyotr showed great patience with lots of feints and let fire some hard kicks. You can't forget one of his first martial arts had also been taekwondo. But he was getting taken down by the Sambo specialist. Grappling wasn't something he'd trained extensively, and he's even joked that he had to watch YouTube to quickly try and figure out what to do, other than what he'd learnt from street fights and his bouncing work. Going into the third, he had to find a finish, and that's exactly what he did. He stepped in with a beautiful right hand that nailed Bakayev, and just like that, Jan had won his first MMA fight. And that performance hadn't gone unnoticed. Just three months later, he was offered a place in the ACB Bantamweight Grand Prix, where the money was also significantly higher. Jan got through the first two stages of the tournament before facing Murad Kalimov in the finals in October 2015. Jan came out pressuring Kalimov, sending out some lovely kicks. He was switching stances and looping in overhands as well. And when he was taken down, his guard was developed enough to help him get back up, even showing off some of the trips he'd later be known for and some heavy ground-and-pound power. Djotov was absolutely fearless and never stopped stalking this man down, but couldn't finish him. It was still enough, though, to win the tournament. That's a happy man right there, but his next test would be the hardest of his career. ACB created an inaugural Bantamweight title, and they matched Yan with Magomed Magomedov, 11-0 at the time and would go on to fight for a title in Bellator. And this turned out to be one of the best fights the promotion had seen. Magomed's grappling was elite and he was taking Yan down early and was close to finishing him with the rear naked choke. The takedowns kept coming but Piotr then almost had him submitted and out of nowhere Yan landed a crazy sequence and dropped Magomed. The fight was an absolutely grueling pace and set for five rounds for the title but both men just refused to quit by the final round both guys were beaten up shattered but young continued to press forward and almost had him finished again in a triangle and then another armbar in the closing minute but with the crowd going mental and with just seconds left in an exchange Yan head-butted Magomed and the ref stepped in to deduct a vital point after an action packed back and forth fight both the fans and the judges were split. The point loss had two judges score a draw and one gave it to Magomed which I think normally should mean majority draw but in this case they named him the new ACB champion. Piotr had lost but arguably proved he was without a doubt one of the best bantamweights in Russia and that he developed a complete MMA game. He continued to fight and just two months later he was back in ACB facing Ed Arthur and showing even more development, utilising some sick judo throws. And he was still cracking people with his left leg. He'd take the win by decision before the rematch with Magomed was booked. It was a second chance to win the title and Yan was determined to correct his mistakes. The early takedowns came, but Yan was already showing better defence and balance. And again, those throws becoming a staple in Yan's new arsenal. Well-rounded fighter in the MMA scene. And looking for that sweep again. But there can be no arguments that these are the two best 135ers on this ACB roster. Going into the fourth, it was very close. But Piotr was starting to edge ahead, able to find nasty elbows in close in the clinch positions. Which is the first round as well. Magomedov has eaten everything he's struck. And he continued to stalk him, using his long guard and lead arm to measure, and even began to take Magomed down. But that was a dangerous idea. In the fifth and final though, Yan cracked him with her left hand and then poured it on. It had been another close war, but this time, Yan came out on top, picking up his first world title, now 7-1 as a pro, but with so much more still to come. And it only took one defense of that title for the UFC to take notice. Against Mateus Matos, Yan put on a clinic, guiding in a beautiful combination that ended with a hard switch kick to the liver and a beautiful slip of the jab into a crushing overhand. He then kept the pressure on and melted in with an uppercut to finish in the third round. he'd won the tournament won the title and now defended it and of course the UFC wanted him next Yan had also since been making his MMA debut training out in Thailand with Tiger Muay Thai and began developing an even more effective striking skill set and as the UFC headed out to Asia they snapped him up to bring this lethal new bantamweight onto the roster after starting out in a basement gym in the Arctic Circle to Russian nightclubs In the big city, Yarn had finally made it to the biggest promotion in the world and he absolutely started to dominate the division and his first opponent could not have been more the opposite of the stoic Russian killer Taruto Ishihara, a madman from Japan who loved his bitches, I'm ready for party tonight, come with me uh so like bitches baby, first time ever the UFC had to put out a public statement to tell a fighter to stop calling women his bitches. And according to Yarn, he believed he was being sent to wipe him off the roster, and that's exactly what he did in the first round. Piotr announced himself to the rest of the division, showing off his surgical striking and relentless pressure, and then immediately set about climbing his way to the top. The UFC were heading to Moscow for the first time, and of course they wanted Yarn on the card. Douglas Silva de Andrade pulled out and so Son Jin-soo stepped up. He missed weight but it turned into a showcase for Yarn and a fight of the night. Son proved to be a tough opponent but Yarn came out with a unanimous decision and some bonus money in his pocket. After that performance, he was already calling out the top of the division, feeling like he was ready to take on the best. Yarno instead got the De Andrade matchup, ranked number 14, and this guy was 25-2 and it was on the UFC 232 pay-per-view and a much bigger stage for the first time, and determined to prove that he was indeed ready for higher caliber opponents put on an absolute beating, dropping heavy ground and pound, forcing the corner to call the fight at the end of the second round. And the crowd had also been super impressed by the young up-and-comer Jan. And again, he was calling for bigger fights. Now at 25 years of age, one of the most exciting prospects in the division. Yeah, I want to fight top fighters. He'd constantly been calling out the wild man, John Lineker, which definitely would have been a fun matchup, but he didn't get that fight. Instead, he started picking off staples and quickly climbing the division, taking John Dodson and then Jimmy Rivera to decision wins. Oh, he can't move backwards. Oh, he ended up... That Rivera performance really showed that Yarn striking was capable of hurting the best in the division, and he was already calling for a title shot. Then the UFC gave him a showcase fight against a legend of the division in Uriah Faber on the main card of yet another pay-per-view. By now he'd reached number four in the division, and a win here would put him in title contention. Tremendous amount of success in a short period of time. He just has this ability to make guys fight his type of fight. It's so intimidating that guys start to absorb everything. At this point, Yarn was tied with the longest win streak in the division at five and the second highest striking rate in the history of the division as well. And unfortunately for Faber, who'd been perfect since returning from retirement, it would be Yarn who shut the door on his UFC career, smiling at him and sending him to the canvas. The win moved Yarn to 6-0 in the UFC and pocketed him another performance bonus. The champ at the time was Henry Cejudo, who talked about wanting to fight legends and Jose Aldo had just dropped to 135 and lost a close split to Marlon Marais on the same card as Yan versus Faber. But it was a fight that many people thought he'd won, including Dana White, who booked Aldo versus Cejudo for the title, and that left Yan out of the picture despite the win on the same night. A lot of people were criticizing Aldo because he's coming from a loss. I've pretty much said a million times how I feel about that. You know, a lot of people thought he won the fight. Instead, the UFC were heading to Kazakhstan for the first time, and in May 2020, Yan versus Marais was announced as the headliner. Yan also said publicly that he felt Cejudo was doing everything he could to avoid fighting him, saying all the talk about him wanting a bigger name was simply bullshit, saying he wasn't a draw and there were no real money fights for Cejudo and that more people would pay to see his ass getting KO'd by Pyotr. Pretty cold. Yan had accepted the Marais fight because he said he simply wasn't just going to sit around and wait to see what happened. But unfortunately, a global pandemic changed everything. The Kazakh event was cancelled, Aldo wasn't able to get to the U.S., and instead Dominic Cruz stepped in to face Cejudo. And that's when Henry beat the former champ and promptly retired and dropped the title. In the beginning, I didn't believe him. He kept on talking about fighting for the featherweight title. Do you think that him walking away has anything to do with you? Do you think that the reason why he walked away was because he didn't want to fight you? It doesn't have to be only because of me. Just look at the top five of our division. It's all young, hungry, dangerous guys. I think he decided that he cannot deal with it. I just feel like these guys have to kill each other in order to get that belt now. As much as they like to complain, Peter, yo, Michael, Triple C, he's a piece of ----. He hasn't beat nobody. And I think he needs to fight an Aljamain Sterling or a Cody Sanhagen in order for him to get a title shot. Cejudo wasn't taking the fight, basically. And after dropping the belt, that left the division wide open. And Yan and Aldo, without an opponent, so a fight for the vacant title made sense. The only loss on Yan's record was the first close war with Magomed Magomedov, and after a lifetime of combat sports, he was getting his shot at undisputed gold. But a lot of fans and media felt like Aldo not only didn't deserve the shot against Yan, but was also going to get dismantled. You know, if he goes in and gets absolutely dominated, and it's a one-sided fight, and Aldo gets destroyed, then they were right and we were wrong, and, you know, it happens. My fight with José Aldo, good fighter, he's a legend in UFC, I want to beat him, yes? UFC 251 was going down on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi and it was one of the most stacked cards of the year, with the Usman-Covington rematch and Volk defending his title against Max Holloway. Yan got to work early, landing his big right hand in the opening minutes. But Aldo was dangerous, taking him off his feet with a leg kick. I mean, look at that. If that's not classic Jose Aldo, I don't know what is. It became a very technical battle between two elite strikers, but another ability of Yan started to shine through. His ability to make adjustments. He started fighting more from southpaw to take away those leg kicks, and by the fourth round started to take over the fight. Oh, that was a big one! Aldo covering our right hand! Then in the fifth, he started to run away with it, timing a perfect step in left straight that dropped him, and then he just mauled Aldo on the ground. It was almost uncomfortable to watch as he just dismantled the legend and finished him in the fifth Petr Yan had finally proven what he'd said after his early UFC fights that he was ready for the elite and to fight for the title. And now at 15-1, with seven UFC wins under his belt, he was given undisputed gold. But then he hit my leg and I was forced to change the stance. Well, a lot of people felt like this was your destiny and you are now the undisputed UFC Bantamweight Champion. We look forward to your first title defense, but go enjoy the family. Petr Yan is the new Bantamweight Champion. Congratulations. Yan's first title defense would be against another guy who'd been calling for a shot for a long time, Aljamain Sterling, and was originally planned for December 2020, was postponed until 2-59 in March of 2021. It was an elite grappler versus an elite striker, with Yan's unbeaten run most expected that he'd successfully defend the title he'd just captured. Sterling though came out setting a super high pace and constantly shooting at Yan's legs, but the champ stayed patient and defended most of the wrestling exchanges. By the fourth round, the judges had Yan ahead, But with just 30 seconds left in the round, Yan's reign as champ imploded. The referee then whispered that as he told Yarn he was down and he threw the strike anyway, he was calling it an intentional foul. The fight was stopped, it was ruled a disqualification for Yan who in a matter of seconds had gone from winning the fight to losing his world title. Unfortunately for Aljo, the fan base absolutely rinsed him, calling him a quitter and taking the easy way out to win a world title. And then weirdness, of course, in the Bantamweight title fight, right? The first ever champ to be crowned via disqualification. Yeah, it sucked. It was a good fight. I mean, that was a fight that everybody was excited about tonight. Everybody knew it was going to be good. And, well, that's a bad one. Do I think that the knee was intentional? Yeah. He threw the knee. Yeah, he threw the knee. I mean, he didn't slip and accidentally land the knee. Yarn addressed the strike himself, basically saying the ref had talked so much about where the hands had to be for that strike to be called legal, he was only paying attention to that and not where his knees were. In this position, I was just thinking about his hands, and I didn't pay attention to his legs and arms, so I didn't mean to hit him illegally. Some fans were right about joking he took the nickname No Mercy a bit too literally. He does. He does. There was really only one solution, though, and Dana agreed to run the fight back. Both guys want to run it back. I mean, it was a very competitive fight. Safe to say, we put that one back together again as soon as possible. The other problem was, though, Aldo needed neck surgery. He was out, and so no immediate rematch could take place. But once again, Jan wasn't just going to sit around and wait. So instead, Corey Sandhagen, who'd also been waiting for his shot, was booked. The interim title would be on the line, and it was a highly anticipated matchup between two awesome strikers, but it turned out to be a technical masterclass from Jan, who pressured, stayed defensively tight and dropped Corey in the third with a spinning backfist into a right hand. From there Jan was in the driving seat and he took the unanimous decision on the scorecard securing his place as the next contender winning the interim title and the rematch with Aljo was on. The second time around though, despite most fans expecting Jan to win definitively this time, considering he had been ahead in the first fight, Sterling made a lot of adjustments from the previous fight. He managed to find Jan's back in the second and third round and racked up control time securing the body triangle. It came down to a judge's decision and although split, Sterling was given the win. He remained the champion and unfortunately for Jan, it would be the start of the worst period of his career. By now, other challengers had risen to the top of the bantamweight division. Undefeated Sean O'Malley had been holding back from pushing to the top of the pack and against Jan in another highly contested fight, he squeezed out a split decision and a few months after that, Merab Dvalishvili's win streak had carried him to the top of the division and he was able to wrestle and control Jan, leaving Piotr on a three-fight losing streak. But it was also a fight he'd entered injured after hurting his right hand. Still, he'd never been finished in his career but his fall from grace as a champion had come swift and hard. It truly felt like his time at the top of the division might be over, despite how competitive the fights had been. Piotr at this point though decided to just take some time off. An entire year in fact. Years of fighting through injuries had accumulated and three consecutive defeats had left his career needing a mental as well as physical reset. He tried to come back earlier but again suffered another injury but by the time he re-entered the cage at UFC 299 against Song Yadong he was still far from healthy. He managed to bounce back putting in another technical performance and showing his ability to adapt and outwork the younger man smashing his body and landing nasty uppercuts taking the fight to a decision with the crowd cheering his name i guess what are the emotions after you know snapping that losing skid and with a hard fought and incredibly high level performance like that thank you so much i appreciate it i'm very happy come back and it was a good fight for me during the fight i saw that he's defending the headshots very well so i have to change the levels but even then, in this fight, he blew out his ACL and tore his meniscus. It would be another eight months before Yan could return again, but he showed he wasn't going anywhere from the top of the division, beating the former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo, and then Marcus McGee in back-to-back unanimous decision wins. All of that and his three-fight win streak had earned his way back to the top, and a rematch with the new champ Marab was the only option left. Considering how the first fight had gone, with the Georgian able to keep the high pace and apply relentless wrestling pressure, Yan was not the favorite this time around. But three years after losing his title, he had the chance to change everything and do something many UFC fighters have failed to do, become champion for a second time. And Petr Yan has been waiting since March of 2023 to get this one back. The first round, Yan was patient, measuring with his long guard before scoring first blood at the end of the first round. And when Marab started to counter-wrestle, this time Yan was ready for him, avoiding the control time on the mat. In fact, in the second round, he took Marab down. Look at this. Look at this, Petr, your takedown. And he followed with more of the same in the third. The adjustments had been clearly made and he was operating at a level above the champion. By the fourth, he opened up Marab, busting his nose and again found the home for his vicious liver kick. And he continued to attack the body until the final moments of the fight. By the time the final bell sounded, there could be no doubt. Yan had returned, made adjustments, switched up the game plan, punished Marab and inflicted a ton of damage everywhere. Marab had only been able to complete two of 29 takedowns, and Yan had gotten five himself. Not only had he proved he was the best striker in the division, but also that his grappling was now superior than perhaps the best wrestler Bantamweight had ever seen. The championship belt must do. You are the king again. An amazing adjustment from the first fight. A lifetime of hard work, again, fully realized, and now he'd look better than he ever had. I'm so hard. For this moment, this is my life. When he first followed his older brother into that basement boxing gym, he wasn't thinking about championships or global recognition. He was a child, searching for something that would test him. And now he'd overcome the ultimate test, beating not just the man that had stamped his three-fight losing streak in dominant fashion, but also someone fans and media had said was the greatest bantamweight champion of all time. And after all the struggle, he'd proven something else. Just like when he'd lost in his first attempt at a world title back in ACB, he could be beaten, yes, and he could make mistakes, just like in the Aljo fight, he could lose everything, but he could also come back. And now, whoever tries to take that title from him better bring something special, because Piotr Yan as the champion is looking like one of the greatest bantamweight fighters of all time.