“He’s the most dangerous guy in my weight class, especially at this moment, and I know I have a very tough opponent in front of me,” Dvalishvili told UFC on Paramount+. “I know I will have a hard fight again but this time I will make sure I’m going to win.”
The series is level. Dvalishvili won the first meeting by a lopsided unanimous decision in Las Vegas in March 2023. Yan took the second, also by unanimous decision, at UFC 323 last December, ending a Dvalishvili reign that had included three straight defences over Umar Nurmagomedov, Sean O’Malley and Cory Sandhagen, and winning back the belt. “It’s a trilogy, one and one,” Dvalishvili told Arab News. “One former champion, one current champion in Abu Dhabi, Russia versus Georgia.”
That last phrase is the part of the rivalry he has spoken about most openly. Dvalishvili said the first fight was the most personal of his career, and that the weight of it made him anxious rather than inspired. “First time I was fighting him I was nervous to be honest because he’s from Russia and I’m from Georgia, and I take too much responsibility like as a Georgian because Russia has occupied my country, which is a big territory,” he said. “I take it more personal fight for me. First time, I was nervous.”
The rematch, by his account, failed for a different reason. “Last time, I still tried my best. I don’t want to say I was relaxed, but I don’t think maybe I was fighting my fight,” he said. He has since been more specific: in the second round he went back to his wrestling and shot hard, Yan stopped the takedowns, and the effort drained him to the point that he accepted, mid-fight, that he was unlikely to win and resolved simply to enjoy the rest of it. For a fighter who holds the UFC record for career takedowns, it was a stark admission of what Yan’s defence did to his game plan.
The fix, he says, starts with being himself. “His style is a hard style. It’s hard to take him down. He stops your takedown,” Dvalishvili said. “But I have some tools that I haven’t showed, so I think I’m going to show this time.” He has declined to say what those tools are, but has offered hints in earlier interviews: less time chasing Yan’s head, more attacks to the body, more variety in his entries, and no attempt to turn himself into a boxer against one of the division’s best. Yan’s counters, jab and takedown defence are the problems any new wrinkle has to solve, and Dvalishvili has praised all of them. He also expects the fight to go long, telling Arab News he is ready for a 25-minute war.
The stakes extend beyond the series. Dvalishvili, 21-5 and 35 years old, has already named his first defence if he regains the belt: Song Yadong, who knocked out Umar Nurmagomedov in Shanghai and lost to Yan by decision in 2024. Yan, 20-5, is the reigning champion and the man standing between Dvalishvili and that plan. And for Dvalishvili, the legacy question is simple. “Petr Yan is the most dangerous guy in my weight class, and to beat him two times, I will sleep very peacefully,” he said.
Two fights, two winners, and a third chapter in the city where both men will be fighting far from home. UFC 333 settles who leads the series, and who leaves Abu Dhabi with the belt.
