Suga Sean v Petr Yan: Lab Report

Round 1: The fight starts slow with not much output for the first 2 minutes. Petr walks forward landing kicks, while O’Malley mixes punches and kicks. At the 3 minute mark, both men have begun to calculate reads and become more offensive. The standup is close, but Petr is appearing to be the aggressor. He gets a takedown on O’Malley after lifting him in the air at the 1:25 mark. The next 45 seconds is spent mostly trying to maintain control with a few punches from Yan. The last 40 seconds O’Malley wins, even getting Petr’s back in the last few seconds as he plays it safe to close out the round. Objectively, this round could go either way depending on the judge. In the damage based system in place by the UFC, it would go to Sean in my opinion. He landed more shots overall and appeared to inflict more damage. Petr’s control time would be judged second behind damage according to the scoring system.

Round 2: Petr Yan wins round 2. Suga Sean starts out strong. Yan gets rocked and then lands a monster shot on O’Malley just 30 seconds into the round. After, the fight goes to the ground where Yan is in controlling for the next minute and a half. O’Malley gets to his feet after the 3 minute mark. Petr then gets a trip on Sean, and they trade strikes on the feet. ‘No Mercy’ lands 2 damaging body kicks and the overall more punishing blows for the next 2 minutes. With 1 minute left, Yan begins grappling and ends the round in top position against the cage. Every judge scored the round for Petr Yan.

Round 3: Round 3 starts with Petr being the aggressor and the striking seemingly even. At the 3:08 mark in the round, Suga lands the most significant shot of the fight. He throws a knee that cuts Yan on his right eyebrow. This wobbles the Russian fighter and he begins backing up. O’Malley begins taking the aggressor role for the first time in the fight. He begins to throw more shots and gets countered two times by left hooks. The shots look damaging, but O’Malley holds his ground. Suga lands a headkick that causes an immediate shot halfway into the round. Yan gets cage control for 30 seconds and then completes a takedown with 2 minutes left, O’Malley is able to get up quickly and brawl back and forth for the next minute and 45 seconds. The final 15 seconds end with Yan in top control and throwing punches. All 3 judges scored this round for O’Malley. I would agree with that based on damage and the 40-15 significant strike advantage for Suga Sean.

Goosey’s Notes: The fight was extremely close and the winner is unclear. The split decision is reasonable. If the striking was completely even, Yan’s control time and grappling would have been the differentiating factor. However, the standup was leaning towards O’Malley. In my opinion, this is based off Suga having more output and triple the headstrikes. Yan was landing good strikes as well, but in the first round(deciding round) he did a majority of his work to the legs and body.

Biased Takes: This fight is called a robbery because the striking was close and Yan grappled more/walked forward. Sean was getting the better of the striking(evident by Petr shooting more takedowns than ever). People also feel bad for Petr because he was in a close fight his last time out. Finally, the outrage was so big because it was an O’Malley fight. There are very few fighters that can get mainstream headlines, and even less fighters that can do it outside the main event. Suga Sean fights bring a ton of casuals. They are easily influenced because they want to seem right. The commentary has an extra emphasis because the fans are less experienced and they gravitate toward one opinion.

PSA for the hardcore fans: It’s okay to feel bad for Petr because he does seem to be having an extremely unlucky stretch of fights, but we can also give O’Malley his credit. Great fights don’t happen because only 1 side shows out. These dudes went to war. Also what does O’Malley do to piss you guys off? Is it the colored hair and face tattoos? Or the fact that he’s one of the only guys in mma that actively promotes himself? His professionalism is extremely underappreciated by fans. The Suga Show always comes ready to fight and makes weight. The two main things agreed to when signing a fight contract. UFC has superstars like Khamzat who hardcore fans love. He is as unprofessional as it gets. Chimaev missed weight by 8 pounds last fight and gets in brawls backstage constantly. The feedback was fans saying “oh well, it worked out better” and the UFC completely scrambling a pay-per-view 24 hours before. A change that screwed over 5 other fighters while giving himself a more favorable stylistic matchup. Could you imagine the outrage if Suga Sean did that? Everyone hated that he got a shot against Yan and jumped the ranks. Who else wanted to fight Petr Yan? O’Malley didn’t get the fight because of his rank. He got the fight because he was the only dude in line to take the fight. And then he won that fight.

-Goosey