“The next fight, no matter what it costs me, I will fly with Petya,” said the ONE Championship champion in two weight categories in an interview Yaroslav Stepanov. “I believe something happens on fight week. Here I see how much he surrenders, how he runs, how much he is ahead of everyone, how he sparring. He is really well prepared, I can see it all. If he hadn’t trained, hadn’t worked out, I would have told him this.”
“Maybe in recent days he lacks some kind of support, I don’t know – here, too, we need to sit down and figure it out. Before leaving Thailand, he is in his best shape, but he does not come into the fight in the form in which I see him here. For the next fight, no matter what it costs me, I will be there, if Petya, of course, does not mind. But for some reason I think I’ll help him.”
In March of this year, Petr Yan suffered his third defeat in a row, losing by unanimous decision to Merab Dvalishvili after five rounds. Prior to that, the Russian lost by split decisions to Aljamain Sterling and Sean O’Malley.