The main event of UFC Fight Night 234, which would take place on December 9 in China, was rumored to be Petr Yan versus Song Yadong. This event was planned to take place in China. Recently, ‘Kung Fu Kid’ shared a text message from his management which stated that ‘No Mercy’ would no longer be participating in the fight.
Chris Presnell, who works for MMA Ecosystem, tweeted the following about the news:
There was a plan to have Song vs. Yan in that location (thus my use of the word “targeted”), but Petr Yan is no longer a part of that plan. “As far as the main event on December 9th goes, there was a plan to have Song vs. Yan in that spot. The quest for an opponent for Song Yadong’s performance continues.
A screenshot of a post made by Yadong on Douyin, a Chinese app similar to TikTok, was posted by Presnell. The post had texts from Yadong’s manager, who is also Yan’s manager. Presnell added:
“On Douyin, Song Yadong confirmed that Petr Yan was the plan for December 9th, and revealed a text from his manager claiming that Yan is injured.”
Below you can find a selection of tweets posted by Chris Presnell regarding the cancellation of the bout:
Chris Dresnell’s tweets are available here.
Tweets sent out by Chris Dresnell
It is currently unknown who the promotion will try to book Yadong against on the future card, or if they would continue to use him as the main event attraction. The fight will go down in China; however, the precise location of the match has not yet been decided upon officially.
Only three fights have been officially announced so far. Flyweight Sumudaerji, who is currently rated No. 12, will compete against unranked Allan Nascimento. Andre Muniz, rated 14th in the middleweight division, will compete against Park Jun-yong. Zhang Mingyang and Brendson Ribeiro, both unranked in the light heavyweight division, will also compete against one another.
Petr Yan has been on a downward spiral since losing the bantamweight title
Petr Yan had won his previous ten fights before into his encounter with Aljamain Sterling at UFC 259. He was hoping to become the first fighter to successfully defend his bantamweight title. It seemed as though ‘No Mercy’ was on his way to achieving that goal before he was disqualified for landing a knee to the head of an opponent who was already on the ground.
Despite the fact that he was successful in his next fight against Cory Sandhagen at UFC 267 and won the interim bantamweight title as a result, things have gone from bad to worse for Yan since then. In their rematch, which took place at UFC 273, he was defeated by Sterling by way of a split decision. Subsequently, he was defeated by Sean O’Malley via a contentious split decision at UFC 280.
Yan’s career in mixed martial arts came to an end at UFC Fight Night 221 when he was defeated by Merab Dvalishvili by unanimous decision. This was the first time that Yan had ever been defeated in a fight. He is currently ranked fifth in the bantamweight division, and there is no obvious route for him to regain the title given how crowded the title picture has grown.
