Petr Yan receives praise from Mario Bautista after defeating Merab Dvalishvili

UFC bantamweight contender Mario Bautista has praised divisional champion Petr Yan for his victory over Merab Dvalishvili.

In the main event of UFC 323 earlier this month, Petr Yan shocked many by defeating Merab Dvalishvili to once again become the UFC bantamweight champion. He came in with a great plan, and he executed it to perfection with what wound up being a pretty dominant victory – especially when you take a look at what Merab’s face looked like following the fight.

Now, Petr Yan will likely take on Dvalishvili in a trilogy fight, or, he may face Umar Nurmagomedov or Sean O’Malley if both win their upcoming fights. Umar’s latest win came over Mario Bautista, who put forward a valiant effort, but ultimately couldn’t overcome the wrestling of Nurmagomedov.

In a recent interview, Bautista gave his thoughts on what Petr Yan was able to accomplish.

Mario Bautista’s view on Petr Yan’s victory

“I had the same thoughts that everyone else did, I thought Merab was going to go in there and just handle him for all five rounds like Merab usually does. But [Petr] Yan went in there with a perfect gameplan. Wrestled him up, defended the shots well, hurt Merab, and actually went to the body.”

“I’ve been saying that in a lot of these interviews like, you need to go the body on Merab. That’s exactly what Yan did and you can tell it does hurt Merab. So I thought it was great fight. It was a good mix up for the division. We’ll see if their rematch is on the way but it was a really exciting fight.”

Quotes via BJPENN.com

Yan has a lot of options for his next fight, but either way, this is one of the best title performances in recent memory, and even that may be an understatement.